Netherlands 2011

We had a great trip over on Malaysians Airlines.  I do enjoy travelling with them. We arrived in Amsterdam and met Bob and Lois at the airport and then travelled to Steenwijk by train. It was the weekend so there was no direct train and we had 3 changes. We struggled with our bags. On and off each train but arrived in Steenwijk and caught a taxi to Scheerwolde where Arcturus was waiting for us in the big hall.

She looked very sad as she was very dirty and dusty but we spend the next three days cleaning her up and now she looks like her old self.

 Today (the14th) we will go into the water and hopefully our mechanic will arrive and fix the things he had 9 months to do so we can take off and start our 2011 adventure. We are already behind our schedule because of the holiday.

We had a pleasant surprise yesterday when our friends John and Rinolda came by in their boat to say hello. We will catch up with them in the next few days in Steenwijk to pick up our canvas top that they had repaired for us.

 We are very tired and our bodies are very sore as we have been polishing our boat. It is starting to look sparkling again like the boat we saw first. We will both be glad when this working is over and we can enjoy our trip.

We had drinks to say good bye to everyone at Scheerwolde.

We met an English couple - Peter and Chris who have been living on their boat for a month. They had major problems with a leaking hull - the hull apparently rusted out. They had it all repaired, but Tuesday when they put it in the water in leaked again. it was all very disappointing for them. we left them Tuesday a very disappointed couple. I do hope things improve for them.

It is now Friday 17^th and we made it to Steenwijk but that is as far as we have gone. The weather turned ghastly – or is it just the Netherlands!!

We arrived in Steenwijk on Wednesday afternoon. We were waiting for the Gilberts to arrive in Scheerwolde as they are taking their boat from Holland down to France so they can sell it. We waited and waited but then received a phone call to say they had lost a fan belt and were stuck on the side of the canal not far from us and Kevin is to replace the belt. We decided to ride to them instead as we needed to get into Steenwijk by 3pm. It was not what Yvonne thought. We rode and rode and after about 5 klm we spotted Yvonne.   We went to collect all the French maps from them. So after a big chat we rode back to the boat and sailed to Steenwijk where we are still sitting.

                                                              Arcturus moored on the side of the Steenwijk canal

The canal in Steenwijk is being worked on by the local council. They have removed a lot of old sand from the bottom of the canal and are now replacing it with new sand. The canal is abuzz with noise all day and the turbulence on the water is making me quite sea sick and the water is covered in brown foam making the cleaning of our boat quite pointless.

                               

                                          The machine making all the noise

We are parked out the front of our friends John and Rinolda’s home. Russel and John decide to put in a manual greasing system and have been working on this for two days now. John has been great in taking Russel everywhere to buy parts for this. I believe this is now finished and today we will head off toward Amsterdam.

The other problem we have is that we cannot access our French account. We each accessed it once and now the card won’t work so I am trying to contact Paris so we can get some money. I do hope we can sort this out quickly.

Plenty has happen since we left Steenwijk. The weather has been terrible. I even had to dig deep into the bowels of the boat to get out all out winter gear – beanies and gloves were put on yesterday as we were travelling in the windy, wet canals. We travelled from Steenwijk, stopped at Giethoorn for water and gas, (we were able to get rid of our German gas bottle) and travelled to just before the Ijssel in an overnight stop where we had just enough time to settle before the thunder, rain and lightning came.

                                                        Rain Rain Rain!!!

                                                Hopefully showing the way we went

We left the next morning and travelled passed Elberg and onto Harderwijk where we to wait for John and Rinolda. We had a fabulous meal at a local restaurant- pork spare ribs, pepper steak etc. We had a great evening ending in an ice bomb to celebrate the wedding of John and Rinolda. 

                         

The Ice bomb!!!


Lois and Bob were having problems with their boat so had stopped to fix it at an overnight stop, so they decided to stay the night as we were experiencing waves over our boat. We heard from them the next morning. They were a head of us!! They left their spot at 7am to catch us. We decided to reach Naarden. The trip was very rough – waves over the front of the boat, but we managed to reach Naarden safely.

This is showing just a few of the windmills we saw whilst travelling

We stayed two nights. Today we rode to the railway station and caught the train to Barnveld where Russel took his greasing machine to find out what was wrong. Nothing wrong with the machine must be the switch which tells it when to come on. So 50 euro later we caught the train back to Naarden where I did the washing and Russel re installed his greasing machine.

washing day!!!!

                                      Drinks after a long day!!!

We will leave tomorrow and head for Aalsmeer.

Forgot to mention that we did get an answer from our bank in France. we are able to take out 500 euro every seven days so we are back in the money and counting of the days when we can get some more. we are able to book up agains the card, but Holland is not a great place for international cards. They seem to enjoy the cash.