Zuiderzee museum – The Gray Route

Pirates

Sneaking ashore for food, water and a shower

July 19th 2019

Our little boat in the bay at the Zuiderzee Museum

No rain, but no wind either today. We wanted to go to Makkum next, but the passage to Makkum is 24 miles which would take more than 12 hours with just 3 knots of wind. The passage will have to wait.

But that’s quite okay, because there’s something we still wanted to do. We are anchored in a sort of little bay that is enclosed by the Zuiderzee museum. From our anchorage we can see many docking piers extending from the museum. So we were thinking, what if we would row to one of those piers, got off the boat, buy one of those delicious smoked mackerels and row back? We can smell the smoked fish from here, which is extremely tantalizing.

Although we also considered this expedition last time we were anchored here, the appraching storm prevented us from realising our plan. But now is the time. We’re hungry and we’re going to get some fish. Without a minute to lose we jumped in our inflatable dinghy and rowed to the shore.

Carmen debarked to get the fish at the museum, while Jeroen paddled back to one of the docking piers. Triumphantly with a bag of smoked mackerel we returned to our boat. A successful expedition!

In the evening went to shore again to sneak a shower. We do not have a proper shower aboard. With a water tank that can only hold 100 litres showering is not a good idea anyway. With our small tank we would need to refill the tank after every shower, which is especially inconvenient when you’re at anchor. So we stealthily rowed to the marina and had a nice warm shower. We feel like real pirates now.

Exchanging stories

Pastries, fries and smoked mackerel

July 14th 2019

Greetings from the Zuiderzee museum in Enkhuizen

Today friends of ours drove all the way from The Hague to visit us. It was wonderful to see them again. It had stopped raining for a change, so we sat down in the cockpit, enjoying the delicious pastries they brought with them and exchanged stories.

Together we went to the Zuiderzee museum. By now it is the third time we’ve visited the museum in 1 month time. As if we can’t get enough of it. Besides, they have very tasty French fries there, which was actually the reason for visiting the museum this time.

One of the cool things about the Zuiderzee museum is that they smoke fish at the premisses to demonstrate the craft of preserving fish, and you can buy that fish later on. They have smoked salmon, haddock and mackerel, and it is really good, fresh from the smoker, even better than the fish from the fishmonger. We couldn’t resist and bought a smoked mackerel to eat for dinner later on.

After a great day together we waved our friends goodbye who went home late that afternoon. We returned to our boat and enjoyed our smoked mackerel while listening to travel stories.

007

The source of inspiration for James Bond

July 6th 2019

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.

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.

Disappearing knowledge

Visiting the Zuiderzee museum

May 28th 2019

Thanks to a disgruntled Captain Fluffy, who was angrily jumping off and on the bed to growl at birds hopping on the deck we woke up early. We decided to make use of the early start and go to the Zuiderzee museum, an open air museum here in Enkhuizen dedicated to the history of arts and crafts of the former Zuiderzee. We were so early that the museum was just opening and we were the first ones to enter.

What is now known as the IJsselmeer used to be called the Zuiderzee. It was a big inner sea with an open connection with the Wadden and the North sea. Many cities and towns around the former Zuiderzee relied on fishing and trades connected to the fishing industry like basket weaving, coopery and smoke houses before it got closed of by the ‘Afsluitdijk’, one of the Deltaworks. After the Afsluitdijk was closed, a lot of these trades disappeared.

The many volunteers and professionals that work here are involved in living archaeology. By recreating historical artefacts they try to figure out how they used to be made, because a lot of knowledge has been lost even though it has only been less than a hundred years ago that people were living like this. Sometimes they try to recreate artefacts from historical paintings, which can be difficult because a painter allows himself artistic freedom in altering reality to better the painting. Some artefacts turn out to be Esther like objects, that can’t exist in reality. A friend of ours who recreates historical costumes for movies also had to recreate dresses that were impossible to make or wear because the painter had left out the creases and folds, probably because it looks better. Apart from the paintings, artifacts that have survived the test of time or slivers of knowledge that have been passed on somehow, there actually isn’t much to go on. The cooper that works here at the museum is one of the last professional coopers in The Netherlands and the sailmakers are still trying to figure out how the traditional water repellent fishing clothes were made and prepared. It is actually a bit unsettling to realize how fast knowledge disappears.

We love these open air historical musea, and spend the whole day chatting with the craftsmen and exploring the buildings, and we even had a crash course on how to knit fishing nets. The day was over before we knew it. We might have been the first to arrive, but we were the last to leave.