Thursday, 16 May 2013

In the Beginning

It all started in 2008 on the Greek island of Lipsi.  "We could sail around the Mediterranean in Chantal", the 27' yacht we had moored back in Poole Harbour, says Nigel.  For some strange reason I didn't agree.  However, we did come to a very English compremise - a Dutch barge around Europe.

So, how to go about it?  Well first of all we rented a Locaboat in Loosedrecht, an area we later came to know well.  This was to see if we thought we could cope with handling a boat through locks and bridges.  All went fine and so we booked ourselves onto Di and Tam Murell's ICC course in France aboard their boat Friesland.

Having looked at various boats for sale on the internet, while we were in France we travelled to several boat yards to look at actual boats, and then up to the Netherlands, where we found our dream boat - Gesina.

The following year we went again to Holland, Haarlem in fact, to join Roger van Dyken aboard his barge Vertrouwen, to spend a week with him, his wife Marlene and two other Americans Shelley and Ken Smithson.  The object of this week was to learn all aspects of skippering a 65 ton barge, and was the most beneficial thing we did.

Wednesday, 15 May 2013

Auxerre, winter mooring 2012/13




Well here we go, a new blog.

 Here we are snug in our winter mooring at Societe Aquarelle, Port de Plaisance, Auxerre, on a beautiful sunny day on October, 2012.

This was the scene here in Auxerre on 5th December 2012. The snow didn't last very long, but made the city very picturesque.
St. Etienne Cathedral

We made several new friends with other 'live-aboards' and enjoyed their company thoughout our long period of enforced mooring.

A Progressive dinner, New Years Eve, Auxerre 2012

Charlyn & Lizzie


All together for Christmas Day 2012

We were lucky enough to be able to go and join our family, and extended Spanish family, for Christmas thanks to the kindness of Simon and Charlyn Anderson having Tashi on their boat while we flew to the Uk.
We had several sociable gatherings, before during and after Christmas, and a Progressive Dinner on New Years Eve.

Wednesday evenings kept us amused with a film showing onboard Simon and Charlyns boat, Joli Coeur, along with other social events such as a ladies afternoon playing the domino game of Mexican Trains, eating out, and shopping trips.  Somehow we managed to keep ourselves amused.

Daisy meets Tashi,  6 March 2013
Auxerre is a fantastic city, with many wonderful medieval buildings, museums and art galleries to visit, and restaurants and cafes to suit all tastes and purses.   The city itself is obviously quite wealthy with extensive sports facilites, football grounds, sports centres, swimming pool and beautifully laid out park lands. The horticultural team has obviously given a lot of time and care in choosing the planting of these parks, and many unusual trees and shrubs can be seen.   We also gained a lot of pleasure from watching the many birds that came close to, and in some cases onboard, our boat.  We have never been so close to swallows, swifts and martins, and never before seen sparrows diving close to the water to catch flying insects.

Rue Sous Murs, Auxerre

Lissie and John were the first to leave in their boat on a grey day in April.

Puddle Stone  leaving Auxerre
Now in May 2013 this is the time of the year when its 'change of clothes' four times a day.  First is for talking our dog, Tashi, out for her early morning walk.  So I just throw on something casual, perhaps warm.  Then its a quick change into something more respectable to go shopping.  During the day it might be old clothes to do painting, or other mucky jobs around the boat, then tidier clothes to walk Tashi after lunch. In the evening it might be a change of clothes again to go out for a meal.   Who says you don't need many clothes onboard a boat!

Tuesday, 14 May 2013

The beginning of our journey in Holland

We bought our wonderful Dutch Tjalk Gronigen Bol Ship in Delfzyl, and did wonder if we were going to get all our 'necessaries' onto the boat!

We met some wonderfully kind people who gave us insight into their Dutch culture, and festivities, and some of these images are shown below. (With apologies to Blog 'experts' as the photos are not in chronological order, and I cant seem to fix this!)

Our neighbours on tugs in Delfzy, played English sea shanties!

One way to move house. Sneekesmeer

Beautiful gardens, Elburg

Road sign, Elburg!!!?
Our favourite spot, Wijland
"Dress for dinner" I said!
Collecting rubbish from the islands - by boat!!
Most amazing sunset, Buitenkaag
What a convenient mooring outside a supermarket!
That's never going to all go in!
Oude Gracht, Weesp
Steel sculpture, Groningen
Dronten!
Old friends and new mingle
However we soon got organised for our first visitors
Baptism of Fire, 32 bridges through Veendam!


We're the 'little one' in the middle! (Leewarden)
 Our first cruise and mooring in Groninigen