Oh woe is me...

What a week! We broke down twice, the satellite system stopped working and we have had to return to base at Ossenzijl. Still the weather has been pefect (except for today Sunday). But first things first...

The previous fuel problems have been fixed. The problem was never really understood but the solution in having diesel flow in parallel through two filters works. So after lunch last Monday we set sail with high hopes and fine weather heading North to Groningen and then East on the long haul to Berlin. First night we stopped at Joure in a lovely island setting. The next morning when I started the motor it sounded flat but luckily the motor started and we headed to the lovel town of Sneek (see picture) where we had the prime mooring position in front of the town's famous Waterpoort dating back 5 hundred years. We were going to stay there two nights before heading North. We had free electricity as well so all seemsed well until.... I decided to start the engine and it wouldn't start. The batteries were totally flat even though the battery charger had been on over night. I called the boat yard and they said they would get someone to us next day which they duly did. The starter batteries were changed for new ones and we thought the problem was solved so fater a night at a lovely restaurant in Sneek we headed North got the night to a National Park called Prinsen Hof (see pic). An area of lakes and abundant wildlife. When we got there I decided to check the coolant level in the engine only to find it was very low. There was obviously a leek somewhere. 10 mins later I turned on the satellite dish to find that didn't work either. You can imagine how we felt. But the boat yard said come back and they would fix everything, so the next day we headed south back to Ossenzijl, and stayed in Sneekermeer, one of the largest lakes in Friesland. There wwere boats everywhere a it was a beautiful day. Yachts, barges, motor boats, speed boats all enjoying the sun and water. We had a good spot where we could see all the action and the evening yacht races.

Next morning we headed for base and at the last lock (in fact the only lock that day) we turned the engine off to wait ofr the lock to be prepared (we were tied up). When the lock opened we tried to start the engine but it wouldn't start. It was Saturday and the weekend. I called the boat yard and the Sales manager Gert Bos answered our cry for help and turned up 2o mins later with a jump lead so we could jump start the engine batteries from the lights/house batteries. The engine fired up and were back in Ossenzijl in 20 minutes. We now await the engineers on
Monday to sort out the problems, though I have fixed a couple already. The starter batteries going flat has been caused by the previous owner taking the fridge 12v supply from one of the starter batteries. Easily fixed as we can just cruise with the inverter on and use 230V supply to the fridge. The satellite control box problem turned out to be too low a voltage getting to it (caused by alterations one of the engineers did). I connected it up to another supply and it has worked well ever since. I just hope the coolant leak will be fixed as easily.
The good weather has gone for a few days but the forecast for later in the week is good. Third time lucky!!

The Adventure begins (or does it?)

The fine weather continued to hold for the first half of this week with only a couple of damp days before the next high has placed itself over the Netherlands. We spent Monday in Langweer a lovely small village on the edge of a small meer (see picture of us moored up for lunch in the area). Then on Tuesday it was time to head back towards our home base of Ossenzijl. We headed down the Prinses Magriet Kanaal to Lemmer onto the Ijsselmeer, the vast inland sea that dominates this part of the Netherlands. We didn't go far as we turned into another Canal and headed along the Lemmervaart to Blokzijl where we had hoped to spend the night. Unfortunately we ran into a bridge (not literally!) that was not opening for a while because it was car rush hour. So we decided to tie up at Vollenhoven which was an equally quaint town (see picture of us moored there).

It had been a long day so we decided to eat ashore but nothing much was open, so we bought two delicious pizzas and ate them back on the boat with a lovely bottle of Merlot. Next day we arrived back at Ossenzil mid afternoon hopefully to find everything ready for the installation of batteries and other minor repair work, but alas nothing had been organized. A bit of coaxing later we were promised installation would start the enxt day. When they came to install the batteries they decided they couldn't add two more batteries as there was not enough space, so we agreed to replace the batteries with two bigger and better ones. But of course they were not in stock so we had to wait for Friday to get them installed, which they duly were.

Friday we celebrated the end of the repairs and made ready to depart the following day. It was raining on Saturday so we waited until it had eased after lunch and headed out onto the channel and went North West to the Tjeukemeer. Unfortunately about 2 km away the engine suddenly died. The wind was strong. There were boats to the left of us; boats to the right of us and
rocks all around. We drifted onto a shallow muddy bit of canal and I lifted the hatches to have a look. It sounded like a diesel fuel problem so I played around with the valves and filters and eventually managed to get it going again, but we decided to head back to home base and get it checked out. When the engineer came to look it was beyond his experience as all the
other engineers were off that day. But he did find a small leak in the exhaust pipe water cooling that he said needed repair before we could leave and so of course we have to wait until Monday for that to be done and hope the required parts are in stock and not 3 days wait more.

We filled in the time on Sunday with a late breakfast of bacon and eggs and went for a long walk in a National Park that is just across the road called the Weerribben. It is old peat diggings that have been left for the wildlife and in typical Dutch fashion they have created a network of walking, biking and boating tracks through the park. We didn't see much wildlife but it was
a good walk in the fresh air.

Friesland

The glorious weather has continued all week and looks set to continue for
days more. Temperatures in the high 20s and clear blue skies and very little
wind except for the odd afternoon breeze.

We spend the week shopping. We bought necessary chandlery items for the
boat, a bicycle (more on that later) and lots of food, wine, beer, mineral
water and other heavy items that will be a pain to cart to the boat in the
coming days. Most of the repairs were completed but new batteries still need
to be installed and the gas detector and gas heater need to be fixed. That
should happen this coming week.

We did most of our shopping in Heerenveen. There are no big supermarkets in
Holland as the Dutch are not in favour of out of town large supermarkets but
prefer to keep smaller shops in the main streets. So it was always a long
time finding a parking place and getting the stuff back into the car. We did
find an Aldi supermarket which was very cheap but had a very limited range.

On Friday I had to return the hire car to Heerenveen so I decided to take
the bike with me and bike back - a distance of 26km in the very hot
afternoon. The Dutch have a great system of cycle paths mostly not following
the roads but taking direct paths across fields and along rivers and canals.
I biked back along one such system of paths through a lovely nature reserve
on the paved 1m wide cycle path. It was very pretty and much quicker and
safer than following the roads. I was exhausted when i got back but a cold
drink soon revived me and we decided to head out from the marina and moor on
the canal beside a lovely meadow so that Wendy could get used to the boat
and to mooring it up.

The next day we left early and passed through lake after lake before
arriving at Sloten. Sloten is an old walled town with a windmill (see
picture) that by chance has its annual free open day that day. We had a tour
around it and a went back to the boat and fired up the Cobb BBQ we had
bought to roast a whole chicken. 90 minutes later with no smoke, no flames
and no hassle we sat down to a lovely roast chicken dinner complete with
roast potatoes, broccoli and carrots. (See picture) Delicious. The BBQ can
also do scones, pizzas etc but we do have an electric oven for those sort of
things. A lovely Riesling from Alsace went well with it.

Today is Sunday and we have continued travelling through more lakes (meers)
with hundreds and hundreds of boats out for the day as it is a long weekend
this weekend in The Netherlands. We had to continually alter course to avoid
sailing boats tacking up wind in the narrow channels between the lakes.
There were huge old sailing boats on the lakes, power boats, canoeists, and
yachts all jostling for the breeze and a path through the mayhem.

Eventually we arrived at our destination in Oudega. There we found a quiet
mooring nestled on the edge of a large meer (but sheltered from the
afternoon sea breeze) and pottered around with the myriad of small things
still to be done. It was a glorious evening and we enjoyed sitting outside
in the warn evening sun with aglass of wine watching the yachts sailing all
around us.

This week we head back to the boat yard for them to finish off the repairs
before hopefully leaving for Germany next Saturday.

Bavarian Bliss

A busy but frustrating week. We arrived at the boat expecting everything to be have been done that we had requested to find that many things had not been done. To top it off all of the yard's engineers had gone on holiday that day for 2 weeks. The weather had turned from the beautiful day the previous day and it was raining and cold. We unpacked our 4 suitcases and put pressure on the boatyard to get things done but not to much success. We bought a few things and on Wednesday headed 700 km south to Bavaria to meet Wendy's brother Nick and his wife Monika and children Leslie and Vivien.

The next day we went to a recreation of an old Mediaeval German Village in Bad Windesheim. It is a very pretty area of Germany with rolling green hills and woods everywhere.The village was scattered over a wide area and had original houses (but relocated) going back 700 years. We had a beer brewed at the village for lunch alongs with delicious sausages and snitzels in a roll. The next day we went in to Erlangen where David had an eye test and we spent the rest of the day shopping for kitchen items for the boat.

Today we went for a walk in the Frankerische Sweitze area of Northern Bavaria which is called Mini Switzerland because of its rolling limestone wooded hills. We walked along the banks of a stream to a typical German village where we had half litre of beer and a piece or so of pizza. Then a long walk back to the car and off to Grossweinland where there was a pilgramage to the local cathedral. We walked up to the castle at the top of the hill for sweeping views over the area. Feeling hungry and thirsty we headed off to a beer garden where we sat outside in the warm air drinking locally brewed beer ($4 for 500ml) and at pork shank with gravy and dumplings. It was delicious.

The Germans may have a limited repertoire of food but what they have (beer, pork, sausages etc) they do extremely well with a huge number of variations.

Hopefully more will be acomplished on the boat this week as we are hoping to leave this Saturday.