Sneek

A look around the town.

Wet Museum, The bottles on the table are opened and there are classes ready for taste testing.
 

New with the old.

Sneekweek

I'm so glad we were there early to get a park right in the middle of town, there were some moments when the bridge behind and the bridge in front both opened let boats through. Sneekweek starts with a Vlootschouw (Fleet Show) and they were going to go straight passed us.



This is the area where the boats will start the Fleet Show, this was taken at 2.30 in the afternoon.



Starting to fill up, this was taken a 7.00, the Fleet Show starts at 9.00

The next 4 photos are still at the start area at 7pm


Back at Ardella, waiting for the Fleet Show to start.

Our own band to entertain us while we wait.

 

Here they come, sorry I don't have to many photos, I did take quite a bit but a was so excited most of them didn't come out that well.



Yes that is a band on the roof.

Swimming in the canal - no thank you

 If I had to choose a canal to swim in I would swim in the Netherland canals the local all swim in it. 

Day and Night in IJlst

IJlst we weclome Xavier

Picked up Xavier today from Sneek. This lovey young man will be spending a few days with us. Soon after picking him up from the train station we had to move to IJlst to have our gearbox and injectors fixed. Hopefully it wont take to long and we can show Xavier a bit of the Netherlands.

Today we achieved

Today was a bit different then most. Martin saw a boat leaning a bit and then noticed it wasn't moving and one of the crew waving his arms to get someone's notice. Well today that was us, I waved another boat over to help give us a hand, he was a smaller boat and he could get close to the grounded boat. Just as well because the sail boat ground has a draft of 1.2meters like us. We tried to get in close but nearly got stuck ourselves. Took 30 mins but we finally got them out, they were happy and we all continued on our way. It's a good feeling to help someone.

We our now at other island, we took a walk around the island and found a lot of Black Berry bushes, nothing like a snack on the go. achieved

Stavoren

We arrived yesterday, and have had a walk around the village twice, It's a very nice place that is catered to tourists. It has a ferry terminal and a train station.



Dam for the Ijsselmeer

You can see same on the Ijsselmeer, yes it is very windy but there are still people sailing out there. 

This photo shows a boat in the lock, the wind is not making it easy for them.

 The following photos are from around town

 Motel

On the lake

Leaving IJlst with a convoy, 12 boats went through the bridge. I'm glad I'm not in a car waiting for the bridge close. Come to think of it, we waited 10mins for the bridge to open because a bus we due.  

In this photo you can see the bridge is still up with the line of boats that have already gone through.
We are all on the wrong side of the Canal so we can pass the kayaks safely on our Starboard, we have passed all the kayaks so we are starting to get on the right side of the canal channel. 

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On our way to our night spot we had to go across a lake, a very busy lake. It's summer school holidays here and they have the 6 weeks off and some of the kids are on Sailing camp and we got to see how they transport a group of kids, their boats and supplies to the sailing spot. 

IJlst

IJlst is a very pretty city, it has also been one of the Frisian eleven cities since 1268. In winter when the canals froze the locals ice-skated on the canals on what is called 'Eleven City Tour'.

 

Same facts for you:

• 1909 was the first official tour, history shows that people were already trying to skate the route past all Frisian cities in a day centuries age.
• 1997 was the last official tour but every year as soon as the winter starts the Dutch suffer from what they call 'Eleven City Fever' hoping that this year the canals and lakes will freeze so the event will be on this year. 
• Only 15 tours have been organized and gone ahead since it officially started.

Since the ice-skating events aren't that regular they now have a couple of summer version one is with 'Puddle Boards' and one with boats, these event they don't do in one day they have rest stop for night, well we have stumbled on one of the stops when they were in the middle of the boat tour in IJlst. So there wasn't much parking left, we needed to drop in to the mechanic to pick up more gearbox oil so we parked in front of his building where they pull out the boats for repair. Then we saw a park on the side of the workshop and asked if we could park there for the night. Luck was with us and we just fit in the gap.



Hand operated ferry



They had a little trouble starting the motor.

 

A group from one of the Yacht
clubs going for a meeting. 



and their off, no wait, yes they are off

 

Day trip to Grou.

It was a beautiful day, it took one and half hours to get to Grou, walk around town have lunch then back.