Kijk Kubus - Rotterdam
Posted On Tuesday, 11 August 2009 at at 22:18 by The Captain
entre and to make it worse it started to rain. Then, when we were about to return by the Erasmus bridge, we found a map of the city. The map had all the interesting things to see marked and we discovered that if we took a route home via the Williams bridge we could see the Kijk Kubus houses on our way. Those were the houses my mother especially told me to visit. The Kijk Kubus were built in the 80s, cubic houses tilted and put together in a different way. They were very interesting indeed, I find it hard to imagine what it would be like to live in one though, are the walls tilted or have they built straight walls inside? I have to look it up on the Internet when we get to a harbour with Wi-Fi. A little less disappointed we returned to Cantare where we set the alarm on 6.45 am in an attempt to escape the harbour fee. In most harbours you either pay in the evening at the harbour office or wait for the harbour master to come knocking on your yacht in the morning. If you want to save money it’s possible to leave really early and “miss” the payment. But when the alarm went of today we were both too tired to get up, I think the Amsterdam night convoy sailing still makes us tired. We slept until 9.30 am when we made a quick start and left the harbour in 5 minutes, just in time to get out under the bridge that was opened for another boat. Strangely the harbour master never came around, but we don’t feel any guilt, we took no water, no electricity and we didn’t use the bathrooms, all we did was moor at their pontoon.Now we are in Willemstaad, our last stop on the Staande Mastroute. It’s a lovely little city with a nice weekend feeling in the crowded harbour. We are moored as third yacht, which meens that if we want to go ashore we have to walk across two other yachts. Tomorrow it's time to approach the North Sea again, we are plannig to go to a harbour just before the last lock, where we will check the weather and rest before it's time to sail to France or Belgium depending on the winds.
Party of Lights (Ljusfesten) and the City of Cheese
Posted On Monday, 10 August 2009 at at 10:55 by First Mate
Last Friday it was a traditional light event with a boat parade called Ljusfesten in our hometown Ängelholm. Since we couldn’t’t make it this year, we had our own light party together with all the other boats that left Amsterdam Saturday night. To be able to continue southwards on the canals you have to leave Amsterdam in the middle of the night. The first bridge opened at 2.15 am and then all the boats leaving Amsterdam went together through the city in a parade that looked like a beautiful red/green/white pearl band. Everything went smooth except for a drunk Dutch that made the trip little inconvenient from time to time. The Dutch and his buddy were smoking and drinking while going in the convoy through Amsterdam. In one of the locks they almost started fighting and had severe problems keeping the boat to the side. At one point their boat was lying vertical in the lock since they hadn’t tighten the ropes properly. Guess who was just next them and little worried about getting overdriven by them? Of course, we were moored just next to them in the lock and really furious about their behaviour. I mean, being drunk when sailing is NOT accepted and if we had been in Sweden, this would be a very great topic for the TV show, “Kustbevakarna”. Luckily we weren’t’t hit by them and ended up at a bridge close to the airport at around 4 am, where we had to wait until it would open at 8 am. Consequently, we got a few hours of sleep before we continued and ended up in the city famous for its cheese, Gouda.
Even though Gouda is very proud of their well-known cheese and showing it by putting cheese above the streets, the city has more to offer. It has also a beautiful old city town with a 15th century huge church. After a chill afternoon at the boat, we went to an Italian restaurant and celebrated the fact that we have been on go for a month.Today the sun is shining nicely and we are heading for Rotterdam. Since it is my aunt Bodil’s 50th birthday today I want to send her an extra regard; happy Birthday! /First Mate
Still waiting for the bridge to open...
Posted On Sunday, 9 August 2009 at at 01:35 by First MateDue to technical problems yesterday, the bridge couldn't open and we had to stay on more night in Amsterdam. However, I wouldn't say it was a pitty staying a little longer, we have had a wonderful, relaxing Saturday in a cool city. Now we have been told that the bridge should open in any minute, so we are running the engine and getting ready to spend a long night on the canals. There are a lot of bridges to cross in order to get out of the city, and not until we have passed all of them we can go to sleep. However, one step at a time, first we will see whether the bridge really is gonna open, as you might have noticed; in a sailor´s world anything can happen. /First Mate
Waiting for the bridge to open
Posted On Saturday, 8 August 2009 at at 02:44 by The Captain
7 pm we arrived at the first bridge, around ten other yachts were waiting in front of it. When we had payed the fee we were all allowed to pass at the same time. We were told to moor along the starboard quay until about 2 am when the railway bridge would open. But the bridge master told us to stay awake since the time could be changed. We started with dinner, moved on to Sex and the City, after two episodes we began to get rather tired. We heated water in the electric water kettle, it runs on 12 V, therefore it takes like an hour to get the water hot. You have to start in time, but we're glad to have it, especially now when we have run out of gas. The tea helped for a short while, then we tried chocolate, but we got more and more tired. 2.15 am when the bridge was supposed to open according to the pilot there was no movement among the other yachts. A short while later the neighbours that we are moored along knocked on Cantare. They told us there was a computer problem on the bridge and that they wouldn't open it at all tonight. The next opening will be a day later. After trying so hard not to fall asleep I was suddenly wide awake. We had talked about reaching Gouda in the afternoon, now we have to stay in Amsterdam one more day. Not to bad though, we are moored in the city center, no fee so far and free WiFi. Life as a sailor is unpredictable. / The Captain
Visiting Amsterdam
Posted On Friday, 7 August 2009 at at 10:40 by The Captain
Amsterdam is a lovely city, we like it a lot. After a quick look on the city center on Tuesday evening we stayed in the Sixhaven harbour until late Wednesday afternoon. The sun was shining and it was too hot to go into the city center. But that was alright, then we had time to relax on the foredeck. During Wednesday another Swedish yacht arrived, S/Y Candela, it's a 40 ft Jeaneau with 8 persons about our age. They are going to sail to New Zeeland in 19 months, their schedule are much tighter than ours and they will probably move on a lot quicker. Maybe we'll see them again in La Coruña if we speed up. Wednesday evening we met up with the crew of S/Y Candela and took the ferry to the city centre. It was hard finding a table for ten, but we did and enjoyed our second dinner out. Still no LPG on Cantare so we can choose between going out or eating cold food. The rest of the evening we cruised around different bars, trying local beers. Don't worry mothers we didn't go to any coffeshops. But the smell of cannabis was everywhere and on our way back towards the ferry we ended up in the Red Light District. It was strange seeing all tourist watch the prostitutes in their windows. We didn't stay long.
Yesterday we borrowed some charts from S/Y Candela and took them to a local printing store where they copied them for us. Now we have charts to the Canaries, and hopefully someone in the ARC will lend us theirs for the Caribbean. That way we save a lot of money, since we use our digital charts all the time they are for back up only.
After a quick lunch aboard we decided to finally explore the city during day light. Erik, a friend from Sweden, was in Amsterdam for two days and j
oined us. We walked through the Red Light District ones again towards 
the Anne Frank house and an area called Jordaan. The queue to Anne Frank house was long and we decided to go back later. We strolled around Jordaan and it was much less crowded with tourists. The houses are very nice, tall and narrow with big windows looking out over the canals. On the canals small boats stride up and down between the houseboats and barges. We stopped for ice-cream and enjoyed sitting down for a while, then continued on. When returning to the Anne Frank house the queue 
was just as long, we'll save that visit for another time. Instead we tried a local specialty, miniature pancakes. They were very sweet and quite nice.
In the evening we had dinner in the cockpit, afterwards we went over to Candela where they held a pool party on foredeck. As the night crept on the neighbours started to hush, we went home to sleep around 2 am to the neighbours delight. Today the radio called us earlier than they usually do, we were still asleep. Maybe some of you missed us, then you can hear it here.
Today we will leave Amesterdam and continue southwards. The bridges in the city center opens up between 2 am and 4 am, probably because they want to disturb the traffic as little as possible. Therefore we will not leave the harbour until tonight. I have uploaded some new pictures from Amsterdam, you find them here. / The Captain
