Jul. 28, 2008 - More Hawaii Than Holland

In spite of all Kim's travelling and ridiculously early starts for work recently, he managed to get home a bit earlier which made our departure more leisurely than of late.  Mandy and Pete were joining us for their first trip to Emjaytoo and although all exhausted, the adrenaline and excitement kept us all up and chatting till gone midnight.

Saturday morning dawned a bit cloudy but very warm.  By the time we had returned from the usual trip to the Meermarkrt, however, there was barely a cloud in the sky and it was lovely to get out on the water and cool off a bit.  As there was more wind than originally forecast, we were even able to sail "properly" for a mile or two, with both the main and genoa, albeit somewhat in slow motion!

Predictably, the whole of the Veerse Meer was heaving with boats but we were lucky enough to find a boat to raft up to on the visitor pontoon at Veere and were soon joined by another boat on the outside.  Part one of the stroll around Veere provided lots of photo opportunities - even for us!  Kim achieved his aim of getting to the end of the breakwater opposite the Campveerse Toren and took some different views of the Kaai.

Upon returning to the boat, we found that the boats on either side of us in the raft had gone, leaving us beautifully tied up directly onto the pontoon, with lines fore and aft and even bow and stern springs.  Pretty impresssive.  So with the skipper reassured and after some refreshments and a rest, we set off to see the rest of the town.  The bells from the town hall are always a feature of Veere, but on Saturday evening we were treated to an hour-long rendition.

Once back on the boat, Kim got the Cobb going and we had an excellent meal, accompanied by Mandy and Pete's bottle of champagne and much laughter and frivolity (the exploding sausage being followed by a an overly zealous BBQ briquette which smoked profusely and would not go out until finally dipped in the water!).

The night's sleep was not the best with the bells every half hour, the heat, the ducks and even an interlude of the slappers, but we nevertheless started Sunday in good spirits, with breakfast in the cockpit in temperatures of 32 degrees in the shade!  Kim bumped into Hans on his way back from the showers and apparently the rest of the Netherlands had had thunderstorms and torrential rain, so we were very fortunate.  Having opted to get the later ferry back, we were able to have a leisurely start and lap up the holiday atmosphere.

Even after a relaxed lunch in the cockpit back at our marina and cleaning the boat, we had time in hand so were able to drive up to the Neeltje Jans visitor centre to see the enormous tidal barrage:

and then to stop off at Vrouwenpolder for an ice cream (thank you Mandy!) on the beach.  It was staggering to see so many people there - like Camber Sands on a bank holiday!

As ever, the journey back seemed quite long but we still managed to enjoy ourselves and arrived back here about 9.40.  It was a great weekend with lots of laughs and some amazing weather (don't listen to the forecasters!) and we hope that our guests will be up for joining us again in the future, for Pete to hone his roving fendering skills and Mandy to have the chance to swim from an island.