April spring cleaning

Great excitement when we arrived in Zaandam on the 9th of April. Linqui, i.e. Linquenda, was absolutely filthy and totally forlorn. Her interior was an overall brown colour and she smelled of diesel. The diesel heater has been leaking for quite a few years and that was the cause of the horrible colour and smell. The top of the roof looked like a junk yard!! I remember thinking that it was a great idea that God had that day to have this wonderful sunshine, otherwise, I thought, now will be a good time to get back on the plane.



670 litres of dieselgunk sucked up from bilges and carted away!

But, after 10 and a half liters of bleach, a paint brush and toothbrush, Linqui was a lovely ivory cream colour. Shiny! Attie sorted the electics, water, gas, stove, fridge, hull, floors and what not and hey presto we had a boat, a tjalk!! He worked so hard, from morning till night and more. He planned, built and gippoed!



the old vs the new after litres of "dikkebleek"

  

Lovely outing with David and Penny



We met fabulous marina neighbours, mostly Brits and enjoyed, I must add, a hectic social life. The comings and goings non-stop and very pleasant. Especially the fact that they are keen on sharing information and assistance. Bless them! We have also discoverd Zaandam, which is a lovely town with all the shops you can ask for and then some. Wonderful hardware and boating stores and my favourite is Het Goed! Oh yes. Het Goed is a second hand shop, but a decent second hand shop. There you can buy all and sundry for the boat.....kitchen utensils, etc., furniture and even clothing. We visited Ikea, my utmost thrill and there we started planning our kitchen. What fun!!!!!!

David, Attie, Paul, Lisa and Penny after first sucessful sail

Festivities at Zaandam on the Queen's Birthday



Have to recall another small but very important fact. That is, Attie and I did our Klein Vaart Bewys exams. He passed the first time(what else did I expect?), I had to try again and fortunately got it! We also did the Marifoon Eksamen, i.e. VHF radio exams. It was difficult to do all of this in Dutch, but we were successful. So Linqui has a qualified skipper and co-skipper! It was during this time that our good friends Stuart and Flora Grant from the U.S.A. lost their beautiful son Chrisopher in a freak accident in Geneva. My heart was broken and it took a lot of effort to concentrate on the work at hand. Life can really be very unfair!



Pierre and Estelle, first visitors from home



We worked so hard and so busy everyday that we went to Amsterdam Central only once and that was to meet Pierre and Estelle van der Merwe, who went to all the trouble to come and see what Linqui looks like. Our first visitors from home! It was fantastic to have them here and proudly we presented our dream (still nightmarish) boat!

I would like to mention though, that this  first stay on Linqui was not all fun and games!! Often we looked at each other and said "Can we do this?" Yes we can! The four weeks flew by and it was time to return to S.A. There I almost immediately started sorting out cupboars, wardrobes and with great pleasure got rid of a lot of rubbish. Why? Because from now on I am only buying presents and planning for Linquenda!