This time I've been doing a poor job on discarding photos - here is one day of sailing covered by 34 photos! What does the audience say, less is more, or more is better? :-)

In my previous post, the van de Blockq harbour review, I wrote that I didn't take any photos of the harbour. It seems like I lied ... I found this photo from us departing from the harbour in the early morning, 06:20 ...

Here is another photo of the pumping station:

I mentioned "commercial activity" in my previous post ... two ships left from this harbour area together with us, here is one of them. There is a car on the photo, but it's not on the ship, it's parked on the breakwater behind. Quite many of those long, low ships do have a car (sometimes even two or three and a boat in addition) parked on the aft deck ... just like we bring our bikes with us in our ship?

Markermeer

One of the traditional flat-bottomed ship passing us (and a windmill behind). I got surprised at the sheer amount of such flat-bottomed ships (in many different sizes) we saw ... though, at this sighting it we still considered it to be a rare experience. The thing on the side is a keel, it has one on each side that can be lowered when sailing against the wind. They are also used for turning faster in harbour.

Here we are in the waiting area for entering the Naviduct Krabbersgat at the Houtribdijk. Traffic in the opposite direction has just been let out from the lock. The dijk is not a real dike but more like a dam separating Markermeer and IJsselmeer. It was built to be a dike though, as most of the current Markermeer was supposed to be made into dry land. I guess the most important feature of this construction today is the road - and to make the road connection efficient, the road is tunelled under the boat traffic - that's why it's called a Naviduct and not simply a lock.

Green light already!

Birds, everywhere. I'm generally trying to steer away when possible, but things are a bit stressful inside the lock.

I wanted to try to get to the top of the boat to take photos of the car traffic, but I was a bit clumsy with the ropes ... and then suddenly we should leave the gate already, so the photo below was all I got from the gate. There isn't much difference in water level between the two lakes, hence the lock time is rather short.

IJsselmeer

I tried taking a panorama at the other side of the naviduct ...

Quite many other boats going in our direction. The lake is quite big, can't see the end of it ...

There were really lots of insects following us today. I didn't take picture of the bathing platform, down there one could find an even bigger heap of insects, most of them dead already.

Another one of those traditional boats ... after this one I got fed up photographing flat-bottom-boats, there were too many of them.

Seems like we're coming to the end of the lake ...

Here we are at the waiting before the next lock, Kornwederzand at the Afsluitdijk. Strange that I don't have any better picture of the waiting area, we spent some time here. It takes more time to pass the lock and more time to wait for the lock due to the tides at the outside, and the fact that they need to close the highway for traffic while boats are passing the bridge (they've considered replacing the current locks with naviducts, but has postponed it due to the high cost). In addition, a boat came on our outside encouraging us to wait a bit longer because we were a bit too early to enjoy the tidal current in our direction, so we skipped the first lock passing.

Here is the lock ... we got relatively densely packed in there ...

Seems to be only one boat in the other lock chamber

... out we go ...

Wadden sea

Apparently almost four hours passed without me taking any photos. Phone charging perhaps? Bad that I failed to photograph Harlingen when we passed there. We're now on our way to Terschelling. Which sunset photo is best ... the one actually showing the sun, or the one without the sun?

Take a look again at the photo above ... it looks like sea, sea, lots of sea ... and some land in the distance. From the picture it looks obvious that one just point the bow in the direction one wants to go, and travel in a direct line. But no ... no, that's not how it works in the Wadden sea! There is no direct route to Terschelling. The tidal current was still going out from the Wadden sea ... so first we were going with the current from Harlingen and almost out to the northern sea, then we had to turn and go against the current for a relatively short distance, but since we got quite lousy speed there we spent a relatively long time on this part. Then there was a smaller and not so deep channel, where we again got quite good speed as we were travelling with the current. Last we again had to fight against the current for a short stretch ... here is a bouy in the sea, and one can clearly see that the current is indeed quite strong.

It looks quite silly most of the time, now that's where we want to go, but no ... that's the way we have to go first. Especially when we left Terschelling, we had to go back the same way, the ferry left port shortly after us and it was really silly seeing the ferry zig-zagging in the apparent completely wrong directions (but that's another post).

Selected photos available in original quality on IPFS QmQ9xUmHqaG7f8osLpqDHPviGt4aFrSA1DCKh3uYfLNtEe. All photos taken available in original quality on IPFS QmPuezSH3KqsMJACLJvdTSuEXLv98C66he8NFyrAAPgJAP. License: CC BY-SA 4.0