 Dokkum Waag |
This early in the morning, hordes of youngsters were already zooming through town on their bikes on their way to school. They filled the roads, and traffic just moved along at the same pace, accepting an equal status. I couldn't see that happening back home.
 De Hoop |
We set off early and headed east towards Lauwersmeer, gliding through the endless, flat, lush emerald green land. Habitation along the canal was few and far between, and I wondered if the odd house we passed was permanently occupied, a country retreat or rented out. By one stretch of the canal a large pipe was disgorging black slurry onto the surrounding fields. Further on, we came across a weird contraption, linked to a long pipe buoyed up by floats which snaked down the canal and eventually curled its way up onto the land. It was quite a small vessel, sitting low in the water, holding itself steady using a pair of adjustable pilings. A young chap deep down inside the craft, with a ready smile, was operating a suction dredge, sucking mud from the canal bottom, which was then pumped along the snaking pipe to be disgorged on the fields.
Eventually we passed through the final bridge, entered the Dokkumer Djip and headed up into the Lauwersmeer. This leg started off as a narrow channel, occasionally buoyed. Vast reed beds stretched out into the Lauwersmeer National Park on one side, and meadows extending to the horizon on the other. Soon, the narrow channel opened out into a mirror like lake, speckled with water fowl and a sprinkling of motionless fishing boats. It seemed as though time stood still in this serene setting, and we were privileged to be gliding through it. We passed a lazily drifting yacht with its sails hanging limply; even the wind had ceased with the time. Ever so slowly we edged our way to the distant dike, there was no hurry.
 Lauwersmeer |
When finally the Waddenzee dike came into view, as a flat, wide, man-made horizon, I got the feeling that we were nearing the end of the world. The channel I was following slowly arced around to the sea lock in the dike at Lauwersoog, but we peeled off and entered a lovely marina, Jachthaven Noordergat. The next few hours were laundry, showers and boat washing. The marina had a huge covered building for storing boats out of the water, naturally empty at the moment. The harbour master appeared at his office regularly; four times per day, 30 minutes maximum on each attendance. To be fair, I did once find him cleaning out the facilities block during the intervening times.
I was on another planet, not having slept much the night before, so I crawled into my pit and fell into oblivion. In the meantime Rex and Meryl had discovered a nearby campsite shop and restaurant.
Later, Rex and I got chatting with an elderly Dutch chap who owned a fairly large old-fashioned looking boat. He had spent many years in the Merchant Navy. The man had designed the steel vessel himself, getting an engineering company to construct the structure to his design. All the fitting out, the mast and spars he made himself. He and his wife were shortly heading off for a three month trip into the Baltic, aiming to spend some time in Copenhagen.
In the evening, Rex and Meryl took me off to the restaurant they had discovered earlier, "Het Booze Wijf" (The Evil Woman). There we enjoyed a delicious meal overlooking the top end of Lauwersmeer, on a warm summer evening. As we wandered back to our refuge, Meryl visited a compound of pygmy goats, where she took great joy in feeding the inquisitive creatures. "Nelson never had this trouble," said Rex. By the marina, we noticed a family of coots with six tiny offspring playing hide-and-seek in some tall reeds. The chicks looked like fluffy tennis balls with tiny beaks, quite cute.
Before I turned in for the night, I partook in a little whiskey and cough medicine to knock me out. Good move.