Ik gaf het verkeerde mobile nummer voor neef Carol het is 065971342. Carol will be with me through the early morning trek through the Amsterdam Canals to my moorage, south of Amsterdam. I shall have my own Holland cell phone number on Monday and will advise.
It is a warm summer evening and a steady parade of small outboards and the rage here of the “sloepen” an open launch. A cooler with Heineken and dinner. I am moored in the Houtmankade. Waiting for the early morning railroad bridge opening. My grandfather had a branch store of his ship chandlery for the inland barge skippers here just a few blocks down the canal. I can still smell the tanned manila rope. Around the corner was his mast maker shop. The Pitch Pine logs from America would be rafted outside to make the masts and booms for the sailing barges. As boys we played in the mountains of shavings and gunny sacked the larger shaving for the bakers’ ovens. My crew, Carol de Vries, continued the 5 generatiion, almost 200 year old business till around 2000. There are some pictures of the business and the family history on this web site.
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- Atlantic off Bretagne
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- Marechausee Border Patrol hailing to check our papers
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- Amsterdam
I will make a slide show of these and more photos of the trip from Moorehead City, via Bermuda, Azores, Bretagne to Amsterdam and advise the link to it in the coming week. Wishing every one a good and blessed Sunday and a big thank you for your prayers for my safety and the success of this voyage to a long held dream. I am for ever grateful for this opportunity.
