The winter 2006-2007 was without real big events. We had a quiet new year in Middelharnis, we visited many friends and family, spent almost a month 'holidays' in Switzerland, and did a lot of work and repairs on Grote Beer.

The weather was very warm in average, which kept our heating cost low.

An important share of our life this winter were, next to our grandchildren twins, both our mothers. They are now both 88. They enjoyed having us around on a halfway regular basis, instead of having us thousands of miles away at the other end of an e-mail wire.

 

Our first big round trip brought us to Sweden, where we visited Els' medical family.

Because is was the Christmas period and because 3 members of the family sing in the local choir, we went to a super performance of the Christmas Oratorium in Oskarshamn.

We did a number of interesting tours in the neighbourhood. Sweden in the winter is a special country, though living there in the dark part of the year is probably not to everybodies liking.

The trip through Germany and Denmark with our old Peugeot went well though the weather was horrible.

In January we spent 4 weeks in Switzerland. We had a big house at the lake of Zurich as 'holiday resort'.

We were really very active during these 4 weeks. For 10 day we had Jantine and bastiaan and the twins over, we made a lot of excursions to various places and visited many old friends or had them over to 'our place'. In many cases it was seeing them again after a long time away. Also we had first talks to start planning our next phase in life. After the end of our sailing years we will return to Switzerland. But that will be another 2 years.

In February and March we did the boat repairs.

The main items were a new mainsail boom and a track on the main mast. Frank in Hamburg made us new beautifull covers on our deck storage boxes. In cooperation with a furniture makers i renovated the ceilings in our deckhouse and saloon. Installed a new set of service batteries and at the end a new set of solar modules.

Most repairs were simply old age or wear and tear, but the solar panels did not live up to the life time expectation.

Els spent a week on the island of Texel with Elisabeth Loepfe. They enjoyed it very much and looked at the 2007 sheep generation.

Now Easter is getting closer. From 23.mar on we will be in the outter harbour for 2 weeks because the water level in the canal is being lowered for inspections and repairs.

It is our goal to leave Middelharnis around Easter. We will then cruise through Holland at leisure for a few weeks and carry on into Germany in May. This years' goal is the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia.

End may

And that's what we did. First we toured Holland for a month in the most perfect May weather. We searched a winterplace for next winter close to Utrecht (= grandchildren), visited a lot of beautifull and interesting places, sailed on the IJsselmeer for a week with Evert. Holland in optima forma.

Sailing through Holland has its peculiarities. One of them being the fact that in Friesland the fee for many locks and bridges is collected by the bridge keeper by means of a small wooden shoe. Important is to have the correct small change because getting money back is a hasle.

We had 2 major accidents.

In Gouda we were motoring through a city canal at leisure and totally overlooked a big pillar right in the middle of it. It hit us on the port side and reduced our beautifull gangway to very expensive firewood.

I would like to share an interesting story with you. About single handed sailing.

The expression 'single handed' sailing is wrong insofar that it is not meant to be 'with one hand' but 'with one man' or woman. The expression 'hand' on board is used to indicate a man.

In Holland we met a real 'single handed' sailor. Unfortunately he only has one hand, and sails with it, but he also fitted out his own boat with the one hand. A performance indeed.

This of course hurt terribly and a few unnice words slipped my tongue. We really missed it though the pillar had been there for the last 30 years according to the harbourmaster.

We found a wooden boat yard in Kappeln an der Schlei in Germany who will build us a new gangway over the summer. In the meantime we use our aluminiun ladder.

Our second accident we found out on the way to the Elb river after our weather stop in Lauwersoog. Our 30 year old autopilot died. This is very unpractical because we use this autopilot when we cannot sail. In praxis we have to hand steer more and that handicaps us on the long streches.

Also here we have an emergency solution. We fit a small tillerpilot to our windvane stering to keep the boat on course, but that functions in a quiet see only.

After this month in Holland the weather detoriated which forced us to a longer stop in Lauwersoog in the North of Groningen. Then we sailed into the Elb river with a lot of wind and passed through the Kiel canal in a pooring rain. In southern Denmark the world was in good order again and we rested with Frank and Tine from Hamburg at anchor at the island of Lyö.

Then we visited the boat yard for the repair and after that 3 long sailing days through the Danish seas, through the Smaland Farvatten, passed north of Mön and sailed to Ystad in Sweden. It is our goal to proceed to Oskarshamn where the family is waiting for us. But first the winds have to turn into the right corner again.