Utrecht tonight

Here we are at Utrecht, after a day of extreme changes in the weather. A lashing thunderstorm shortly after we had got up and breakfasted in bright sunshine. But then we set off down the river/canal, discussing the clouds and the sky, and how it is easier to understand Dutch landscape painting after you have spent some time here in conditions like this.

Here are some clouds:

And here are some more

A high point of the day was calling at the marina where we will be leaving Saskia for the winter. It is a new port, with room for 300 boats in the water and another 180 in four enormous heated hangars: Saskia will be in one of those after we leave her there at the end of August.  They will clean the hull and superstructure, and winterize and eventually de-winterize the engine - which means changing the oil, filters etc. We also met a painter to discuss doing some touching up on the rust that is inevitably showing through the paintwork: the boat is, after all, more than 50 years old. He will e-mail me an estimate, which will doubtless be enormous. But doing the maintenance before things get too bad is sensible and should save money in the long run, and I hope that keeping the boat inside over the winter will also reduce the progress of rust etc. And the port at St Jean de Losne, where we expect to return next year, has just built a dry store too, which is good news.

After lunch at a not very distinguished quayside, we progressed to Utrecht, and found a nice place on a pontoon along a grassy bank, with electricity, apparently free, though no water. We will have to shower carefully!

Here’s a lifting bridge, lifting, on the way into Utrecht, with more clouds in the background.

Tomorrow we will be doing more culture stuff, then heading north to Loosdrecht to meet up with our California friends Lesley and Ethan, who are hiring a boat there for a week. We will be cruising in company – not sure where! However, we are universally assured that the Dutch summer is going to start this weekend, with the temperature reaching 31 degrees on Monday.