The pointless exercise of shepherding small Coots.
April 28th 2019
Welcome in the cuddly town of Alblasserdam!
All the chicks were alive and well the next morning, but today they were in the habit of falling or jumping in the water themselves. We scooped them out several times each, but they kept jumping or falling in so at one point we just gave up what seamed to become a pointless exercise. Maybe they’ve had a taste of adventure yesterday and are now impatient to explore the world.
Apart from the stress the Coot chicks were giving us, it was a slow day today. Lots of time for work and preparing the next stage of the trip. The weather is supposed to clear up tomorrow, so we’re leaving for Gouda.
The captains contemplating the planning for the day.
Today is Kings’ Day. Even though the marina is right in the town’s centre last night was quite peaceful. Of course there were some urban noises, though in all likelihood a lot less then there would have been in Dordrecht, because Alblasserdam is quite a lot smaller.
We went out to join the festivities in between rain showers. It wasn’t really bustling with activities but that was probably due to the weather. The people that had braved the weather in their orange clothes (orange is the national color) tried to make the most of it.
Orange people
A cover band was bravely singing ‘I will survive’, kids were being entertained by a guy in an orange suit and here and there were people selling bric-a-brac, old books and redundant paraphernalia. Rummage sales and flea markets are traditional on Kings’ Day, some people save up old stuff the whole year for this occasion. We didn’t stay for long. It was rather cold and the rain came again so we went back to the boat.
We were just savoring the aftertaste of a delicious tomato soup Jeroen made, when a small tragedy was unfolding outside. The owner of our neighboring motorboat hadn’t been here for a while and a Coot had made a nest on his swim platform on the back. But today he was back, and with gusto started his engine. We knew that the nest was there so we ran outside, and shouted that he had to kill the engine. The exhaust for the engine was 50 centimeters away from the nest and placed above the swim platform, so the hot water was gushing unto the plank where the nest sat. The Coot and her three little chicks were panicking, one chick stumbled out the nest and under the exhaust, another one fell into the water.
The coot still unaware of what is about to happen
The owner who hadn’t seen the nest had by now shut down the engine and looked out from the back to see what all the fuss was about. One chick scrambled back to the nest once the engine was silent, but the one that was drenched in exhaust water was apparently in bad shape, for he was dragging himself forward to the nest, one leg dangling helplessly behind him. The Coot was trying to drag him carefully towards her, rubbing her beak affectionately agains his. The third one was still bobbing up and down in the water, because the swimming platform has too high for him to get on.
By now the harbor master who was alarmed by the commotion, was shouting from the opposite side of the water to the guys on the motorboat that they can’t leave now because of the nest and that he would see to it that they wouldn’t because he was a fierce animal lover. The owner said sulkingly that of course he wasn’t planning to leave now he knew that there was a nest, he just hadn’t seen it.
In the Netherlands breeding water birds are protected, you can’t disturb a breeding bird or remove the nest. Every year you can see the same story unfold. Most boat owners don’t come in wintertime, so obviously the birds think that the boat isn’t going anywhere and makes a perfect spot to build a nest. When the boat owner returns in spring, he discovers there is a nest on his boat. Some owners try to block their swim platforms with nets to prevent birds from nesting there. It doesn’t always work though.
In the meantime the little chick was still in the water. We grabbed a fishing net and tried to scoop the chick out but he was slightly too far away. We passed the net to the guys on the motorboat and they managed to scoop the little chick out and put it gently on the swim platform. It quickly scuttled back to the big Coot who gave an appreciative hoot, and peace returned to the marina.
Hopefully the little chick with the lame leg is going to be alright.
Grumpy area coordinators on our way to Alblasserdam
April 26th 2019
Rhoon to Alblasserdam: 14,7 nautical miles
The sun was out again, time to leave.
But first we had to figure out what the deal was again with currents and tides and such, because the next part of our journey takes us over the ‘Oude Maas’, a tidal river busy with shipping traffic. We have a tidal map, with little arrows that indicate the direction of the current in a specific tidal phase (f.i. 4 hours after high tide) in relation to a place on the map like Den Helder for instance. Okay, we still get that, sort of. But here comes the difficult part. How to determine the direction of the current at high tide at other places that aren’t mapped? No one from the hive mind was able to explain it in simple terms, so we just tried our luck and left at 11 in the morning.
Fortune was smiling at us because the Oude Maas wasn’t too busy, and we had the tide with us. The river took us through beautiful landscapes and nature reserves. The twittering of birds was sometimes louder than the sound of our engine. And then suddenly nature gave way for heavy industry and the traffic was accumulating, a sign that we were approaching the crossing Oude Maas/ Dortse Kil, one of the busiest inland crossings in Europe.
The busy inland waterways are divided into areas controlled by an area coordinator and designated VHF channels. Normally in the Netherlands if you are a pleasure craft smaller than 20 meters, you don’t have to notify the area coordinator that you are entering their area. But since this area is so busy with big container ships and sea going traffic, the coordinators tend to get really pissed off if you start crossing channels without letting them know. And since we already heard the area coordinator and some of the large vessels complain about ‘those small yachts that just do whatever’ we compliantly announced our intentions to go left in the direction of Dordrecht. He didn’t sound too happy with our notification. Maybe he was already getting worked up about ‘yet another unpredictable small yacht that isn’t going to notify us, you’ll see’, and then we did. What to do now with all that pent up aggression? Grumpily we were warned for a huge seagoing container ship behind us, that wanted to go right to the Dortse Kil. Pleasure crafts have to keep to starboard as much as possible, and the container ship was way faster than us so we had to hold in and let him go first. After that the grumpy sector coordinator told us we had permission to cross, but quickly (grumble grumble…).
Right after the crossing we had to pass two bridges at Dordrecht. They are railroad bridges with exact opening times and have a narrow time window before they close again due to the international trains that run over them. We were lucky again and arrived just under 10 minutes before it opened, which was very convenient because with all the traffic on the water in felt like being in a washing machine.
Once we crossed the bridge we passed the old town of Dordrecht. Initially we had planned to spend the night here, but we decided to sail on. Partly because it was still quite early so we could cover more miles, but mainly because tomorrow is Kings’ day, a national holiday to celebrate the Kings’ birthday. Dordrecht is quite a big city for Dutch standards and the marina we were initially heading for is right in the center of the city amidst all the bars and cafes, so it could become rather noisy and unpleasant.
So we sailed on and approached another bridge we had to cross at Alblasserdam. We tried to hail the bridge and ask for an opening via VHF, but no response. There was nothing to be found on the internet about opening times or a phone number, so we had no idea how long we had to wait. After 10 minutes of continuous attempts to hail them they finally responded. Most of these bridges are remotely controlled, so they were probably not on watch yet. We had to wait for another 20 minutes before we could pass, and without a mooring spot to wait we had to motor in circles to pass the time.
Directly after bridge lies the entrance to the marina of Alblasserdam. Since it was now half past three in the afternoon, we decided to stop here and wait for the bad weather front with heavy rainfall to pass. It was forecasted to start at the end of the afternoon and pass over in two days. While we waited for the bridge to open we tried to call the marina, but maybe it’s a thing in this town, because they didn’t respond as well. We tried our luck again and went in anyway.
We needed to pass another bridge to get to the town centre where the marina of W.S.V d’Alblasserwaerdt lies. In order to pass we needed to hail the bridge master who came racing to the bridge on her bike to open it just for us. It was a very small club run marina with only one or two empty slips, but two berth holders kindly helped us to navigate towards one of them and to dock the boat.
The harbour master arrived later and gave us the key to the gate and the sanitary building. We’ve noticed that a lot of small marinas which are run by clubs and volunteers don’t have a dedicated harbour master, just someone who does it next to his or her normal daytime job. That explains the tardiness in response.
W.S.V. d’Alblasserwaerdt
We ventured into town to get some groceries and relaxed a bit afterwards with nibblies in the cockpit before the rain came.
