Travel Tips

We spent 2 days on the lake. We stayed near some shallow water the night before and were surrounded by birds. The next night we had a little island all to ourselves. We found a nest of goose eggs and had many visits by little Duck couples and a family of birds that I could not identify. Many people came by the island to have a picnic and relax. No one was around one morning so Jeff walked around the boat naked. He's kind of a nudist. I won't show a pic of that although I have one, rated G for Great Ass.

Our Shower and toilet had much to be desired but we were happy to have the luxury of them after watching many sailboats and small boats spending all day on the water. We had trouble starting the Butane heater for a couple days, day 3 I got it to light. We used to have the same heater in our apartment in Spain but that was a LONG time ago it seems, lost that knowledge along the way.

We weren't sure where we would end up yet but we were heading North towards Amsterdam with a few small towns along the way. We hadn't seen alot of mooring up in towns since there is alot of private property so we didn't know what to expect. Along the way we thought we would go to the grocery store that is on the way out of the canal before you reach the main canal Vecht. There was one spot to tie up so we tied up there. Jeff said the front motors aren't working all of a sudden and that he really relied on them. We tried to decide what to do. Found out both cell phones were dead. So, I said let's just go get some groceries and decide after. I was excited to shop for Dutch food products. We walked around and couldn't find the store. When we did it had closed 5 minutes earlier for theh day at 12:30 p.m. We were not happy. Jeff found a mechanic that said he would come look at the boat. We were at a boat harbour, by the way. In the meantime Jeff is looking at our excellent boat maintenance guide which was in Dutch so we couldn't read it. But he figured out that there was a switch that somehow got bumped. He turned it and we were back in business, sans groceries. Little did we know we would soon be in specialty food store MECCA!

The De Hoop Area is very gorgeous with many private homes and small villages. There are also house boats that are less elaborate but very nice with much glass to see the water.

We decided to stop at this smaller lake on the map called Spiegelpolder. We went in with 2 other boats. The time that the lock was open was 18:30-20:30 and we were just in time to go through. We had no idea there was such a narrow margin to get through. We had to get through between 10:00 and 11:00 the next morning or wait unti the evening to leave the lake.

The two other boats went in two different directions and we went down the middle. We circled the whole lake and didn't see a good mooring spot, some were way too shallow. We finally looked at the map and found a little inlet with a windmill behind it that had a mooring spot. We stopped there. It was super picteresque down the trails. Just a super peaceful place to stop.

Another perfect day with superb weather and we were the only people leaving the lake at 10:00. This is me talking to the lady who runs the Loch. She didn't think there would be anyone coming through that day. She already had it open on the lake side. That was nice. And she helped moor up. She said she loved her super job on days that are so very nice.

The deal with the bridges varies. And we had to be practically psychic to figure some of them out. Sometimes there would be someone who physically pulled down the red and white barriers to stop traffic and then open the bridge. Sometimes it was automatic, a camera that saw you and eventually opened the bridge. And there are phone numbers you can call (when your cell phone isn't dead) and on their are also elusive buttons you can push to trigger someone to come about or just automate the bridge. This bridge on this day was not opening. And there wasn't enough traffic to see how other people were getting through. so, we moored up. And we sat there for 15 mins. or so. Then we started discussing if we could fit under the bridge. Hmm? Hmm? Hmm? Just then another boat that was a little bigger than ours came up, they stared at us, we stared at them and then they back up. They had decided to try to fit underneath. The people not driving the boat looked and looked and they make it through. Everyone knows the length and breadth of their boat. We were just figuring it out at that time. We had to take down this wooden light shaft before we tried it since we had only .5 cm. room to fit under. We did fit underneath (see picture, roof of the boat is the wood piece). And on the other side of the bridge were the hours of operation. It was Wednesday, not open today. Nice to know. Yippee! We conquered another unknown.