We're on our way

It is a week since we arrived on board Njord and finally today we slipped the moorings at WSV Ijsselmonde, which was so good to us, and set off on our journey - I am tempted to say into the unknown but this is not quite Star Wars.

As soon as he got up and looked out the window Ian noticed that the tide was extremely high.  He went for a walk to the river side of the marina and saw that it was still rising and running strongly.  We had to leave asap, because when the tide turned we would be battling against it instead of running with it.

At 8.45 we passed out of the entrance to the marina and into the River Maas.  

The tide was extremely high and pushing us at a good rate of knots in the right direction.  We whizzed up to our first turn off into the Noord Maas, passing some very impressive houses on the way.

  

How about that, having your own boat hoist in your garden!

We were amazed by the amount of river traffic.  Huge container ships and barges, some of the barges were even doubled up like articulated truck trains. At one time we were four abreast with little Njord hugging the bank as tight as possible!

We passed Dordrecht, resplendent in silhouette against a moody sky.

Next stretch of water was the Dordste Kil, what a nightmare.  Just at that stage there must have been wind against tide/current or whatever because it was very turbulent, even with whirlpools and standing waves.  It reminded me of our days out on the ocean in rough conditions!  But we passed this fascinating tower at s'Gravendeel. Anyone for chess?

It also got a lot colder. Ian, who normally wears just a t-shirt on the coldest days, was dressed up like a Michelin tyre man.

And we shared the waterway with some seriously large ships.

  

But the sun started to appear in fits and starts, and it was glorious when it did.

From there we turned into the Hollandse Diep, the part that I had been the most anxious about because it is a very wide expanse of water, susceptible to the influence of wind and current.  For the first few kms we had the tide against us, at 2000 revs we were doing 9kph whereas on leaving Rotterdam were doing 13.6 kph on 1600 rpm. 

Clive called us, just as they were waking up in the Azores, as we were passing under a set of huge bridges for road and rail.  He was amazed to get us on phone and it was great to chat.  About half an hour later the tide changed in our favour yet again.  Suddenly we were whizzing along again.

After 4 hours on the river systems we turned off into the Amertak Canal.  

What a difference - suddenly it was all calm and peaceful, but still a lot of huge container barges.  We passed an enormous container terminal with massive cranes stretching over the canal.  Impressive.  And no wonder we were seeing so many container barges.

4 hours 45 mins after leaving the marina in Rotterdam we tied up at a lovely marina in Oosterhout.  We had made much better time than we expected. The Hawenmaster was really friendly, gave us the benefit on the doubt on length of boat for the overnight charge, free electricity and water, and wonderful showers for 50c.

There is a supermarket roughly 10-15 mins walk across the bridge/lock.

What's not to like?

And for dinner tonight I am attempting to make snert, the traditional Dutch pea soup. It sure smells good.