It promised to be another tropical day again but with strong winds, so we might find some relief from the heat. We went for a stroll through the village, ate an ice cream and did some groceries. For the rest we tried to do as little as possible, in which we succeeded quite well.
Captain Fluffy comes to live again when it starts to cool down in the evening, and as usual he set off for his evening stroll. There was a patch of grass next to the marina which of course had to be explored and eaten. There were boats to jump on and people to meet. Most people that pass by don’t even notice that Captain Fluffy is a cat. You see them glance, walk on, double take, and then exclaim: “Oh it is a cat! I thought it was a dog!” Although Captain Fluffy likes most dogs, it is doubtful that he would appreciate being mistakenly perceived as one…
The wind hadn’t died down, but at least the sun was back. We quickly adjusted the position of our solar panels and within no-time the batteries were full again. Within a few hours we had collected more power than in the last 3 days. All the computers, tablets and phones were powered again, so although the sun was shining we spent most of the day inside to catch up with work.
Anchorage IJsseloog to Ketelhaven Dronten: 1,8 nautical miles
We were running low on water and it was high time for laundry again, so we are going to leave the anchorage and head towards a marina. There are three marinas on either side of the island, and we chose Jachthaven Ketelmeer, a club run marina on the south side of the Ketelmeer.
The rain that was supposed to fall yesterday was now falling with a vengeance. Stupidly we forgot to close the forward hatch when the rain started, so our duvet and sheets were drenched. It’s a good thing we’re heading for a marina with a dryer…
Without too much difficulty we found a slip and moored with relative ease. It’s a bit weird to be in a marina again after 5 days at anchor. The boat moves differently when moored in a marina. When you’re anchored you always have headwind so the movements of the boat are predominately in the same direction, the motion is only magnified as the wind speed increases. But if you’re in a marina the position of the boat is fixed, making the wind the variable. The weirdest thing however is this subtle hint of land sickness when you get off the boat. It’s similar to sea sickness caused by the abrupt absence of motion. It’s a weird feeling, just as if the land is moving.
Captain Fluffy didn’t show any signs of land sickness. Clearly happy to be in a marina again, he jumped off the boat for a late afternoon walk and was immediately spotted by the harbour master’s wife. Captain Fluffy, always keen for attention, let himself be admired and posed gracefully for the camera as if he was working the catwalk.
Captain Fluffy on the catwalk, as captured by the harbour masters’ wife and posted on FB
Quite strong winds today, the perfect time to plan our next passage. The past week we have tried to find suitable anchorages at the IJsselmeer. But there are not many places for us to anchor comfortably with our draft. We’ve only found about five or six spots, so maybe this is the universe telling us that after six passages it is high time to head towards the islands. The plan is to leave – and really leave, otherwise we might as well rent a permanent mooring here – on Sunday or Monday, depending on the wind.
Captain Fluffy isn’t looking forward to leave. He loves his evening walks through the city. So he went for a long walk this evening to make the most of the time ashore…
A still ominous looking sky after the worst of the storm had passed
We were woken early by the racket the wind made. Captain Fluffy was a bit alarmed by all the noises and the howling wind. He was restlessly pacing back and forth, eyeing the roof hatches anxiously. Apparently there was a loud clanking sound that he couldn’t appreciate. When we checked to see what was causing the clanking sounds, it turned out that the radar reflector had come undone. One end was dangling free, bashing against the mast. Nothing to be done about that now. We have to wait until the wind subsides before we can fasten it again. Because in order to repair it, one of us has to climb the into mast. And that is not something you want to do when a storm is raging over. Hopefully the reflector doesn’t blow off completely before the end of the storm, or maybe we should hope that it blows off because we would be relieved from the noise and the dreadful job of climbing the mast…
Tomorrow and Monday is Pentecost, national holidays. That means stores will be closed, so if we want to get fresh veggies and bread we have to do groceries today. Around three o’clock in the afternoon the worst of the storm had passed, so we ventured outside to do our shopping.
On our way to the supermarket we saw snapped of branches everywhere. And we were not the only boat in the marina that had suffered damage; one had a torn genoa, and another a torn spray hood. In the commercial marina a whole tree thick as three grown men had snapped in two. According to our wind speed meter we had gusts up to 42 knots, that’s 9 Beaufort. All in all we’re really glad not to be anchored somewhere…
The weather forecast predicted 3 to 4 Beaufort for today and blowing straight towards Enkhuizen, so we decided to leave. We left the marina and hoisted our genoa first to see what the wind would do. It started out fine, we had a steady breeze and made good speed. But then the wind started to increase rapidly and soon it was blowing a steady 4 to 5 Beaufort. Our genoa is really big, and since it is probably one of the original sails it would be 40 years old, just as old as our boat is. After all these years it has completely lost its shape. It would only blow up like a balloon, trapping the air flow and tilting the boat over forwards which was not really pleasant. And since we’re not very experienced yet, we don’t know how to handle the ever increasing wind with the shapeless sail. We tried furling in the genoa a bit to minimize the amount sail, but that didn’t really change much. After the wind had increased even more with gusts up to 36 knots we had enough and decided to furl in the genoa and continue by engine. So much for 3 to 4 Beaufort.
Jeroen looking anxiously at the waves behind us
We were in for a bumpy ride. We were already halfway the Markermeer and the waves had time to build up on the open water, resulting in short but relatively big waves. The waves were sometimes even crashing into the cockpit from behind.
After being tossed hither and thither for almost 4 hours we finally reached the lock where we could exit the Markermeer and enter the IJsselmeer, also marking our destination. The marina of Enkhuizen lies right behind the lock.
No shortage on marinas here in Enkhuizen. There is a big municipality marina spread over three locations in the inner city. There is a also club marina near the train station and a huge commercial marina. Enkhuizen must be a popular spot since all the marinas were already quite full, and it isn’t even mid season yet. We chose to moor in the Oosterhaven, one of the three the municipality marinas.
After we had left the locks we hailed the harbour master who directed us to slip nr.66 in the Oosterhaven. Upon arrival it looked quite narrow, but since the harbour master had directed us to that slip knowing our width, we must assume that it will fit. But it didn’t. We entered slip but got stuck one third in. It was way too narrow. With some effort we prised ourselves loose, moored temporarily on the opposite side of the canal and hailed him again over VHF to say it didn’t fit. “Impossible!” he said “The slip should be almost 4 meters wide!”. We assured him that it really wasn’t, since we were 3,20 meters wide. He couldn’t appoint another slip immediately, since he was on his bike opening bridges and all, and had forgotten to bring the list. So if we could stay afloat for a while he would race to the harbour office and check for available spaces and hail us again. In the meantime we had seen that slip 55 was empty, looked broad enough and had a finger dock thus we suggested to dock there. The harbour master agreed, so we started the engine again and docked in slip 55. Or so we thought. When we were fastening the mooring lines we saw that it wasn’t 55 but 51. Wrong slip! We didn’t feel like relocating after the rough trip, so we hailed the harbour master again and told them that we had docked in the wrong slip. “My bad” I said, “ I wasn’t wearing my glasses”. Fortunately it wasn’t a problem to stay here. We were relieved to be done with it all.
We went to the harbour office to pay. In Enkhuizen paying for a slip is fully automated. Another first today, paying at a ticket machine. The machine printed a sticker we had to attach to the boat. We also had to buy a card from the machine to pay for electricity, water and showers.
After the usual post-mooring stuff like connecting shore power, cleaning up sail gear and reverse the saloon into living mode again we settled down in the cockpit to recover from the bumpy ride. The weather was cooperative for once. The wind had died down and there was even a ray of sunshine peeping through the clouds. Captain Fluffy didn’t need to recover from the passage. Although he had spent the whole trip in the V-berth, he almost immediately jumped on the finger dock and went off exploring. It looks like he already feels at home here.
Captain Fluffy finally tired of running and enjoying a bit of shade
A beautiful sunny day. We would have loved to lounge in the cockpit the whole day, but we needed to get some groceries. So we hoisted our backpacks and set of for the supermarket.
Captain Fluffy wasn’t as lazy as we were today. When we got back from our shopping errand he sprinted outside and was running around in the grass like a maniac. Normally he stays within a 10 meter radius, but today he was so adventurous that we had to put him on a leash. Not at all bothered by the leash he dashed away, hopping from one sprig of grass to another like an overgrown and hairy butterfly. After an hour of jumping through the grass Captain Fluffy was finally getting tired, and trotted back to the boat. Satisfied he curled up in the cockpit and we all enjoyed the afternoon sun together.
The still operational shipyard in the middle of the old town
Captain Fluffy was in an adventurous mood today. Normally he doesn’t leave the boat if there isn’t a finger dock, but now he had discovered that another boat functions perfectly well as finger dock. Within the blink of an eye he was up and over the neighbouring boat and frolicking about in the grass.
After Captain Fluffy had his fun we did a bit of exploring ourselves and set out to the historic centre of Edam. Edam is a beautiful little city. If it wasn’t for the cars parked here and there it could have been an open air museum. Funny, we’ve been to several historical towns and cities so far, but somehow this one looked more real. Most buildings date from the 17th century and there’s even an old shipyard that is still in use in the middle of the town. We like it here. It’s a friendly town, people are smiling and relaxed. And even though there are quite a few tourists about it doesn’t feel like a touristic place. We enjoyed the scenery and the people passing by whilst enjoying an ice cream in the sunshine. Life is good.
It was promising to become a really warm day. Funny that just four days ago we sailed with thermo underwear to this marina, and now we’re walking around in swim wear.
The beautiful summer weather was ideal to finish the solar panel project. The new connector had arrived, so we could finally connect the last cables and install the panels and monitor permanently.
It was way too hot to do more chores, so while Captain Fluffy was making new friends with Pepper, the harbour master’s dog, we enjoyed home made beer in the sunshine.
After a relaxed breakfast and a refreshing shower we paid our bills, said goodbye and untied the lines. Today we will leave for Willemstad, a small historical town with well preserved fortifications. The fortifications were once built to keep out the Spanish army by Willem of Orange. The fortified city is star shaped, and the seven ‘arms’ of the star are named after the seven provinces that had united against the Spanish in the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, the foundation of the Netherlands we know today.
What a change in weather, last week when we sailed here it was 20 degrees Celsius and we’re wearing shorts, and today it was barely 8 degrees Celsius, heavenly overcast with chances of wintery showers and we were wearing full sail gear, Russian Ushanka hat and thermo underwear. What a difference a week makes. But when we left the marina the sun peeped through the clouds and the world looked a lot better.
Ready for St. Petersburg with an Ushanka hat
Short trip today, only 3,7 nautical miles to Willemstad. And with the light winds we choose not to hoist the sails. Maybe subconsciously considering our recent experience with light winds and failing engines from a week ago? But we had no engine problems, on the contrary. After her service she purred like a kitten.
The real kitten however wasn’t purring happily. Captain fluffy was just about to jump on the stairs to come into the cockpit when a large towing vessel sped by. These vessels have an enormous wake due to their draft. And just at the moment Captain Fluffy wanted to jump, the wake reached our boat, throwing him off the staircase. We heard a pitiful yelp after which a seriously disgruntled Captain Fluffy turned on his heels, jumped into the v-berth instead and didn’t came out again.
We called marina Willemstad on our way their to ask them if they had a slip for us. They had, and gave us the directions to find the particular slip. When we entered the marina we found out that they didn’t have finger docks. We’ve never docked before without a finger dock. Oh well, there’s a first for everything. It was quite a large slip for our size boat, so although it didn’t go too shabby, we found out that we might have to invest in slightly longer mooring lines. Chances are this won’t be the last time that we have to dock like this. Our mooring lines were just, and really only just long enough.
Our little boat in a huge slip
Willemstad has got two marinas, a commercial one and one run by the municipality. We choose the municipality marina. Often municipality marinas and marinas run by sail clubs are less luxurious, but they are more sociable and quite a lot cheaper. This one was pretty decent for a municipality marina. It had a dock specially for mooring a few hours so you can have a bite to eat or shop in the old city. The sanitary building ran on solar energy and was spacious, clean and warm, something we tend to value.
After visiting the really helpful harbourmaster who loves a joke or two, we went for a walk in the small town. We got our first view of the really picturesque city from atop the fortifications.
First we had to find a grocery store. Marina Noordschans was quite a long way from the nearest supermarket. And since we have enough supplies to survive a Siberian winter, we rather used that than going for a 50 minutes walk to the store. But it’s nice to have some fresh bread and veggies again.
We were quite hungry after the trip from Noordschans and walking around in a supermarket full of food doesn’t really lessen your appetite. So after stocking up and depositing our groceries at our boat we went out to have dinner somewhere in the town. We found a restaurant called ‘De Rosmolen’, which turned out to be a real find. The courses were truly exquisite, and the service swift an welcoming. No we’re not getting paid to say this. It was genuinely good, and it actually has been a long time since we had something so delicious to eat whilst going out for dinner.
After our culinary experience we happily settled for a nice and quiet evening on our boat. Captain Fluffy finally left the safety of the v-berth to join us in the salon and is now fast asleep. Tomorrow we’re going to explore the town.
