Sunday 7th August 2005 Oldenzijl to Middelstum south.

Rosy winding in the reeds on Uithuizermeester

8º C Cold, sunny spells, breezy, rain later. Mike was up at 4.30 a.m. retying the boat. Some nasty person had lifted our stern ropes off the mooring pins and untied our bow rope too. The noise of our bows bumping Rosy had woken Mike. They’d undone Rosy’s stern ropes, but hadn’t been able to get to the bows as Bill had looped a rope round the post supporting the rubbish bin and his bows were not near the bank. That’s the first time ever that that has happened since we’ve been on Continental

Houseboats

waterways. It was only 13º C when we set off in reverse at 9 a.m. We only just turned the boat in the outflow of a field drain, forcing the stern fenders through the tall reeds, being careful that the headlight didn’t catch the footpath bridge over the drain, but the depth was insufficient for the bows to go that far up the drain. Waited while Bill turned Rosy and set off again at 10.20 a.m. heading back “upstream” on the former tidal creek. We saw no other signs of life than a lone fisherman sitting atop a section of reedless bank by the road bridge. We arrived back at the

Storm clouds gathering

junction with the Boterdiep at 11 a.m. After a half hour wait the keeper came to swing the bridge at Doodstil and we carried on following Rosy back through Kantens back to Middelstum. We tied next to Rosy at 12.45 p.m. by the bridge north of Middlestum to wait for the bridge to lift. The keeper arrived just after one and we continued around the village to moor at the southern end in a layby. The rain had started to pour and the wind had picked up to gale force as we swung round to moor with our stern in the corner so we could have a

Moored in the layby at Middelstum south

better chance of getting satellite TV. A man came to chat to Mike as we tied up. Gave Bill a hand to get Rosy alongside, it was difficult in the side wind. After lunch Mike and I went for a walk through a deserted village to pick up the car from the mooring by the bridge to the north of the town. We went to have a look at the possibility of mooring (and winding!) in Usquert and Warffum, both villages at the ends of little canals. They both looked OK. Mike said let’s go and have a look at the sea, so we went north across the flat as a

Horses and seagulls on the Nordpolder

pancake Nordpolder, through an old flood dyke and then stopped at the foot of the next dyke at the end of the road. We took a walk to the top among the sheep and saw fields below where horses were grazing, beyond which were posts in the sea bed continuing the process of land reclamation, called landaanwinning here. Gulls wheeled in the air and lapwings took off as a marsh harrier flew low over the marshy fields. In the distance on the Waddenzee there was a large island ferry boat of Grimaldi lines and we could see the Waddeneilands

The Waddeneilands ferry

on the horizon, the mud banks of one to our left and buildings in the town of Borkum to our right. Back home via the villages of Warffum and Baflo on the N363, then turned east north of Winsum back to Middelstum. The weather had been sunny while we were out, but was still very windy. More rain arrived later.

Nosy Nordpolder sheep

Saturday 6th August 2005 Middelstum to Oldenzijl.

Leaving the mooring at Middelstum

10.7º C overnight. After rain in the night it was sunny, but with a cold wind. We went out in the car first thing to get fuel, petrol for the gennie and diesel for the car, then called in a Plus supermarket in the village for bread and cheese, etc. When the bridge opened at 10.15 a.m. we set off, heading north on the Boterdiep. It was still cold with the wind blowing, so Mike kept the coal fire going all day. The channel was narrow and the banks built up with gabions (rocks in wire mesh baskets) below the road through the village of Kantens, past a tall

Grote Geert windmill in Kantens

windmill called Grote Geert. The canal did a sharp right turn, with a canoe route off to the left called the Koksmaar, and we passed two moored houseboats (which had seen better days) in the middle of nowhere. A young man stepped off the one that looked inhabited with a dog at his heels – hippies! He said hello as we passed by. We arrived at the swingbridge at Doodstil (the village sign said the “mooiest plaatsnaame” - the most beautiful place name in the Netherlands - it means dead calm) at 11.35 a.m. No one around, so we dropped a rope on the posts by the bridge. An old chap with a camera arrived to chat and take photos. At 11.45 a.m. two waterways men came with a couple of cruisers on their way back down the canal from Uithuizen (where the Boterdiep finishes). As we went through the bridge Mike told the bridge workers that we weren’t going into the town, we were going up to Oldenzil, but one of them still cycled on to the liftbridge going in the direction of Uithizen. He went away again when we did a

Rosy in the reeds in the narrow channel of the Uithuizermeester

sharp right turn into the Uithuizermeester, a very narrow channel between high banks of reeds. The course of the former river twisted and turned, ducked under several fixed footbridges and a roadbridge and after 6.5 kms we arrived in Oldenzijl, the end of the navigation, where an unattended liftbridge barred the way. Mike tried winding with the bows in a ditch at the end of someone’s garden, but the boat was just about two metres too long. We gave up and backed off for Bill to have a go. He couldn’t get Rosy round either, so we both moored next to an old low quay wall and decided we’d have to reverse

Reeds and a winding channel - Uithuizermeester

next day to a place about a kilometre back down the navigation where we might be able to wind. We’d stirred the bottom up quite well and the water had turned from peaty brown to inky black, sending up the most malodorous pong imaginable. We’d arrived at 1 p.m but it was 1.45 p.m. by the time we’d tied up. Mike said we’d leave the car where it was as we would be going back to Middlestum next day. We started making up the new mossie net strip curtain for the front door. In the middle of

Moored at Paapstilbrug

doing that a small (15m) unconverted (except for an engine in its hold) masted tjalk arrived with a crowd of people who leapt off on to the bank behind us and proceeded to hammer out the wedges on the bridge deck and wind up Paapstil liftbridge with two hefty blokes swinging on the windlass to operate it. They took the boat through, some of the youths climbed the bridge deck whilst hanging on to the side railings, and then wound the bridge back down again and never said a word to us, didn’t even look in our direction - we might have been invisible! Not even a wave. Back to work on

Tjalk going through the bridge.

the curtain, except a lady arrived on the quay and engaged Mike and Bill in conversation. She invited us to go to her house for a drink. OK. Half an hour later her husband arrived in his car to pick us up and we had a very entertaining time with two journalists who had been all over the world.