Durgerdam and North Amsterdam

Monday 26th and Tuesday 27th June

Durgerdam, just around the corner from Amsterdam but a world apart.

For the first night we're on the "Aanmeldsteiger" at the sailing club here, which is the jetty where visitors report to be allocated a berth. As we're a bit wide for the slots they have left and we arrive quite late they let us stay here.

View from the other side. That odd fender hanging out doesn't look very pretty but it's a courtesy thing – it sends a message that says to other boats arriving “you are welcome to tie up alongside us”.



When we first met Joachim he was sailing his Falmouth workboat Ragamuffin years ago on the east coast of England with his friend and ours Jon Wainwright. They made a right pair: laughing and drinking and smoking and sailing their boats hard.





Sula is Joachim's new boat - she looks lovely and he is delighted with her. He and Julia come and joins us from Amsterdam and even though it's a work day tomorrow they stay on board Sula and we all have a jolly booze-up together.








We decided to stay here another day so we moved off the reporting jetty and over to a fine spot for monitoring the traffic outside. We did hang a fender out again, of course, but not until we'd taken the photo.

Jobs first: since the poo tank had to come out we've been living with the forepeak demolished (no shelves), and the contents either on the deck or in the saloon. We hope to be sailing from here, not just motoring so Howard invests some time in reassambling the forepeak. We get our saloon back to normal....





...bathroom stuff and sails all back where they belong





With that all done we decided to explore North Amsterdam a bit. We took a couple of buses as far as the ferry stop near Sixhaven Marina and then walked all the way back to Durgerdam, keeping as close to the water as we could. This took us through some old industrial areas but also the very pretty old village of Nieuwendam.


Nieuwendam


Navigation by paper map for a change


Next photos are of the smallest of ferries.
There's one like this in the harbour we're in too but this one is really tiny. If you're unlucky you have to wind the handle to get the floating platform back to your side first, and then you wind yourself across. You could tell by the visitors book at the sailing club that this is one of the highlights of the harbour for kids - photos show Howard operating one we used on our walk to cross a little side channel. There are boats up there on the left so the idea is that the ferry's cable sinks and they can still pass in and out.

We're in luck - it's over on our side already

Howard does the hard part

View aft as we go


Our walk takes us past the locks we came though on Bonify - there's even a viewing platform

...and back to Durgerdam


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