It is now two months since we arrived in Holland and we have just completed our first month on the boat. The weather in April was very nice and the first three weeks of May cool and showery with some days of heavy rain. This last week has been sunny and hot, in the 80s. Whenever the weather is good the local people tell us that it is very unusual for Holland and it should be rainy and cold.

I hope you can read the map which shows the waterways of Holland. The yellow highlight shows where we have been, the red circles where we have stopped and the red highlight where we intend to go next. (The Nautic Ring marks are locations of a marine store chain that sponsored the map). The red circle between Delft and Leiden is The Hague.

We are now in Alkmaar, a small city 30 minutes by train north of Amsterdam on the northwest peninsula of Holland. All the cities we have visited were founded from the 10th to the 12th centuries and came to prosperity during the 16th and17th centuries. With the exception of Rotterdam which was flattened in World War II, most of the original buildings and streets have been preserved and restored. We have seen many historical and art museums, old and modern architecture and gardens. Patricia’s broad and eclectic tastes have been well satisfied. My tastes (or lack of them) preclude my enjoyment of most modern art. Some of it actually makes me angry. Rotterdam was rebuilt in the 1950s and is touted for its modern architecture. Much of it is in unpainted concrete which now looks dirty. Many of the buildings were designed as pieces of “art” and most of these look just plain silly. Of course they are decorated with sculptures consisting mostly of misshapen piles of bronze, welded steel, rocks and concrete, sometimes in combination. The other cities have been delightful: winding narrow streets and many canals, beautifully restored buildings and the odd windmill slowly revolving.

My bicycle was stolen in Delft, right off the bow of the boat while we slept. It was very careless of me to leave it unlocked and I have learned my lesson. We were told that 75,000 bicycles are stolen each year here. I now have a very proper Dutch bicycle (made in Taiwan of course). It is aluminum, but far from light, because it is huge with 28 inch wheels and a big frame. The riding position is bolt upright, none of those racing handlebars, the seat is comfortable and the front forks are sprung. It has 21 speeds but here the biggest hill is going over a bridge and 3 speeds would be quite sufficient.

We were very pleasantly surprised to get a note from an English cruising couple, Tessa and Gordon, whom we met on the Rio Dulce in Guatemala. When we last saw them in Belize they were headed back to England to swallow the anchor and settle back in their home in the north of England. They came to Germany to visit friends there and stopped on the way home to see us in Delft. We had moved the boat down to the main quay and had permission to stay there for four days. We met Tessa and Gordon at the railway station on the third day and had planned a nice afternoon and evening in Delft and a departure the next morning for Leiden. When we got to the boat a large tourist barge was coming along the canal. There are two kinds of commercial barges: huge transporters up to 80 meters long and smaller tourist barges 20 to 40 meters. The tourist barges or hotel barges accommodate 6 to 30 people and don’t stay more than a day or so in one place; we call them bicycle barges because they always have racks of bicycles on deck. So when we get on Fiesta the barge comes alongside and tells us to leave. We tell him we have permission to be there and could move up to give him room. He says we must leave, five more barges are coming in. We say ok, we need to get organized and then we will leave. He says leave now or he, and the other barges, will raft against us. We leave. He yells at us to go home to America. We had a nice trip to Leiden, stopping overnight at the quay of a small town called Leidschendam and negotiating our first lock. It was nice to have Tessa and Gordon to help with the lines. They stayed with us in Leiden for a few more days and we all had a good time.

Everywhere we have stayed, except Delft, has a passantenhaven (transient moorage) either on a quay along a canal or in a marina. Prices range from free to $10 a day; some have electricity and water. The moorage is usually right in or very close to the city center.

This Saturday Dutch friends we met in Delft will come to visit. We will leave here with them and travel east to Purmerend, where they will catch the train back on Sunday. Then our next destination will be Monickendam; more details in our next missive.

Internet access is more difficult that I expected. Only in Delft and here in Alkmaar have I been able to hook up my laptop directly; elsewhere in some places I have been able to use a floppy to transfer text, but many places lock up their computers and are too afraid of viruses to allow me to put in a floppy so I must type the messages in and copy the received messages, bank statements, etc. to a piece of paper. No one has heard of WiFi wireless access so my plug in card has gone unused.

When we bought the boat it was equipped with satellite television, which the owners took with them leaving only the wiring. We succumbed to temptation and bought the decoder and dish antenna. Instead of a TV we bought a 17 inch flat panel LCD which also doubles as a computer monitor. We get over 600 channels, some of which are audio music only; there is no monthly charge for these channels but premium channels are available for a subscription. The channels originate from England, Holland, France, Germany and Spain. All, of course, are in their native languages, but some show movies in English with Dutch subtitles. The French and Germans however dub the movies.

As always we love to here from you. PLEASE, PLEASE check your e-mail program settings so that you do not include this message in your replies; it fills up our server space and then new messages to us are rejected. If you do not know how to change the settings just send a new message instead of clicking on reply.

That’s all for now,

Colin and Patricia

M/Y Fiesta