Later, around 9:00AM, the water became more and more choppy and the clouds direr. But hey, who’s afraid of a bit of breeze or rain?

Almost an hour later we spotted a tiny island in the IJmeer, named Hooft and visible at 11 o’clock on this picture. According to our documents it was possible to moor on the lee side, and that’s what we decided to do. There’s not a lot of fun to cruise under these circumstances and we are in no hurry at all.

Here we are, protected against the somewhat rough water by a tiny sort of dyke. As one can see on the lee side of the island indeed.

It is ages ago that we spotted a genuine goldfinch (‘putter’ in Dutch, the ‘u’ pronounced as in ‘but’). It’s not easy to picture one, let alone two, especially when it is this close. Therefore our apologies for the quality but these colourful birds are a good excuse to publish the picture anyway.

The next day, Wednesday the 26th of April, we left Hooft at 9:31AM in good spirit – unaware of the horrors (well, discomforts at least) to come. The well-known, if not famous artificial island of Pampus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pampus) with Amsterdam in the background came in sight around three quarters of an hour later.

The lakes that were formed within what once was called the Zuiderzee are still really vast and impressive. It creates a feeling of being at sea, really.

The weather still looks, say, inviting. Normal winds, nice skies, in short: a pleasant enough view. Just for the record: this picture was taken at 11:06AM.

We’re here probably already on the Markermeer. Amsterdam is still reasonable visible in the background. Time of this picture: 11:17AM.

11. It’s 11:50Am now – Amsterdam only vaguely visible and we know it’s there. Within less than an hour the weather conditions have deteriorated hugely. Look at the waves and our tight flag. The waves come rolling sideways and we are in the middle of it!

When we were tossed around we, self-evidently, could hear a lot of noise from below. Caused by a combination of (1) ‘too late’ and (2) ‘too indisposed’ and (3) the hands needed at the wheel we were, as it were, ‘condemned’ to just listen and loudly sighing when the sound of breaking glass, or something similar, was to be heard. Here’s an impression of our galley’s floor afterwards. We must be honest: it worked out not that bad after cleaning. A (green) bottle of jenever (gin) did not survive however and forced us to find a liquor-store immediately after arrival. An obvious priority we’d say.

Not a lot later than 2:00PM we arrived at the first lock for ages, the Noordersluis at Lelystad, offering access to the canal-system of Zuid-Flevoland. We could enter the lock at 2:25PM because we had to wait for an ascending commercial ship, pictured here leaving the lock. We left the lock at 2:32PM and continued our travels on calm(!) water, 6 meters (almost 20 feet) lower(!!!!) than the Markermeer. Think about that!

Zuid-Flevoland is a part of the province of Flevoland – the latter established on the 1st of January 1986. See for more stunning information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flevoland. It’s almost unimaginable that this part was finally drained as late as 1968 and that nowadays its largest city, Almere, established 1984 houses around 200.000 inhabitants. Admittedly it’s spring, but doesn’t this look utterly lovely? Admittedly (encore) Flevoland is as flat as flat can be but have a look at it when you are ever in the position to do so.

At long last, 4:09PM, we were lucky to find a nice spot at the outskirts of Lelystad. After an eventful journey of 6 hours and 38 minutes, no less! The light of the low sun at 8:10PM offered us the opportunity to make this lovely picture of the spot we still are today.

Three quarters of an hour later that same evening the light of the setting sun even created this. An opportunity not to miss. There’s no manipulation here. Honest. This was exactly what it looked like.