Reached the true Holland

Hello! I sailed across the IJsselmeer and into the Markermeer section of the big old Zuiderzee day before yesterday. Tried to enter a small harbour in the vicinity of Wijdenes, on the Westfrisian coast. My sister is at the moment at Studio the Church, my former brother in laws music studio, built inside an old church. The storm Poly has not only ripped tons of branches off the trees, but it had also sanded shut the harbour mouth. So I ran aground, tried at three places with same results. Hard sandy bottom. I was inside this harbour in 2020, without any problems. But it wasn’t meant to be. Called my sis and moved on to the city harbour of Hoorn. On the way I was accompanied by many boats, big and small. And I witnessed two other sailboats running aground. One just outside the harbour of Hoorn, tried to go outside the marker buoys channel… That didn’t work.

Okay, now I am in the province of Noord Holland, and can say that I am actually IN Holland. Visiting with my sister a few days. Tomorrow she will keep me company on my sail (probably last sail for a while) down through Amsterdam to the city of Haarlem. I will not stop at Amsterdam this time. From Haarlem I will motor the canals down to Leiden coming weekend. Weather is a bit dutch, occassional showers, warm and a bit muggy. When you are in the Netherlands, and moving around on a boat, you are called a PASSANT. Some harbours are primarily filled with passanten (plural for passant). Others, like the one here in Hoorn, are not. Meeting fun people is a bit harder in the non-passanten harbours. And it’s like ant hills in harbours… Bad weather, all the ants stay inside. Sun comes out, all the ants appear. So it is with boaters. Hoorn is truely a fabulous old town, with the typical Dutch tiny houses that lean over left and right. It’s very cosy. Now I have finally managed to fix my internet problems, and will try to keep this blog a bit more up to date. Greetings for now!