Harderwijk, no matter how nice, was (with some regret) left on Tuesday the 26th at 9:14 am. We arrived in Elburg around 12 o'clock and were able to moor exactly between a large tour boat and a couple of double moored 'gin palaces'. On this photo the tour boat just leaves for the former Zuiderzee with a bunch of tourists on board.

Eekt, which is -as all the islands inside the Randmeren (Bordering Lakes)- not for free, but substantially cheaper than, say, Harderwijk, was left on Saturday the 30th of April at 9:37AM. At ease we passed the Reevesluis (which replaces the Roggebotsluis) (sluis = lock) and sailed, changing direction towards starboard, onto the relatively new Reevediep. The Reevediep, and its surroundings, was constructed as a means of collecting water when the water level of the river IJssel becomes dangerously high. It is a real shortcut towards and from the town of Kampen – only for pleasure boats. This is what it looks like. The dikes around this vast area are visible and give an impression of the amount of water that can be stored.

After having sailed the Reevediep we negotiated the lock Scheeresluis at the end. This lock divides the IJssel-area from the Reeve-area in case of high water – hence the huge, heavy, high gates on the river-side.

This is a picture of the Scheeresluis showing the difference in height between the pairs of gates on either side of the lock.

We moored at 11:24 AM on the river-side of the aforementioned Scheeresluis where one is allowed to stay for free during a maximum of 2 nights. Note the vast commercial ship just passing on the river (Gelderse) IJssel – a branch of the Rhine-delta inside The Netherlands.

After some rest we decided to walk into Kampen that same Saturday. Here are our female half and our dog waiting for the male half in front of Kampen’s Koornmarktpoort (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koornmarktspoort). The walk was a bit longer than we anticipated…

After calling the harbourmaster making sure there was a space for us in the small city port (there was!) we left the Scheeresluis-area today (Sunday!) at 2:38PM. We want to be in the city port because of a family visit the next day. That’s rather Important as we haven’t seen each other for a long time – due to COVID-19. We arrived in Kampen-centre at 3:17PM and are moored as shown by the picture. The river IJssel is visible in the background. (Nota bene: we turned inside this little port, so the current has no hold on us. Besides, there was not a lot of wind.)

Lucky dog. Next to the city port is a small fenced off terrain where he (Jay) is able to move freely.