Next stop was Hindeloopen in Friesland out of IJsselmeer and we looked forward to visit there again. Alexandra was built there on the Aluboot boatyard in 1989. Sailing from Harlingen, on the 16 of July, to Hindeloopen was an easy ride with good weather, following the other boats threw the narrow sound in the  Waddensee to the Lorentzsluizen. We spent 3 fairly relaxing days in Hindeloopen and this time Lars had time to see the charming village. Lars made a very important finding, a reason for our problems with starting and stopping the engine. After changing the expensive starting key and holder, he found out that changing a fuse, underneath the day-tank, that he did not know existed, was solving a lot of our problems. The last evening there were harbor feast in the old city so we got ice-cream and draft-bear when listening to live music.

Hindeloopen

From Hindeloopen we sailed to Amsterdam on 19/7-2015 08:30 and arrived 19:30. We had the wind against us so went for motor except for a short time close to Stavoren were we sailed with stay-sail. Enkhuizen with its sport lock we passed with no trouble. It was different to pass the lock into Amsterdam because of motor trouble. That was solved by Lars alone but he had contact with Bjarne on messenger though the problem turned out to be the same as last summer in Göteborg Sweden. Also  getting service of the water-maker by the man that had installed it in Alexandra in 1989 was made possible by contact with Hans, the former owner of Alexandra. Another thing that trouble us was finding a place to fill up our to gas-tanks we had on Alexandra. It turned out to be very troublesome and we ended up buying a camping-gas tank just to have something and it can be exchange all over Europe but we wanted something to be used all over the world. The last day we took a commute ferry to the city and enjoyed a few hoers walking around finding a marine bookstore to update our pilots. Amsterdam marina was a good harbor to stay at not forgetting the bathtub with a view. We stayed there for four nights until 23/7 when we sailed to Scheveningen to meet Hans and Mariët, the former owners of Alexandra.

  Q

It turned out to be nice 36 Nm of sailing to Scheveningen, close to den Haag. After a bridge opening and a lock we set main sail and jib and sailed nice upwind all the way to the harbor entrance and arrived in the early evening. The next day we got on a tour to Rotterdam with car, tube and walking around the beautiful city ending up in the almost newly built central station, guided by Hans and Mariët. Also, on a stormy Saturday evening, enjoying being invited to dinner and meeting interesting dutch all a round the world sailors. We ended up staying in Scheveningen until 30/7 because of the rainy stormy weather, fixing a lot around the boat, shopping at the to marine shops and provisioning in the inexpensive dutch supermarket. The most important event was Lars got connected gas to the new gas stove. The oven were so tested by baking sand cake, white bred, rye bred and rhubarb pie. Also, an LPG gas tank was delivered to Hans and he came with it to us on Alexandra. Now we have a gas tank that we can fill up our self at a gas station.