Hallberg Rassy 31 Monsun Isabell's logbook

At this time I am at a marina in the town of Kerkdriel, in the province of Gelderland. I have celebrated having covered 1000 nm since I left Stockholm in June, by taking a bicycle tour to the historic town of Zaltbommel. The Meuse sure is a special river. Back in the Roman Empire it formed part of the northern border. Then in the bourgondian era it was the border between the French parts and the Lowlands (Dutch) parts of the area. And even later, today it still is the border between two provinces of the Netherlands, Gelderland to the north and Noord-Brabant to the south of the water. So I am actually sailing in two different regions all at once. Along its shores are a number of famous castles, fortifications and stronghold cities (now small, fortified towns). Beautiful sceneries and very quiet.
To get this far I have had to bounce around on the rivers Old Rhine, Gouwe near the city of Gouda, Hollandse IJssel, Merwede and the canalised Nord and Dorthse Kil. On these waters there was a lot of commercial traffic, I mean a lot of big ships. Now the river Meuse is small and it has 7 weirs with locks, so it does not have a strong current. Beautiful for having to motor upstream. And finally I am getting a break from all the torrential rain that has fallen. The weather is clearing up and from a bottom low of 9 degrees Celsius the other day it is up in the high 20’s again. Nice! I needed that. As I was coming up the Meuse, there are a number of air force bases, and I got to see attack helicopters training to fly right over the tree tops, sometimes it looked like they would actually fly into the tree tops. And they were practising hovering and landing right next to me. I waved to the pilots! In short, I am having so much fun and have been so busy with whatever is happening, that I haven’t had so much time to post stuff here. Isabell is performing nicely with the mast tied down, very stable and well balanced. I have gone through many bridges without them opening, which I have still to get used to. Scary in the beginning. And I have made it through two locks without any troubles for the mast sticking out. From here it is only a few miles to the next huge lock, at the power plant weir of Lith (owned by Vattenfall). From now on I need long lines and do some climbing up the lock walls, since I am going up in the landscape and each lock lifts about 3 to four meter. It all feels a bit new, but fun to learn how things work.

Time for an update. After several days of hard work Isabell is turned into a river boat. The mast stepped down on the deck, Isabell can go under bridges higher than 2,5 meter (or 25 dm as they use on the Dutch water charts), which is about 90% of the bridges where I am now. Later on it will be good for 100% of the bridges.
It was firstly very hard to find a place to lower the mast. Every crane operator here in NL seemed to have taken a holiday. But with the help of my uncle, himself a vivid boater, I found a shipyard with a bunch of wonderful persons/characters. And the help of both my twin sisters was enormous. Took a few days, but it is done and I am on my way south again. Weather still sucks, but hey, this is Holland. One of the reasons I left here fourty years ago is the rainy weather. Meantime, it has been fun visiting with ol’ friends and family. I even ran into boyhood friends that I had not seen for fifty years. Such a wonderful experience!

Now the mast sits on supports on the deck. I disconnected all cables and had to remove a bunch of items from the deck to have space for the mast supports. It feels funny, empty up in the sky. But had to be done. Let’s hope I remember how all the parts fit together, so that once the mast goes up again I manage to put the boat back together. And I have raised the Swedish flag because my dutch flags are too big and get stuck on the supports. Boat is registered in Sweden anyhow, so that is allowed here. Love hearing all the positive comments from passer by people on the towpaths. What a lovely Swedish boat here in the rain…

It has been a week and I am still in the city harbour of Leiden. While here I have taken down the sails and a lot of the deck equipment used for ocean sailing. I have had help shopping for building materials from which to make the deck supports for the mast to rest on. I have tried to find a mast crane that I can use to lower the mast. There is a bit of a struggle, because all the possible mast operators are on holidays right now. And they won’t let me operate the cranes myself… At least two weeks left of vacation time in this part of the country. Meanwhile I have been a little bit under the weather, but getting better. And I am enjoying seeing friends, family and familiar places and events around here. Being a tourist, so to speak. Now I am going to make the mast supports and try and find a marina or yacht club where I may operate the mast crane. If not, I just have more time to enjoy Holland. I will keep you posted!

Wow! I made it to the city harbour right smack in the middle of Leiden city. I would never have found my way here without the help of my sister, who came aboard outside the city and helped me navigate the narrow channels and all the tiny bridges. But now I am here. Got lost twice on the Kaagerplassen, a place where I used to know my way around during childhood here. Weather horrible, hard wind, rain showers and grey. But being with family in familiar places makes it all worth it. Yesterday I had the company of my other twin sister, while we navigated from Hoorn down to Haarlem, 38 nm of canals, lakes, and rivers. We came straight through the city of Amsterdam on the way and followed the North Sea Canal (big shipping canal) through the seaport harbours of Amsterdam. It is still very big, even though Amsterdam plays a minor seaport role today.

Now I have started to mentally prepare for changing Isabell into a river boat, taking off the sails and taking down the mast. It is a bit scary, and also a lot of work. Will probably try to get the mast down around here, since I need helping hands and this is the place where I have most family and friends. I am not mentally ready for it yet. Takes a while getting used to the idea of not having a mast and sails to work with. Greetings to Karin from Hoorn who dropped me such a nice message after seeing Isabell in Hoorn. Now I need a rest and some good food. Sis is treating me on a dinner!

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!

Hello, now I am at the port of Lemmer. Just one lock and two bridges to go through and I am out on the big open IJsselmeer. Ready for some sailing again after all the canal motoring. But for the coming few days the weather is hot, muggy, thunderstorms and big winds. So I am enjoying good dutch food and the fabulous beer.
I have already gone under 48 bridge openings and through five locks in the northern part of the Netherlands. Most of the time the bridges open as you are approaching. Yesterday there was a bridge that did not want to open. The waiting time led to a long que of boats with masts or huge motor yachts. The bridge operator closed the road booms several times, all the traffic stopped.. But the bridge wouldn’t open. After a while three service cars appeared and a bunch of technicians went to work. It took another half hour, but they managed to get the bridge to work. Every boater was cheering as we passed through. Such a great service, and all for free in this country. Superb! I will sail from here to Enkhuizen on the other shore of the IJsselmeer. And then I will be in Holland for real. From there follow the other coastline down south towards Hoorn and Amsterdam. Stopping on the way to meet one of my sisters. I am very pleased with the progress made, and must admit that I miss the Baltic Sea and Swedish coast a bit. Here, although I have good charts, the size and depth of my boat make it almost impossible to go outside the ship channels. So very shallow everywhere. That’s one of the reasons I am looking forward to the IJsselmeer, where I can actually do some sailing off the channels. For now, I will just have to wait for better winds. But I am good! Enjoying every minute of the journey.

Hello to you all! I have not been able to log into this blog since I left Sweden. My internet access became totally useless. So now I have changed provider and also got a new phone number. My trip so far has been very much fun and sailing down to the German coast I had mostly fair, following winds. Since then, when I got to Germany, the winds have been a bit less in my favour. I sailed from Ystad to Klintholmen, DK. From there to Gedser, Denmark and on into Germany through the Fehnmarn sound. When I got to Kiel, it was just the end of Kieler Woche, big sail event with many square rigged ships… It was fabulous, and my last night in Holtenau, Kiel was celebrated with an amazing “over the top” fireworks show of the city of Kiel. Then on through the Kiel canal, where I met strong headwinds, had to drive the engine hard and hide under the leeward shores. When I made it out of the canal, sailed on to Cuxhaven, with following strong outgoing tide. 11 knots speed over ground at the Cuxhaven harbour entrance. Tricky to go in the right hole.

Then, as I sailed from Cuxhaven to Norderney it was very foggy, lots of merchant shipping and hit by two really heavy thunderstorms on the way. I had to heave to twice for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. Then sailed on until I got to Norderney in the dark of night. While there, I stayed 5 days, hard westerly winds (no boats came in, none left the shelter of the harbour). And then I had decided to sail on Wednesday. No way, wednesday morning the storm Poly hit hard. It was near hurricane force 7 (55+ knots winds) and everybody got a beating, even in harbour. Isabell was not damaged, only one bolt of a solar panel went missing and some shaving on the lines (triple lines). Already fixed. But there were some boats that had slipped their moorings and were heavily damaged. I continued over the Waddensee to Delfzijl, The Netherlands, where I entered the Dutch standing mast route. That’s where I am now. From there I visited Groningen, Zoutkamp, Dokkum, Leeuwarden and am now in Sneek. It is hot and muggy, still windy fron the west or southwest, but I am well and enjoying the ride… Until next time.

I have been making progress on my way south, from leaving Visby on last Wednesday I have sailed to Byxelkrok, then to the nice little harbour of Bergkvara south of Kalmar in the Kalmar Sound, and hurried out of the sound swiftly. It was one of the choppiest seas I have sailed, almost like the Ijsselmeer in Netherlands. Then I needed diesel and decided to go to Karlskrona instead of Utklippan. In the Karlskrona archipelago I anchored at East Möcklö, a place I used to live by the water during 2008 and 2009. From there it was Karlskrona to get diesel filled and then sailed south again to Simrishamn on the Scanian coast where I arrived late last night. Up early and sailed on to the port of Ystad, on the Scanian south coast. Here I had the priviledge to meet with another esteemed Monsuner, Tor Melin. So good to have a chat with him and his wife. Makes my day! The past 6 hours were thick fog all along the coast, and it was a perfect opportunity to hone my navigation skills. Radar and AIS, visible checks, chart work (actually doing some dead reckoning) and I got the price… I sailed in to the port entrance, passing the first buoy by about 20 feet. Visibility as low as 30 or 40 meter (maybe a hundred feet). I am here, and now it’s time to visit with my oldest son. On Wednesday I will try to continue my sail south. Let’s hope the wind change doesn’t come too soon. I am happy and well after the first three weeks of my journey. Oh, and it rained like mad when I was in the Kalmarsund (the sound). So I checked for leaks, and of course found two small things that need fixing. No leaks allowed in my boat! Sailing on!

So here I am, in the southern Stockholm archipelago. Sailed here with a good enough north, by northwest wind. But yesterday the weather gods commanded a break, time to rest and prepare for longer passage to Gotland (17 hours sail). The wind is B5 from south or southwest. So I am anchored in a small well-sheltered bay at the island of Fifång. Fixing with the wind vane steering (it squeeled and squicked), and doing some other maintenance jobs, meanwhile enjoying birds singing, sun shining, free anchorage… You get my point? Enjoying life on Isabell. Possibly tomorrow night the wind will change back to north for a spell, and if it does I have to make sure to follow it down to Visby. We’ll see how it goes. There are always things to do, if there are no places to go! Cheers!