Netherlands/Germany Trip - Vlieland      4th June:

    Bright sunshine and a gentle breeze greeted us as we arose at 9am. Our first priority was breakfast. I had not eaten since the chicken soup we had at noon on our recent stint. Then, up to the showers. Now I felt a new man, totally refreshed.

Tall Training Ships Setting Out onto the Waddenzee

    I went off to pay our dues for the night to come, and was soon diverted by a flotilla of tall training ships leaving the marina, all crewed by school children who were there to learn and handle the ropes. I watched one of the ships pass through the narrow entrance with a lad swiftly winding a crank to lower the bowsprit, a girl beside him to operate the crank brake if need be. Soon four vessels were out of the marina, hoisting sails, and heading out across the Waddenzee; a spectacular sight.

Forest Hike

    I dragged Rex off for a hike through the forest, a mixture of conifers and deciduous trees, with a gorgeous, heady smell of resin in the air. As we marched down one of the many paths we came towards a crossing of paths, and by strange coincidence crossed paths there with a woman and her dog, and an old man, Jan, carrying two large branches accompanied by his dog. The old man was Dutch and out foraging for firewood for his stove. The woman originated from California, but now lives on the island. She and her husband ran a freight business between Vlieland, Harlingen and another port; effectively in competition with the ferries. Her husband's passion was sailing, and they kept a boat on fresh water on the mainland.
    She detected an accent in my voice. "Are you Scottish?" she enquired. "Good guess," I corrected her, "but I grew up in Cumbria, which is almost Scotland, but not quite." She laughed, and continued to tell us how one set of her grandparents were Scottish, indeed her grandfather was a house painter still in Scotland.
    We continued our trek, Rex whining he was walking further than he had travelled through the Amazon rain forest earlier in the year. Eventually we picked up the footpath that climbed up to the lighthouse on the hill on the other side of town. We had visited it two years earlier. It was being repaired then, and today it seemed to be undergoing more serious repairs. Nevertheless, from the dizzying heights of 40m we enjoyed gazing out across the maze of small channels criss-crossing the Waddenzee whilst the tide was ebbing; a treacherous place for the unwary. We spotted a yacht anchored close to the inshore channel, and recognised it as one that had departed the marina earlier.

    A short drop down to town, brought us to the Kerkplein, a most attractive square apart from a couple of out of place 60's built houses. Pride of place in the square was the church of course.

Kerkplein Church

    The first stone church in West-Vlieland originated from the Middle Ages and was dedicated to Saint Willibrordus. In the smaller Oost-Vlieland there was a chapel dedicated to Saint Nicolaas, the patron saint of the merchants and the seafarers. This chapel was first mentioned in 1245. In the late Middle Ages the chapel was elevated to parish church. After the reformation, the church was in the hands of the Protestants. Since West-Vlieland was threatened by the sea at the beginning of the 17th century, many people moved to Oost-Vlieland, which meant that the church soon became too small.
    The reformed church in Oost-Vlieland is one of the oldest original Protestant church buildings in the Netherlands. The church was built in 1605 as a church hall. Partly constructed from stones taken from the chapel which was broken down to make way for the new church, it also includes 200,000 yellow bricks supplied from Enkhuizen. In 1647 a north and south beacon was built. This gave the building the current cross shape. In the front façade the year 1647 is clearly visible. A chandelier in the church was donated in 1660 by Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. He had received this from the Swedish government. De Ruyter often came to Vlieland where he had his second house and came to the church regularly.

Willem de Vlamingh

    Soon we were enjoying tea at a cafe - people watching. Not only do the Dutch never use cycle helmets, they never use bells neither, a recipe for disaster in paved streets shared by pedestrians and cyclists, but amazingly we never saw an accident.
    Near the ferry terminal we took time out to look at the statue of Willem Hesselsz de Vlamingh (1640 - 1698). He was born in Oost-Vlieland. In 1664 De Vlamingh sailed to Nova Zembla (aka Novaya Zemlya) and discovered Jelmerland. In 1668 he married; his profession was skipper in whaling, and he still lived on the island Vlieland. In 1687 he and his wife sold their "apartment" in the Jordaan. De Vlamingh joined the VOC (Dutch East India Company) in 1688 and made his first voyage to Batavia in the same year. Following a second voyage, in 1694, he was asked, on request of Nicolaes Witsen, to mount an expedition to search for the Ridderschap van Holland, a VOC capital ship that was lost with 325 passengers and crew on its way to Batavia in 1694. VOC officials believed it might have run aground on the west coast of Terra Australis. The mission proved fruitless, but Vlamingh charted parts of the continent's western coast. During the mission, on 4th February 1697, he landed at Dirk Hartog Island, Western Australia, and replaced the pewter plate left by Dirk Hartog in 1616 with a new one that bore a record of both of the Dutch sea-captains' visits. The original plate is preserved in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. A replica of the plate is visible on the statue.
    We returned to the boat to freshen up. While Rex was having a nap (would you believe a hike of a few miles tired him out), a sharp rap on the side of the boat summoned me outside. It was a French couple who also owned a Westerley Konsort on the next pontoon. "Is it possible to sail this type of boat on the Waddenzee?" they asked. "Yes," I replied, "we have sailed her several times across this sea. But you must pay strict attention to the winds, tides and intricate, narrow channels." "The channels, are they deep enough?" they asked. "Yes, the main ones are. The ferries travel through those irrespective of the state of the tide." "The ferries have little draught?" the chap asked. "I expect their draught is a lot more than a Westerley." "When is the best time to travel across there?" "My captain would be able to explain that to you far better than I could, but unfortunately he is asleep at the moment," was the only sensible response I could give. After a few more pleasanteries, they disappeared off.
    I discussed it with Rex when he awoke, and he eventually took his charts over to them and gave a more detailed explanation. He considered them competent sailors, indeed they had sailed all the way up from Brittany. They had already done their calculations, but just wanted some "local" reassurance that their thoughts were correct. "Bon," they said, "we will sail to Harlingen at 05:30!"
    Under the threat of rain, we marched into town and sought refuge in 't Praethuys again. Here we got chatting with a Dutch couple who hailed from Schiedam, near Rotterdam, but kept their boat at Medemblik. The chap was extremely well travelled, and put forward his view that folk were equally friendly all over the UK. When we mentioned that we found all the Dutch friendly, he shook his head slightly, then tilting it slightly, told us, "The Dutch below the Rhine tend to be friendlier than those above it." For the first time on our trip, a foreign person raised the issue of Brexit. I have no desire to bore you with the details of the conversation (during the long, drawn out saga of Brexit, most British were bored almost to the point of death with the fiasco of the Brexit negotiations), suffice it to say the couple thought it makes life a little harder for those remaining in Europe.
    On our way back to the marina, we passed the odd-ball boat, a rusting, old, working bucket kept out of view at the bottom end of the marina, a total contrast to the millions of Euros worth of gleaming yachts further up. Rex spotted smoke from a wood stove emanating from a chimney on the craft, and I then noticed the dog lying on the pontoon guarding the rusting hulk. Then it fell into place, the old man carrying wood in the forest accompanied by his black and white dog lived here on the boat.
    The lack of sleep from the night before caught up with us, we were whacked, and retired for the night at 22:30.