Kayak trip to Elburg (NL)

Every year in the weekend of Pentecost (White Sunday) our family has the tradition to go camping near Elburg (NL). After being incredibly busy with preparing the Seadog so that the tarp could be removed, plus moving all my belongings aboard (most of which where still stored at my parents house and in their shed) now I finally had some time to relax.
One of the items that is now aboard the Seadog is the kayak. I had purchased this kayak about two years ago, but had only used it ones, or twice and after that is was stored behind the shed. This thing was to big to store aboard back then, because much of the restoration work still needed to be done. But now that most of the outer work is finished the kayak can be stored on top of the cabin.
This makes it very easy to just grab the kayak and go peddling whenever I feel like it. And that is exactly what I did a few days before the Pentecost weekend. It was such a nice feeling to be on the water again and peddling in a kayak, that I decided I could just go peddling to Elburg for the upcoming Pentecost weekend. So I made some preparations and scheduled the time to do it. I calculated it would take about 3 days peddling to get there, and 3 days to return, plus the 1-2 days to stay and recover from the journey.
After scheduling some free days from work and preparing the gear I was ready to start the journey on the 11e of May. It was extremely good weather for the first 3 days and I only had to wear swimming trousers, although it was kind of tough to pedal against the wind. And for some reason I had headwind almost every day.
The journey back I did had some rain showers and very low temperatures (especially at night), but even with the bad weather it was still a lot of fun. It really felt like being one with the elements and nature and I will definitely be doing this more often. And when I leave the Netherlands to sail around the world, this kayak is definitely going along.

Vacation time aboard a “Wadder”

Back in early September I had a small vacation while helping my parents sail their new boat to their new home. This type of boat is called a “Wadder” and it’s a pretty cool boat when you want a lot of space in a relatively small package with the ability to sail in very shallow waters. It’s specifically made to sail The Wadden Sea. Here are some of the photo’s that were taken back then.
For more information about these types of boats check out this website (in dutch):
http://www.wadder.nl

Sailing trip to England… Uhhh Belgium…

Way back in April/May I was lucky enough to once again join the crew aboard the Phoosticks. This week I finally had the time to gather and select the photo’s that were taken in that trip. So be sure to check them out below.
Like every year the destination was England but alas, the weather was not in our favour so we didn’t cross the English Channel. That certainly did not mean we didn’t have a great time tough. We altered our route to sail along the Belgium cost. Which turned out to be a very good idea, because that meant we had perfect sailing conditions (most of the time).
All in all, we had a lot of sun and great winds. Once again a very nice experience, check out the photo’s to see what I mean.

Sailing to the White Cliffs of Dover

Every year around April friends of my parents go sailing from Holland to England. This year the destination was (among others) Dover and I was invited to join them. Of course I was more than happy to go with them, to gain some experience sailing the North Sea and crossing the notoriously busy English Channel. As one can see in the pictures below we had a mighty great time!

Leisure time

The weather might have been too cold to do any painting, but it still was beautiful sailing weather, so me and my dad went on a little sailing trip together with the boat of my parents. A lot of fun it was!