Rudi: I guess there will be many days like today when you have to get creative and change your previous plans and routine, because it’s a windy and wet day and working outside is just not possible. I started sanding down the walls outside in preparation for painting. Quite a job I might add. We discovered quite a lot of rust above the gunnels so we had to get the welder in once again and hopefully that will be finished soon. He mostly does our jobs after hours and it’s a good thing that it is getting dark so late.
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| Eido fixing the rusted roof |
The fact that it gets dark so late is something that I have to get used to once again! I am used to cooking dinner when it is dark and that means the end of the day, so I find myself doing all other bits and pieces after six, just to realise after a while that it is 8.30 and I haven’t even started dinner. The sun is still shining and the shops are still open. At the moment it is still light at 11pm.
We have forgotten to blog the photo of the entrance now that the gas bottle container has been removed. So here it is. Amazing the difference it makes.
At last our bedroom is finished. I have painted all week what with first primer and then two coats of cream silky glaze, quite a job, because it takes forever to dry between coats. It is done though, we moved in and believe me sleeping in an actual bedroom is much appreciated even though Attie still had to finish the main trimmings, which now have been completed. He had quite a struggle with the surrounds of the portholes keeping vicious winter condensation in mind, but the clever sticks has done it again!! All that is still required is new oak flooring and the final cosmetic trim around the portholes which will be done while we are underway to France. I can now shop for new linen that will suit our bedroom. The change is momentous as it meant that we could remove the bed in the salon and move the clothes and the curtain from the salon, making an enormous open space.
On Tuesday the new large windows in the kitchen and dining area were installed and oh boy, what an unbelievable difference! Light streams into the boat and we have a very pleasant view on both sides. It has brought a huge change to the whole area. Now I am really glad that we haven’t done the kitchen yet, would have been disastrous and I am starting to plan it now!! Attie says the whole idea of installing the new windows was quite daunting as it required both stripping the wooden cladding in the dining room to see exactly where they should be placed in relation to the existing beams. He asked our welding friend Willem to come and assist and to speed up the process. Paul agreed to do the installation, this was his business before retiring to their barge, and all was done in a day and the result is really excellent. This also meant that some more of what was in the way is now installed and no longer cluttering the workroom.
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| Before |
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| After |
Paul, Lisa, Bert and Aukje came over for dinner one evening and Aukje was kind enough to cut Lisa’s and my hair. We had a lovely evening together and they brought a lightness again to our hard working and tiring days. One needs to have others around to distract you from the everyday toils.
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| Lisa |
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| Aukje |
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| Bert |
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| The irrepressible Paul |
Bathroom came second this last week with the installation of the windows as well as the rest of the welding that was done on the outside. Attie however did install the black water tank and the toilet! Next will be the shower, hand basin and walls. We are really getting there, just so very slow.
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| Electric toilet and blackwater tank |
We have identified the type of flooring for the bedrooms, passage and bathroom. These rooms are all new and have new underlayment after we cleaned, greased the bilges and installed the ballast. We have decided to install solid oak floors in the two rooms and passage and a washed effect laminate in the bathroom. The current flooring in the salon and dining room is still the original and I have a feeling that with a good sanding and cleaning it will be beautiful. Cannot imagine throwing all that wood away! We have yet to decide on the flooring for the kitchen. This will be part of the “kitchen sub-project”.
We are hoping to leave the Netherlands at more or less the end of June and to be honest we cannot wait to leave the marina. Not that there is anything wrong with it, just that a change will be nice. The good thing about this marina is that Goos and Klaas Kramer, owners, have been very helpful, the builders warehouses are walking/cycling distance and other necessary shops too, for wood, food, household items, boat yards, etc. etc. and I hope we will be so lucky with other marinas on our travels.
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| Marina's Goos Kramer |
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| Klaas Kramer and Jan |
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| Klaas's shiny new boat |
The birdlife still fascinates me daily. Especially now with all the various chicks around. The Coots seem to have a problem rearing their young safely with all the sea gulls and fish catching the babies, shame, it breaks your heart. The swan has 6 cygnets and they are too cute for words. Then of course the ducks and the most fascinating are the grebes who carry their young on their backs. The one grebe had 5 but only one survived and he is growing at an alarming rate. Coots build very interesting nests. They make use of every twig and every piece of fabric or plastic that they can find. The best way of recycling that I have ever seen. She also uses leaves and even flowers. Not a pretty nest but a very interesting one.
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| Grebe chicks piggy backing |
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| Coot nest |
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| Dad and cygnets |
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| Single remaining chick now an adolescent |
One interesting trip we made with Linquenda was to fetch the new anchor winch. We were very lucky in that there was a period anchor winch in the bushes at the shipyard and we had the skin fittings done for the toilet, deckwash, blackwater tank and washing machine. Having had the shipyard offload the obsolete mast/sail winch with their crane, we got a message a week later that the owner of the anchor winch was willing to make a straight swap for our mast/sail winch. This was a good trade for us as the best offer we had had for our winch was €200 and suitable period anchor winches range in price around €1200-1500! What was also fortuitous is that it fits perfectly and takes the exact size chain we had on board, saving in effort and possible additional cost. On the way to pick up the winch with Linquenda Peter Coupland showed Attie how to splice a rope and in the process also spliced all of our mooring ropes. One cannot ask for a better friend!
Being around boats is potentially dangerous. It has on a number of occasions over the last few months become increasingly clear to us that safety must come first. Attie has nearly cut off his thumb, sprained his back, nearly fallen over backwards into a 2m deep barge hold and this week came the closest to greeting us. Working bent over to install the deckwash pump in the fore peak a strong gust of wind blew the heavy steel hatch above him closed. The hatch has a steel bar attached to lock it from the inside. Upon slamming shut this bar descended guillotine-like with gale force to slam stop without damage on the skin of Attie's neck. We shudder to think what would have happened had he knelt even a centimetre higher!
One of the previously mentioned issues on a ship is that practically everything one does is new or uncharted and because boats differ, probably requires some level of tailor making. Case in point is how to insulate the portholes while ensuring practicality and achieving a visually pleasing effect. The three main shapes for the porthole surrounds are square, leaving large areas to be specially insulated against condensation but on the other hand making for an easy construction and full opening of the porthole surround which limits the condensation problem, but has difficulties in terms of opening and more complex to craft than square and oblong which is probably the most difficult to construct to ensure a balance between opening ease and condensation and to ensure a good fit and pleasing perspective. Of course I chose oblong. This meant I spent days if not weeks preparing templates and fitting and refitting and drawing complex curves to eventually achieve what we wanted. Then I had to decide on how to insulate the surrounds and what finish to use. Having tried various materials I found a damaged pile of laminate under flooring at Hornbach and upon asking for a sample was given the whole pile. This worked like a charm, except the next challenge of finding an appropriate glue, or “kit” in Dutch, that would affix the under flooring to steel, without dissolving the under flooring. The Dutch have a “kit” for every application, but this meant a further time-consuming wading through a range of possible “kits” and doing tests with the material.
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| constructing the porthole frames |
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| The which "kit" test??? |
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| Clean result with insulation and vinyl in place |
Various events and people move into our lives and past us. Interesting and funny situations happen often and characters galore! One lovely British couple, Steve and Georgina, came across to clean and prepare their newly purchased boat for crossing the English Channel. He is a retired London cab driver who shared with us how to prepare for what is termed “The Knowledge”, the preparatory process for taking the London cab drivers’ licensing test. On the day they left they first went to the famous Het Goed second hand shop and low and behold Steve arrives back at the boat with his bike stacked with 4 cane chairs, 2 boxes of wine and a dumb waiter. I was too late to get the photo taken but just made it before he unloaded the last chair.
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| Steve unloading the last of the 4 chairs from his bike |
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| Steve |
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| Georgina and Steve with Penny and David |
Shame we only had a few days with them around the marina and it brought sharply to the foreground the transitory nature of this lifestyle we have chosen for this project. Steve and Georgina left in tandem with Peter Coupland and a proud Philip who had bought a tjalk and was delivering it to England.
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| Peter and Philip on the start of the delivery journey to the UK |
Then there is Grikla, which is owned by Klaas and Grietje. Two elderly people who permanently live on their boat. No shortage of a sense of humour, always friendly and very interested in what we are doing. I am adding these photos of their permanent residence and will say no more!!
We took a day to apply for long term UK visas. We want the ability to visit friends in the UK and the possibility of assisting with the delivery of a boat to the UK has also been offered and what a marvellous opportunity for boating experience. The UK has now closed its Amsterdam office and this meant us travelling to the Dusseldorf visa office to make our applications in person. As is the case with some other embassies, the function of receiving and filtering applications, which need to be made online and then followed up with a personal appointment for biometric and documentary administration, has been assigned to an agency. We had to travel by train to Dusseldorf, at an additional travel cost of €78 and €34 for couriering our passports back over and above the €630 in visa fees for the two of us. We could not believe how rudely, impersonally and high-handedly we and mainly several other people were treated at the visa agency. One elderly couple was shouted at and dismissed in an embarrassingly coarse manner and another middle aged lady whose mother had died in the UK was treated completely unsympathetically and in a dismissive high-handed manner. We and a few other of the applicants could simply not believe the rude treatment that was meted out. However, a stroll through Dusseldorf’s beautiful Old Town soothed our wilted spirits and we thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon there before returning to Zaandam later that afternoon.
We entered our visa applications on 10 May in Dusseldorf and have not yet received them back. All a bit worrying.
One of the major concerns in doing the welding and other work on the boat is to keep the grinding dust away from the other boats. This means creating a tent over any grinding and removing any items that could be damaged by the searing hot grindings or welding sparks. Following every welding/grinding event there is the need to thoroughly wash down the boat and ensure any bare steel is immediately treated with a rust inhibitor lest the rust appears the next day. Every time the welder comes, it results in a major disruption of the household and we are now pleased that the steelwork is hopefully behind us.
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| The obligatory grinding tent |
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| messy during the work |
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| tidy after |
The required two VHF radios were bought on the internet and were delivered overnight. One is a fixed “marifoon” station and the other a “portofoon”. We have been listening to the chatter on the local lock’s channel to get a feel for this form of communication and to tune our ears. So far I have not been able to make out any sensible conversation and it sounds a bit gobbledy-gookish. We will hopefully master this eventually.
The Bimini: This is essentially a smart fold-down canvas veranda cover on the deck with stainless steel supports, a little more boatish than an umbrella, but certainly not more complicated. Then why does it have to cost £2 000??? This is without the drop-down side panels which would cost us another £2 000!! We have looked at alternatives and sourcing it here in the Netherlands, but that’s simply what they cost. I suppose one could argue that it would create another room or conservatory on deck which would justify the cost, but really, this is essentially a purpose-made simple construction of stainless steel pipes cut at particular lengths, joined and with some high grade canvas cover. How can it cost that much? We could have settled for a simple garden umbrella at a tenth of the price, but then again, this would just not do on a proper boat now, would it? The bimini has been ordered from the UK.
There are many questions that go through one’s mind and conclusions one draws while on a project of this nature. One conclusion I have drawn is that anything bought from a chandlery or boat shop is destined to be frightfully expensive. On the other hand we have found some things are not as expensive as one might have expected. A visit to the doctor costs €29 and the welding seems to work out at about €30 an hour. Looking at the quality of work and the dedication to a good result, I have concluded that these costs are not that high in comparison to South Africa. We bought excellent king prawns for the equivalent of R80/kg, considerably cheaper than in Pretoria. Finally I believe our original estimates of living costs here are not too far off and living on board is really quite affordable. Granted this is with a totally new lifestyle and without many things we rely upon in a fixed home in Pretoria, e.g. car, house, high insurance... the whole kaboodle.
Overall, slowly a sense of achievement and visible progress is setting in and this will be given another major fillip when the outside of the boat has a new coat of paint.
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| Wow, how much space there is now |
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| The salon with curtain and bed removed |
Sunday the 29th of May. The wind has been blowing strongly now for 6 days non- stop with drizzles of rain in between. It really does not help! There is a whole 21 metres of boat that has to be sanded, holes and crevices have to be filled and all have to be covered in one or maybe two coats of primer and then 2 maybe 3 coats of paint and each coat has to be lightly sanded before adding the next coat, giving it 2 0r 3 days to dry and we would like to leave as soon as possible! I promised myself that this boat, that currently looks more like a gypsy boat, will be painted before we leave!!
We had a very enjoyable prawn evening with Paul and Lisa and great fun playing cards. They are leaving for France on Wednesday (if weather permits) after two years of restoring their tjalk, Meander. Amazing job they did too. You can find them on Liveaboard Dutch Barges and Lisa Cruse on Facebook. They have became good friends since April last year. We have received friendship, advice and support from them in abundance, their presence and know-how will be sorely missed. Just this last week Paul installed our new big windows which he ordered and lugged them all the way from England without a grumble! I had great fun, conversations and laughs with Lisa! Thank you Paul and Lisa! We will possibly and hopefully meet up in France sometime soon!
Our good friend Zoriah who is a conflict photo journalist and has a boat here (mentioned him before) has gone to the US last week for a month. He is such a pleasant person, loving and caring and listening to him one cannot believe in what he has been through over the last few years job-wise. Check him out on the internet under Zoriah or Zoriah Miller. Interesting people we meet here!
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| Attie and Zoriah |
Our welder Willem, who has a “volkstuin”, assigned space for gardening, arrived the other day with the most beautiful peonies, “pionrosen” for me. Gorgeous and they lasted 2 weeks in a vase.
We have decided to take today off, seeing that it is Sunday after all. It is a wonderful break, so why do you feel guilty not doing anything? I decided yesterday to get going on the quilt again and it is great doing something feminine again. It is unfortunately not ready for the bedroom, so we will do some shopping for new linen and bedroom stuff. I think it will still take a lot of months before the heirloom will be finished, if ever!!
