Thursday 9th – Saturday 11th May – Through the Canals to Amsterdam

We motored for the next couple of days through the canals, past countryside which was often a couple of metres below the level of the canal …

… past industrial sites and pretty residential areas …

Sometimes the industrial and residential bits were almost cheek by jowl and sometimes we felt we were almost in people’s back gardens!

Past bulb fields …

… the city of Haarlem …

… and windmills – old and new style – it was ‘Windmill Day’ in Holland, so they were all actually turning …

… and past the back of Amsterdam’s central station and into Sixhaven Marina.  It’s incredibly convenient for the city centre – a few minutes on a free ferry which runs every 6 minutes throughout the day and night.

Wednesday 8th May – To Gouda

We left Willemstad in sunshine and sailed with the bimini up …

… overtaken by large container barges …



… under road and railway bridges, which had to open for us …

… past the city of Dordrecht …

… through more opening bridges …

…and a flood barrier …

… and tied up under a tree in the centre of Gouda.

Gouda is an attractive little town with many pretty canals …

 … and an impressive Town Hall in the busy central square, which had a ceramics market and competition going on.

No cheese market today, though, so we just had to buy some gouda in a cheese emporium!

Tuesday 7th May – Volkeraksluizen and Willemstad

Early in the morning, we arranged with the lock keeper to go through the enormous commercial lock and lifting bridge, as our mast is too high for the fixed bridge over the yacht lock.  This involved him stopping all the rush hour motorway traffic, and opening the massive lock and bridge just for us!

It was then a short trip to Willemstad.

We spent the rest of the day in Willemstad, a really charming small town.  We were able to tie up alongside the quay in the centre of the town – very convenient for everything.  It was briefly warm enough to get the bimini up …

… and put our shorts on, but I’ll spare you the pix of that until we’ve got a bit of a tan!

Willemstad was fortified in Napoleonic times – it is protected by a large moat and dyke laid out in a star shape, with bastions at each point of the star.  It took about 45 minutes to walk all the way round. The weather is really Spring-like now, warm and sunny with everything looking lovely and green.

We had a pleasant evening stroll around the port and took this picture of Astraia alongside the town quay.

Monday 6th May – Versemeer to Volkeraksluizen

Another lovely sunny day, not much wind, and we had a beautiful gentle sail through the Versemeer ...

We stopped for an hour or so at a ‘Boatsschoppen Steiger’ – a sort of short-term car park for boats – a jetty to lie alongside while visiting the nearby supermarket.

Then we crossed the Oosterschelde and went through two big ship locks with several large barges as our mast is too high for the normal yacht lock.  We seemed very small compared to them though!  There are lots of big barges on this part of the route, carrying containers, gravel and coal …

They usually have living quarters and a car on board, and this one had a children’s playground too ….

We saw lots of wind farms as well, a regular feature of the Dutch landscape …

... and tied up near the Volkerak lock as the sun set. 

Sunday 5th May – Vlissingen to the Versemeer

We left Vlissingen with a number of other boats …

… and went through a couple of opening bridges …

… along the canal, past the attractive town of Middelburg … 

… and tied up overnight to a jetty on the island of Haringvreter in the Versemeer, which is a large lake created by the construction of a huge dam … 

There was a farm on the island which seemed to be raising deer and geese together …

A really peaceful spot ... ours is the boat on the left.

Saturday 4th May – Three countries in one day

We left France (Dunkirk) at dawn …

… and enjoyed a fabulous sail along the coast of Belgium, ‘goose-winging’ most of the way with sunshine and blue skies.

The wind got stronger and the sea quite rough as we crossed the Westerschelde, through the lock and into the welcome shelter of the harbour where we saw a lot of Dutch beam trawlers ...

We tied up in Vlissingen Marina at the beginning of the Dutch canal system exactly one week (almost to the minute!) after leaving Chichester Marina.

1st to 3rd May – Across the Channel

Wednesday 1^st May

We had to wait in the very sticky mud at Rye until the tide came in and there was enough water to leave …

… and motored in a rough sea round Dungeness power station to Dover

Friday 3^rd May

Left Dover early in the morning …

… crossed the Channel under sail …

… and arrived at the ‘picturesque’ seaside resort of Dunkirk !!!!

Actually, it’s not such a bad place once you get into the town and away from the power stations and steel works along the coast, especially in the sunshine …

Here’s Astraia safely tied up in Dunkirk Marina …

… and us having a glass of wine to celebrate our arrival!