Highlights – the overview
We’re leaving Amsterdam and traveling the canals south to Braassemermeer Lake, close to where Wim’s daughter Yara and son-in-law Michael live. They are expecting their first baby and Wim’s first grand baby. We want to be there to meet the new little (future) sailor!
We make our way through the lovely and historic town of Haarlem along the way…
In the early afternoon we arrive at the lake “Braasemermeer”. Wim’s daughter lives close to to this lake. We drop our anchor in a corner of the lake (we are the red arrow).
In order to get to Yara’s, we need to go through a tiny manually-operated lock sized only for dinghies and other small boats, then meander through small canals.
Along a lovely route through very tiny canals, we navigate to their back garden and private dock!
We go visit baby Elin Lune in the hospital, because there were complications at her birth and she’ll need some extra care initially. We’re hoping she can come home soon, and plan to stay anchored in the area for a bit longer.
So what to do while at anchor for what turns out to be two weeks? Any live-aboard sailor will tell you straight away that you work on projects!!!! 🙂
And then there is the ongoing organizing projects…
But it’s not all work (and even the work is a pleasure), as we get to enjoy the fruits of our efforts and wonderful moments…
Read on in the Captain’s Log for the full list of projects, experiences, and more detail (and photos) during our time in Braassemermeer.
Captain’s Log (T+6,7,…21) – the complete story
July 7 – Leaving Amsterdam on Our Way to Braassemermeer
After breakfast, we leave the Sixhaven marina.
We motor up the “IJ” and get onto the “Noordzeekanaal”. Sher hasn’t finished her morning coffee yet and drinks it along the way.
And thus leave our homeport Amsterdam.
Around noon, we turn into “Zijkanaal C” and here, we have to wait a few hours for the bridge in the highway will open.
After the bridge has opened, we continue to the lock of “Spaarndam”.
After the lock, we pass the little marina where Wim has been for 5 years right after the hull was build (2006-2011). The marina is deserted now but the buildings and the crane are still there. It brings back good memories, though.
Then, we get into “Haarlem”. Here, we have to stop to pay the fee for passing all bridges in Haarlem.
It is lovely to sail through the center of Haarlem. We have to pass 8 bridges so it takes some time. That gives us the opportunity to look around!
After we pass Haarlem, we turn into the “Ringvaart Haarlemmermeer”. Every few miles we meet a bridge that has to open for us.
While we sail, we get the message that Wim’s daughter’s baby has been born. Not everything went well and mother and baby have to stay in the hospital. We hope for the best and have confidence that everything will be all right.
It starts raining and it’s 5 o’clock in the afternoon so we decide to call it a day. We turn into the little port of “Hillegom” and more in front of a nice park. Our windgenerator sticks into the trees 🙂
July 8 – continuing on to Braassemermeer
After a lovely quiet night, we continue over the Ringvaart. There’s no rain and it is partially sunny.
Sometimes we meet large cargo ships in the narrow canal and we have to steer close to the edge of the canal.
The area is lovely and the views are great!
In the early afternoon we arrive at the lake “Braasemermeer”. Wim’s daughter lives close to to this lake. We drop our anchor in a corner of the lake (we are the red arrow).
We are anchored right in front of the neighborhood where Wim’s daughter lives.
We inflate the dinghy and go via a little manually-operated sluice/lock to her house.
Along a lovely route through very tiny canals, we navigate to their back garden and private dock!
Back on board, we enjoy a beautiful sunset over their town.
July 9 – First Coffee in the Cockpit and a Visit to See the Newborn Baby
It’s a warm and sunny day. We have coffee in the cockpit and discuss our sunshade construction. During sailing, we have noticed that the mizzen sheet doesn’t have enough clearance from the stainless steel pipes over the aft deck. Hmmm, we’ll have to rebuild that a bit… We make a plan and search for the right materials on the internet.
The weather forecast says: very heavy thunderstorms in the evening. Gusts of wind possibly 50 knots. We don’t know how reliably our anchor will hold here. We have anchored okay so far, and pulled up the anchor in the soil quite well, but we don’t know how it will hold in 50 knots…
In the afternoon, we’re going to visit the baby in the hospital and we’re not sure if we’ll be back before the thunderstorms. We decide it’s better to seek some shelter and moor along a quay in town. So, we heave the anchor around noon and sail a mile to the town of “Oude Wetering” and tie Dione IV very well to the quay… with extra lines and all fenders deployed!
Poor little child, connected to all that equipment. But, she’s doing better by the day!
After we come back from the hospital we have dinner and the thunderstorm breaks loose. We get a huge amount of rain and heavy wind gusts but no 50 knots.
July 10 – Road Trip to Harlingen
Today, we borrow the car of Wim’s daughter and we drive to Harlingen. We have to pick up some stuff from Wim’s storage and some other things. Along the way, we stop at a great professional culinary supply store, Hanos (Sher loves this shop), and we stock up on some things.
July 11 – Sunbrella Sewing and WiFi Interface for Ship’s Network!
In the morning we do some shopping and a coffee with Wim’s daughter. After that, we sail back to the anchorage on the lake. Its partially sunny with a light breeze.
Sher takes out the sewing machine and starts on her first pillow (training project in preparation for the cockpit cushions) from the Sunbrella fabric. We cut it with the rope cutter on the stainless steel lid of the anchor chain locker. Wim could never have thought of such applications! Very funny 🙂 But the heat of the rope cutter cuts the fabric very nice and because the edges melt, the fabric doesn’t unravel.
After a while, there’s a beautiful pillow!
In the meantime, Wim installs the new WiFi interface for the NMEA2000 network. This transmits the boat data to our phones and tablet so that we can see AIS data (Automatic Identification System) on the navigation apps. This is a very useful backup in case there would be a malfunction of the board computer.
Here’s a live view of the screen of the smartphone. The green boats are the boats around us that transmit AIS. A large passenger ship is passing.
The AIS data received by Dione IV’s AIS transponder is transmitted to the smartphone via WiFi.
In the evening, we eat a lovely Aubergine Parmigiana (grilled eggplant) and around 10 o’clock we enjoy another beautiful sunset over Roelofarendsveen.
July 12 – Organizing
A rainy day. We decide to do some re-organizing in the forward cabin. It’s amazing how much stuff there is and how nice our ‘professional organizer’ fits everything back in! There’s even room left when we’re done!
July 13 – More Organizing and a Variety of Projects at Anchor
Another cloudy and rainy day. We run the laundry machine and we spend a few more hours organizing the stuff in the forward cabin and categorizing it. Sher sews another 2 pillows and Wim solves a problem with the shower drain pump we’ve had for some time: both one-way valves are worn out. We have spares and Sher knows where the are! After replacing them, the pump works like a charm!
In the afternoon, there are some sunny intervals and the wind picks up. Ah! Time to get some energy in our battery bank. The last few days have been cloudy with not much wind so the state of charge of our battery bank dropped down to 50%.
With 15 knots of wind, our wind generator yields about 300 watts and with some sun, our solar panels yield about 800 watts. Altogether we have over a kilowatt running into the battery bank. Very nice!
We use about 3 kWh per day and we’re not really sparingly: we cook, we use the boilers for dishwashing and showering, charge 2 laptops, 2 phones, use the washing machine, the oven, cooler, freezer, coffee machine, pumps, lights, etcetera. On cloudy days, we take this energy out of our 13,5 kWh battery bank. On a sunny and windy day like this, we charge about 3-5 kWh back into the battery.
For dinner, we have a delicious cheese, salad and Port.
We love our “Dos Corvos” 20 year old white Port that we bought in Porto last February! We’ll be stocking up when we sail into Porto this fall! (yippee!!!)
July 14 – Enjoying Our Time at Anchor, and more Projects!
A bright and partially sunny day with 10-15 knots of wind. We really enjoy our anchorage on this nice lake.
Sher does some sewing practicing, runs the laundry machine and takes apart another winch for maintenance.
Wim works on the engine. In the morning, he adjusts the engine’s valve clearance. It takes a while to find the markings on the crank shaft pulley: they are overpainted. In the search for more information he finds a very extensive workshop manual for the Mitsubishi engine on a Russian website. It even contains the entire overhaul documentation! We said it multiple times already, but it’s such a great advantage to have this industrial engine (used in Russian corn harvesting machines :)) Anyway, after sanding away the paint, Wim finds the timing markings and adjusts the valve clearances. It needs only a few very tiny adjustments.
Doing this, the engine has to be turned by hand. The front side of the engine is a bit hard to reach and some timber has to be dismounted. Improving this is on our to do list so Wim decides to do that today. The fixed piece becomes a part of the hinging engine hatch. After sawing, gluing, sanding in the afternoon, the front side of the engine is much easier to reach and to inspect (the alternators, water pumps, v-belts).
It is so handy to have all tools and materials on board!
The day finishes with a beautiful sunset.
July 15 – a Fine Day for a Dinghy Tour to Town
A sunny and warm day, almost no wind. In the morning, we dinghy through the little lock into the town.
We moor at the garden terrace of Wim’s daughter and have a coffee with them. The baby is still in the hospital but she’s doing better every day!
After that, we dinghy into the center of Roelofarendsveen and do some shopping.
How convenient to moor the dinghy on a quay in front of the supermarket!
Around noon, we’re back at the anchorage. Dione IV is patiently waiting for us.
We buy a big stock of Sultana Cocos biscuits. They are on sale and we empty the rack 🙂 We both love these cookies and we’ll not find ‘m anywhere outside the Netherlands so, we buy ‘m whenever we can! Sher somehow finds space to store them all!
In the afternoon, Sher does the maintenance of 2 more winches and Wim rebuilds the security cameras in the masts. The camera in the main mast was sticking out too far and the mainsail was rubbing against it when fully boomed out. Now, it is mounted at the side of the mast, free from the sail.
This is the image it generates. It is looking aft, at the stern.
We use it to have a look at the situation when we’re at anchor and we’re not on the boat. It has an intelligent motion detection system so, a person entering the boat will generate an alarm on our mobile phones.
Also, camera mount on the mizzen mast has to be modified a bit. A corner of it punched into the mizzen sail when fully boomed out.
This the image it generates. Its looking forward, to the bow.
We have a delicious dinner: stuffed Aubergine boats.
July 16 – Even More Organizing and Projects (It’s the Cruising Life)!
Windy (15-20 knots from the SW), some rain showers, some sunny spells today. In the morning, we re-organize the portside aft cabin and the storage space below the bed. Like always, the smallest one has to do the job in the narrowest places 🙂
We run the laundry machine but since there are rain showers all the time, we have to dry the things inside. Sher fits nicely in between, sewing pillows.
Sunny and windy is good for our battery bank! Here, we have a top yield of 861 watts. The average during the day is a continuous yield of around 500 watts.
In the afternoon, Wim installs an inverter in the forward cabin. This will be our ’emergency’ inverter. In case of trouble with our main battery bank or our main inverter, this one can take over. It is powered by the bow thruster battery.
To be continued and explained tomorrow!
July 17 – Projects and Testing the Emergency Water Pump
A lovely day. Sunny, a light breeze, 23 degrees C. In the morning, we have coffee at Wim’s daughter’s, we do some shopping (and buy more Sultana Cocos biscuits!)and buy some stuff at a hardware store.
After lunch, Sher continues her sewing projects and Wim finishes the emergency power supply for the laptops. This is a double 55W USB-C charger powered from the bow thruster battery.
In case our main battery bank would malfunction for some reason, we have 7,2kWh’s of power available from the independent bow thruster battery to power a laptop and GPS and AIS receiver for emergency navigation (see our post about backup navigation systems here)
Next, we test another emergency system: the emergency pump. This is a powerful (233L / min) pump for use in a serious flooding situation. But it needs 900W of 230v power and that has to be generated by an inverter. But suppose, in a worst-case scenario, our salon would get flooded? Then, our main battery bank and perhaps the main inverter, would get flooded and thus will be not usable for the pump. The bow thruster battery and the 1600W inverter we installed there are behind a water-tight bulkhead and will be functional when the salon would be flooded. So, we test the pump with this power supply.
The yellow emergency cable runs from the inverter in the forward cabin to the deck salon and powers the pump. Wim sits in the dinghy and holds the pump under water.
Sher holds the hose while we run the pump. Everything works well! But there are some kinks in the hose and Wim tries to turn the hose to straighten it out. Because he turns it, it releases from the pump and then the pump picks up full power. It sprays a fountain of 10m high in the air! Everything gets very wet, including Wim, the aft deck, the cockpit and the cushion in the cockpit 🙂 We have a good laugh about it and we’re happy the system works well. Hopefully we’re never going to need it!!
July 18 – Teal Pillow and Sun Shade
A beautiful sunny, warm day with almost no wind. In the morning, we determine how the rebuild of our sun shade should look like. Together, we look at the possibilities and make a kind of mockup. We try the mizzen sheet to go behind it and decide what it should look like.
In the afternoon, Sher sews a big pillow from the Sunbrella teal fabric. It’s a nice practice for the cockpit cushions. At the end of the afternoon, we have a beautiful big teal pillow!
Wim does the modifications on the sun shade frame. By the end of the afternoon, we put the fabric on and we have a nice shaded cockpit!
The fabric has yet to be modified by a sailmaker because the frame changed but we can arrange that later.
In the evening, we have a lovely dinner with an excellent glass of Sherry in the cockpit.
July 19 – Winches and Painting
A beautiful summer’s day. It starts with a wonderful sunrise at 6 o’clock.
Today, Sher does the maintenance on 2 more winches and Wim does some some small paint jobs (some damages and scratches).
July 20 – The Perfect Morning for Coffee in the Cockpit
Another beautiful and warm summer day. We start with breakfast and coffee in the cockpit!
After that, we dinghy into town to do some shopping. Of course, since the Sultana Cocos biscuits (cookies) are still on sale, we need to buy a bunch more. Whoever is responsible for stocking the shelves in the biscuit department of this shop is probably wondering what is going on… the shelf gets stocked with Cocos flavor and is all gone, then restock the next day, and all those are gone. We did that three days in a row. They’ll probably order more of that flavor and then they’ll all sit there once we’ve left, lol! On this beautiful Saturday, it is really busy in the little lock! There’s even a waiting queue.
In the evening, around 10 o’clock, we enjoy a wonderful sunset!
And a wonderful moonrise.
July 21 – another Home Improvement Organizing Idea and Last Visit to Baby
Today is our last day at this place. In the morning, we have some heavy rain showers and we fill our SB tank with fresh rain water.
Sher always finds things which can be organized in a better way 🙂
In the afternoon, we visit the baby in the hospital for the last time. She’s doing better every day and hopefully she can come home next week. In the evening, we have dinner with Wim’s daughters and their men and say goodbye to to them. We hope they all come to visit us as we are sailing. The little grand baby needs to get her sea legs and then come sailing with us!
July 22 – Leaving Braassemermeer
Departure from our anchorage on the Braasemermeer. We say goodbye to the little town of Roelofarendsveen. It has been a wonderful 2 weeks!
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