Bonify at large

Monday 26 th June – Last bridges Haarlem, looking back the way we came in Haarlem is quite pretty in the centre and we have an early walkabout. The two red lights on the bridge picture above indicate that there's no service and that's because we're up and about so early. Once the bridge service starts up we are able to leave Haarlem fairly swiftly.  The only bridge we've ever paid a toll for is on the way out of Haarlem. (Strictly the toll is for the lock). It's also the only bridge that has started closing down on us when we had a green light to pass. That was in 2014 and we've never met anyone else that this has happened to – except of course for Alan who was next to us then on his Yarmouth 23. We had no damage (though we weren't completely sure of that until we took the mast down the following winter) but Alan had moved off first and he lost his aerial before the cries and whistles of those behind us alerted the bridge operator. I

Sunday 25 th June – to Haarlem – 11.6nm We're following what is known as the Staande Mastroute, or mast-up route, north through the Netherlands. To guide us we have an excellent publication from the ANWB, unfortunately in a now rather out-of-date edition. The charts are usable although some new bridges have been built since our 2009 edition was published. Goudaaksebrug just south of Gouda wasn't in our book and nor was the Amaliabrug just to the north. Some bridges have new names just to confuse us (such as the Kaagbrug where we spent last night, which used to be called the Sassenheim) and the timetables for the bridge openings are often out of date too. It's been updated once in pencil (when we used it in 2014) and now we're using it in conjunction with a pdf file of up-to-date bridge timetables on Howard's mobile phone. Laborious but it seems to be working. The mast-up route(s) across the Netherlands. We didn't do pages 4 or 5 but came in to Do

Sat 24 th June – to Alphen an der Rhein and then on to the Kaag – 17.3nm We had left the Hollandse Ijssel river now and were on the Gouwe which passes through some very wet country. A lot of the land around here is very low polder, reclaimed years ago from big old salty lakes and constantly being drained, but my photo of the chart plotter as we approached Boskoop shows it particularly soggy looking. Watery view of Boskoop on our electronic chart plotter - black boat shape in middle shows our position. Course is 011 degrees, speed over the ground is 5.7kts Bridges can get a bit repetitive to wait around for on a windy day, and also pretty dull to read about I imagine, so we'll gloss over those. After one of them, in the centre of Alphen an der Rhein, we stopped to have a look around and do some shopping. Sail cover is on as we are not attempting to sail in the canals - some yachts do hoist (or unfurl) a head sail when the wind is right, and we could do tha

Thur 22 nd to Fri 23 rd June - Sweltering in Gouda We'd had poo tank issues back in Calais as was recorded earlier in this blog. Howard had discovered a leak and had decommissioned the tank pending repairs. He needed to insert a through-hull type fitting into the bottom of the tank to replace the plastic spigot which had failed. With this in mind he'd had a 48mm hole saw delivered to Ostend by friends but had put off the work until Gouda where Rik has his boatyard. I don't think he dreamt he'd be doing this crappy job in such a heat – 30 degrees plus is hardly ideal for working below deck on plumbing, and dirty plumbing at that. That's the poo tank, extracted and out on deck Forepeak where poo tank sits behind the wooden "bits" - all shelving dismantled to get it out... ...and all the usual contents of the forepeak stacked up in the saloon In case you thought I was just lounging about in the sunshine while he did this – well yo

Wed 21 st June - To Gouda 17.6 nm Jules and Ad came to see us off from Dordrecht and took some photos as we headed off across the Oude Maas from the Wijnhaven. Here are her pics (thank you Jules): Motoring out of the Wijnhaven towards the exit bridge Through the bridge (I'm on the VHF to the VTS) - On the far quay Ad is also on the phone This is a busy junction and Sector Dordrecht VTS are giving me a long complicated message about ship movements up river (up which river??) I rush back to report the gist of it to the skipper... But basically we go for it anyway and I wave goodbye We had timed it right for the opening schedule of the first bridge on our way, the Ablasserdam bridge, which duly held up the traffic to let us through. Ablasserdam bridge lifting just for us - traffic halted on a fairly busy road However the next hurdle was the bridge at Algerasluis which closes after the 15.20 opening until 19.20. We had allowed an hour,

Monday 19th -Tuesday 20th June It's just 8 miles from our mooring up the River Spui to Oud-Beijerland and then just under 12 more miles the following day to be tucked up cosy in Dordrecht. We're still in familiar territory here so there are gaffer friends wherever we go. Or rather we are stopping wherever there are gaffer friends... Some sights along the way: Costa del Spui - classy little caravan park with its own beach We were surprised to see how far these piles go in Nice quiet spot on the river bank for swimming Obligatory windmill/dyke/village shot That's a ferry ahead It sets off again as soon as we pass, angled due to the 2kts of current Oud-Beijerland is a good place to stop - the harbour is in the town with lots of shops (and bars) around. Anneke and Kees live near here and we see their gaffer Snoopy in the harbour. Kees is away working but Anneke joins us on board for a barbeque and we spend a very jolly evening - if rather hot