Wired up in Weesp

The Norah Jones-style songstress at the hotel had given up for the night when we got back from dinner last night, which was something of a relief. In the morning, the harbour master appeared just in time to claim his dues – rather high this time - before we set off to taxi Leslie and Ethan and their bags to the hire boat centre, about half an hour away. Inevitably their boat was not immediately ready, so some provisioning was engaged in, and eventually they were afloat:

While waiting we marveled at the sheer numbers of Dutch people out in their boats, many in stylish, inboard-engined launches, though of course being a sunny day at the beginning of August, perhaps it was not so surprising. Anyway, it meant a bit of a wait to get through the lock:

In fact we got Saskia through as the last boat in one cycle, and then the good ship Breukelen came along a bit later in the next. In between we had lunch.

We had thought of making it all the way to the end of the river at Muiden, in search of good, fresh fish, but the various delays made that not possible, and we moored up for the night at Weesp. All the same, it was a pleasant cruise:

This sailing barge was making stately progress in the other direction: nice to see traditional craft alongside the newer ones. We were also slightly surprised to see a narrow boat obviously converted to carry people of a trip up and down the river. Good thinking.

Our docking at the Weesp marina was not the most stylish – we had to get in between pilings – no pontoons, and frankly were not very good at it. A Dutch gentlemen watching in his boat agreed that it was excellent cabaret! However eventually we were settled next to each other, and stable enough to put the gangplank out between the two boats. So splicing the mainbrace was inevitably the next order of the day.