We woke up by the drumming of the raindrops on the hatches. It’s supposed to be July and high summer, but this seems more like autumn. We even had to fire up the heater this morning because of the cold. Plans to anchor somewhere today were quickly abandoned, the hatches closed, and we settled in the saloon with a steaming mug of coffee. As we said yesterday, the weather is very decisive for what you’re going to do. And today the weather has decided that it is a good day to work, and to stay where we are. Who are we to argue.
Today it has been exactly three months since we left Stellendam and started our journey. It seems like a lifetime ago while on the other hand the days have gone in a flash. We have experienced and learned so much in the last few months that now seems like a good time to evaluate.
The first thing we realized is that there is a huge difference between a vacation and perpetual cruising. You can’t hurry a journey like this. We were rushing in the beginning and tried to visit as many places in the shortest amount of time, which made us very unhappy. It was hard to shake off the attitude of a tourist who only has 2 weeks to see the whole of Europe. We’ve realized that we have all the time in the world, and now we’re moving slower. It not only feels much better, but we have time to see and experience things and time to work. Before we slowed down we hadn’t even time to reflect upon what we’ve seen and done, let alone write about it or make movies. Now we also have time to work on commission and earn some money. And that was the plan to start with, to earn money along the way to support our travels.
The freedom of living in a mobile home is fantastic. You can live in all the big urban cities for a while, and when you’re done with the hustle and bustle and are in need of some peace and quiet you head for a remote anchorage somewhere. If you don’t like it somewhere you leave, and if you do like it you stay as long as you like.
We have also come to realize that you need very little in life. When we left we thought we hadn’t brought enough stuff, now we know we have brought too much. We can’t buy much new stuff either, because for every new item we want to buy we need to throw something away, otherwise there’s simply no space. You also don’t need much money, especially if you avoid marinas and stay at anchor most of the time. But even the total fee for the marinas you pay as a visitor (which is way more than if you are a regular berth holder) is less than the rent we paid for our house.
To live self sufficiently as much as possible is very liberating as well. We generate enough energy with our solar panels to power all our electric tools and batteries. We grow micro greens like been sprouts and alfalfa on board so that we always have fresh veggies. We also make several alcoholic beverages, sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables, and make our own tofu and bread. It would be great if we can be even more self sufficient, so we keep adding to the list.
Every day is full of surprises. You might meet an amazing person, discover a beautiful spot or learn something new. Your world becomes bigger, and you learn a lot about your environment and most importantly about yourself. And that everything is always completely different, is at the same time the difficult part of perpetual cruising. Sometimes life throws curve balls at you, and you just have to deal with it. These can be technical issues like when your engine won’t start and you are drifting towards a shallow spot, or when the heater won’t work and you’re cold. But sometimes it’s just plain overwhelming that everything is different and nothing is familiar. We people are creatures of habit after all.
The journey is more important than the destination. Yes it’s a cliche, but there lies a whole world between just quoting the proverb or truly realizing what it means. And we’re just starting to grasp what it actually means. We still haven’t left the Netherlands, whereas when we started we thought we would be in Sweden by now. Although we keep saying to ourselves that ‘it’s all about the journey’ sometimes it feels a bit like we haven’t reached our goals. But it makes us happier to travel slower now we’ve realized no one is pushing us. There are new experiences every day, even if you stay in the same spot for two weeks. Besides, the Netherlands is beautiful as well. There is so much to see here, why would we rush past it all to get to St.Petersburg without having seen Enkhuizen or Edam, or without having anchored at the Braassemermeer or the IJsseloog?
One thing we’re still struggling with, is the weather. The weather is very decisive in how you spend your day if you are a perpetual cruiser on a sailboat. No wind? You’re stuck. Too much wind? You’re stuck. Rain? The solar panels won’t work and you don’t have power. Too much sun? You can’t do very much because you can’t escape the heat. We’ve learned that fighting the weather and stubbornly do what you’ve planned is a recipe for disaster.
But whatever happens, and whether we can continue this lifestyle or not, we’ve done it. In stead of talking and dreaming about it we have untied the lines and are now living our dream. And although it’s not all fun and games, we’d rather regret the mistakes we’ve made than regret the missed opportunity.
When we were planning the next passage yesterday, we discovered a part of the Zuiderzee museum on the map where we haven’t seen yet and we’re curious to what we would find there. Since we have a museum card we can go in without paying again, so we went to the museum in search for the undiscovered site. It was a Bronze Age farm with surroundings, a very tranquil place. It’s set apart quite far from the rest of the museum, and not many people take the effort to walk all the way up here. We sat there for a moment imagining ourselves living in such a house secluded by the tall trees. Maybe one day, when we’re done travelling.
Our future house
When we went to the indoor part of the museum it slowly started to rain. Great timing. Through the windows of the museum we could see our own boat. There was another special ship to be seen in the museum. The Hawke (or Sperwer in Dutch) is a flatboat which was according to the story the property of Merlin Minshal, who sailed it through Europe to the Black Sea. Minshall revealed himself to be a secret agent with the code name 007 in “Guilt-Edged”, a book he wrote about his adventures. Ian Fleming used to be his superior during the Second World War, and Minshall is indeed one of the real life characters that have inspired Ian Fleming to create the character James Bond. Who knows, maybe our adventures might be a source of inspiration to someone else one day.
We spent the whole day returning the car to Zoetermeer and getting back to Enkhuizen again by public transport. In Enkhuizen we were welcomed by all kinds of musical interventions throughout the inner city. There we choirs singing in boats, people with guitars singing on the embankments and fanfares in the streets. For such a small town, there’s always something happening here.
We were glad to finally close this dentist chapter and started planning next passage.
Today we finally went back to our boat again. It was great to be back. The stay in Zoetermeer felt like a weird intermezzo, like a parallel universe in which we weren’t travelling.
We decided to return the car tomorrow, and use the rest of the day to stow away all the groceries we bought, which is always a bit of a puzzle. It’s remarkable that it doesn’t seem to matter how much stuff you haul into the boat, it always fits. It truly is a magical boat.
Captain Fluffy is trying to find a substitute for a crow’s nest
In retrospect we could have just taken the train to The Hague for the dentist appointment, but on the upside it gives us the opportunity to get some groceries with the car. Especially for heavy stuff like kitty litter, diesel and beverages a car is quite convenient, so we made good use of our little four fendered friend.
It’s fun and weird at the same time to be driving again after 3 months on a boat. Everything goes so fast, which in the beginning was a bit uncomfortable. We got used to the speed again soon enough, but it’s funny to notice that the modes of transportation are a completely different experience. Would your mindset change over time by the mode of transportation you use? Are we different people now our speed is determined by the boat? Maybe we are. Maybe we are more relaxed and less part of the rat race than we were before we left. Sometimes things are just what they are, and it’s better to go with the flow than fight against the current.
It was time for the dreaded dentist appointment. We drove to The Hague for Jeroen’s root canal treatment, which according to the dentist would take about 2 hours.
After exactly 2 hours Jeroen emerged from the dentist’s practice. It turned out not to be as bad as all the horror stories you hear about these treatments, which of course was a great relief. Don’t believe everything you hear…
Jeroen thinks its funny we’ve just missed the transfer…
Time for another public transport expedition. Public transport doesn’t really agree with us, and this time was no exception. We boarded the train and made ourselves comfortable for the 2 hour train ride. Just when we had ourselves installed, a voice over the intercom announced that the train didn’t run because ‘it was broken’. We had to get off and wait for the next train which was due in 30 minutes. After 2 hours we had to transfer to another train, but we missed our transfer because Jeroen was still in the loo. Fortunately the next stop was Amsterdam Central station with enough trains running to The Hague.
The weird thing about this public transport trip is that it’s like we’re retracing our steps. We passed Edam in the distance, transferred in Amsterdam, we saw the canals and aqueducts we went through when travelling the Staande Mast Route and passed through Leiden. After 3 months travelling by boat we’ve gotten as far as Enkhuizen, and it took us just 3 hours to get from Enkhuizen to Zoetermeer by train.
But we were not done travelling today. Jeroen has to undergo a root canal treatment tomorrow, and we don’t know how he will feel afterwards. We have heard quite a few horror stories about these treatments, so we were not sure if he would feel up to the 3 hour train journey. Therefore we decided to spend the coming 2 nights at Carmen’s parents place, which is close to The Hague. But we can’t leave Captain Fluffy alone for two days, and we couldn’t take him with us on the train. He can’t travel in a cage, so we always have him on a leash like a dog when we travel. But he tends to panic from all the noises and movements at busy train stations. That meant we had to drive back to Enkhuizen to collect our furry companion by car, and then drive back to Zoetermeer again.
In the evening we finally were back in Zoetermeer, Captain Fluffy and all, so totally exhausted we flopped in the garden seats to cool down. And Captain Fluffy? Totally oblivious for al the troubles we’ve been through to get him here, he’s is enjoying the grass in the garden.
Anchorage Kooizand Enkhuizen to Oosterhaven Enkhuizen: 1,6 nautical miles
We were woken early by being jolted hither and thither by the waves. The wind direction had changed, but the waves were still coming from the same angle from which the wind blew before. And it was blowing much harder than forecasted. Oh well…the unpredictability of the weather. We tied everything up that was flapping about and were just in time to see a beautiful sunrise.
One of the first sunrises we’ve seen from our boat
Since it was quite early we tried to catch some more sleep. When we woke again it was blowing even harder and from another direction than predicted. We chose the spot because the wind was supposed to turn from easterly to south-westerly during the night. But now it was more northerly, causing us to be exposed to the waves and the wind. On top of that we were also dragging a bit, probably because the wind had turned 180 degrees, or that the chain we had let out wasn’t long enough for the increased wind and waves. But first things first: we were not going to leave without breakfast and some coffee first like we did at the Braassemermeer. The coffee was made with the very last drops of water. We had just managed to stretch our water supply to nine days.
From the anchorage it was just a short distance to the Oosterhaven. When we hailed the harbour master about an available slip, he said that I didn’t need my glasses this time because it was a familiar spot. Still the running gag…
After filling up the water tank, connecting shore power and all the other usual mooring stuff we went to the ticket machine to pay the fee. We treated ourselves to a nice lunch with soles and fries, bought some bread on the way back and spend a relaxed afternoon on the boat.
Anchorage IJsseloog to anchorage Kooizand Enkhuizen: 20 nautical miles
We’re leaving today, destination Enkhuizen. This is such a wonderful spot, if it wasn’t for the dentist appointment we have in two days, we would probably stay indefinitely. There are worse days to leave, though. The sun was shining abundantly, the temperatures were tropical and we had nice light winds for a downwind sail. We quickly forgot our sadness, because when we had hoisted the sails and shut down the engine it was great to be sailing again.
Time also to try something new. When we bought the boat it came with a steering pilot. We’d never used it before, because there wasn’t really a need for it plus we wanted learn how to sail and get a feel for the subtleties of the wheel before delegating it to an automaton. And since it was almost a straight line from our anchorage to Enkhuizen, it was the ideal passage to try it out. You enter a course with degrees, and then the pilot steers the wheel and holds the course. It took some getting used to. The rudder responds slower to the pilot than to hand steering which led to overcompensating and nervous pressing of buttons. But after a while we got the hang of it and were able to relax and let the pilot steer for us. Although an oldie, it still worked perfectly.
We had to cross the Ketelbrug again, so we started the engine and lowered our sails. The lazy jack we made works great as well. The sail just drops into a heap in between the lines, without it flapping all over the place. And after we had passed the bridge we could easily hoist it again. Another success!
After the bridge the only thing we had to do was sit back and find something to do for the next 6 coming hours. We found the perfect way to entertain ourselves on a boat with tropical temperatures: jumping off the boat. Without the need for constant hand steering we could take turns in taking a dive to cope with the heat. Although it looks like the boat is practically standing still, it still has a speed of 2,8 knots. It doesn’t sound like much, but if you are in the water the boat moves incredibly fast. We jumped in from the bow holding a line, and the moment you surface again the boat has already past. That’s how fast the boat moves. You feel a jerk of the line and then you’re towed behind the boat. Way to slow to do any waterskiing or wake boarding, but the force you feel is already tremendous.
We also discovered that the best place to sit was on the bow in the shade of the genoa. From there we also had a better view on what happened before us. When we spotted someone who had right of way or big freight ships, we could walk back to the pilot easily and adjust the course, after which we could continue lounging on deck.
On the lookout for oncoming traffic from a shady spot on the bow
However there were not only success stories today. There was one technical issue, not with the pilot, but with the wind meter. It just suddenly stopped working. A few quick interventions we could think of didn’t work. A detailed investigation has to wait until we’re in a marina. Hopefully we don’t have to go up in the mast again…
After 5 hours of sailing the wind started to die down slowly. We saw our speed dropping from 2,8 knots to 1,8 knots and finally to less than a knot. Since we were already quite close to Enkhuizen, we turned on the engine and motored the last 15 minutes. It was already after eight, too late to moor in the Oosterhaven because the bridge is only operated till 5 o’clock. That’s a pity. We had hoped to moor in a marina this evening because our water tank was almost empty. Hopefully our water supply will last till tomorrow morning. We decided to drop the anchor at Kooizand, the recreational beach of Enkhuizen. There were already quite a few boats there, but we found a spot amongst them, anchored successfully and shut down the engine. Another first, we never have sailed from anchorage to anchorage before.
We took an evening dive to refresh ourselves a bit and contemplated the day in the cockpit whilst the sun was going down. It was an amazing day, glorious weather and the most relaxed and magical passage we ever had.
