Monday the 15th of June – our third, and final, day at the mooring spot ‘Kleine Zwaan’ (Little Swan) inside the Drontermeer. And pleasant it was, as proven by this picture of the dog and his mistress. Mind you, later on we had to remove dozens of (little) ticks from his dense coat. We think we’ve got them all. We were warned beforehand, it is ‘tick-season’, so to speak – but one can hardly demand a dog to stay indoors under these (gorgeous, weather-wise speaking) circumstances.

Tuesday the 16th we finally left at 10:46AM, planning to cruise the new navigable canal, the Reevediep (double e after the R), starting next to the Reve (single e after the R!) Island inside the Drontermeer and leading towards the river IJssel, just south of Kampen. Before reaching the Reevediep’s entrance from the south a new lock (the Reevesluis) has been built, replacing the at present still operating Roggebotsluis. Here we approach the newly built Reevesluis, not yet in use – but already provided with traffic lights.

The wide new waterway, Reevediep, equipped with brand new buoys.

At the end (beginning) of the Reevediep there’s the, also newly built, lock the Scheeresluis. We’re leaving that lock here. As the traffic lights indicate there’s oncoming traffic approaching.

After having tackled the Scheeresluis the mighty river IJssel is soon reached. As already mentioned the river is entered just south of the historic Hanseatic town of Kampen. Every time it's impressive to see the contours of Kampen and the ‘brown fleet’, the latter moored at the quay in the river.

We soon left the IJssel and entered the river Ganzendiep (‘goose deep’), after negotiating the Ganzensluis (‘goose lock’). By the way, we didn’t notice any difference in level, not inside the Scheeresluis, nor the Ganzensluis. Both are developed to protect the hinterland, respectively to regulate the water level. Until the 19th century the Ganzendiep was the main branch of the river IJssel. We switched off the engine at 1:50PM, after tying up at the village of Grafhorst – part of the borough of Kampen.

After two free nights at Grafhorst we left on Thursday at 10:19AM. We cruised a branch of the Ganzendiep, named Goot (‘gutter/drain’), followed by a relatively narrow navigable waterway (part of the vast shallow lake Zwarte Meer), named Scheepvaartgat (‘shipping hole’??) eventually reaching the Zwarte Water (‘black water’). Not a lot after that we left the Zwarte Water, to moor inside Genemuiden’s port. We are moored at the very end, inside the second part of the port – meaning behind an emergency-gate, to be used in case of flood. The danger of floods was a lot more real in the pre-Afsluitdijk era, when the IJsselmeer was still the Zuiderzee, therefore prior to 1932 – now 88 years ago.

Genemuiden is well known for its carpet industry. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genemuiden. As seen on the previous picture, bulrush in many colours is hanging here – for tourist-information purposes.

A somewhat blurred picture of what the Achterweg (Nachtweg) looked like in the old days.

The only remaining, well organised, haystack along the Achterweg (Nachtweg).

The now well maintained part of the Achterweg (Nachtweg) where the majority of the wooden buildings is to be found.

Just for your information. This is the (present) view from the spot where the weekly blog is created.