After 3 times 24 hours we were forced (well, see hereafter) to leave our first mooring-spot in Alphen. We have to be honest and add to this assertion that we’ve overstayed occasionally. Without hindering others, we think. So in this case we left at 9:41AM with the plan in mind to stop again in Alphen a/d Rijn, not far from where we were. That plan could be executed, because the next spot was completely empty when we approached it. So we made a U-turn (the starboard-side is our preferred entry and exit side) and moored next to the billiard café ‘De Heul’ (in this case: bolthole??). Our engine stopped already after a bit over 12 minutes, at 9:55AM.

In front of us was a bridge with a vertical clearance of 5,50 meters (over 18 feet). And a moving part, too. As not to disturb the traffic too much the moving part opens only more or less immediately for cargo boats. Btw, if fully loaded, the ‘normal’ vertical clearance most of the time is sufficient for large cargo boats. Anyway, the large-masted sailboats either are sometimes confronted with long waiting-times – or follow a cargo boat that is too high for the fixed vertical clearance. In the distance a cargo boat is visible with several sailing boats in its ‘wake’. The cruiser that becomes just visible behind the flag of the province Zuid-Holland sails on.

On Thursday the 29th of July a giant private yacht, possibly owned by an oil sheikh or someone similar, towed by a tugboat front and aft, passed us – maybe on its way to a slipway somewhere inside Alphen a/d Rijn, or going back to its usual environment, being the sea (or next to more gaudy yachts inside some harbour within the Mediterranean). As this picture shows, the river Oude Rijn is pretty wide here.

A cargo boat had made room for the giant private yacht by mooring temporarily on its port-side and left without losing more time than necessary.

We overstayed one night (!, shame on us) and left on Friday the 30th of July at 10:10AM. After negotiating some 10 or 11 bridges (some of them high, some of them had to be opened) and a lock Gouda was reached after un uneventful cruise of 3 hours. Our engine was switched off at 1:10PM. We are still on the spot that is made clear by this picture - lurking for a place on the other side, where electricity is available.