Our dog, Jay, is young, playful and needs a lot of exercise. During our winter-stay in Amersfoort we take him, almost on a daily basis, by car to De Lange Duinen (‘The Long Dunes’), part of De Soester Duinen (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soester_Duinen - only in Dutch) for an hour walk. This possibility is mostly not available when cruising. Therefore, we bought a ‘hands-free-dog-next to the bike’ device and started on Monday the 25th of May to learn him how to trot (not gallop!) next to a bike. He did all right from the first attempt!

This is how it looked on the 29th of May – the day we left. Nowadays it seems to be normal to leave the mess behind after eating sunflower seeds. Hold on, there’s more misery to come.

The same morning a council-worker arrives and cleans the mess. He is an important man all-right, though in this case his job should be unnecessary. Our winter-mooring space, btw, is very close to this spot.

After doing a number of essential jobs, like changing engine-oil and -filter, shopping, buying dog-food in the pet shop etc., we finally left Amersfoort at 2:34 PM. Eembrugge/Baarn, the Ocrieteiland to be precise, was reached less than two hours later and the engine was switched off at 4:22 PM. That was on Friday; on Saturday the lemsteraak-type ‘Witte Uil’ (White Owl) breasted up to our ship, making for a nice picture from the opposite bank. A thing perhaps worth knowing is that Princess Beatrix’s boat ‘De Groene Draeck’ (The Green Dragon) is a lemsteraak, too. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Groene_Draeck - much more elaborated in Dutch).

The view from the grassy shore behind our ship onto the river Eem – its course from the bridge to the left. We’re moored in a side-branch in the foreground.

Jay was highly interested in another dog. We catched him in time. It might have developed into a real 'dog-fight'. He proved to be a skilled one when a counterattack is needed!

All types of ships are cruising by. Here’s just an example of a nice one – not even the best/most interesting one though. That was a historic ship named ‘Bolivar’. We regretted not to have a camera at hand to make a picture. Perhaps there will be another opportunity. That was it for this week. Bye for now.