May 2021 – Part 1
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Continuing our island hopping around the national park, we made plenty of use of all the free Marrekrite moorings, and we are learning to track wind direction so that mooring on/next to large bodies of water was less uncomfortable.
As we got further into the heartland of the park, despite there being lots of mooring places, they were generally attached to quite marshy land. So not very good for long dog walks, although to be fair, Casper didn’t seem too bothered.
Despite it being quite relaxing in the national park, there was limited access to decent walking spaces so after ten days of moving around the park we headed off to the town of Leeuwarden. We encountered a couple of issues during those days – forgetting to untie a rope as we tried to leave a bank being the most challenging one, and definitely not to be recommended! Nicki took the opportunity to have a few practice stabs at steering the boat into and out of a mooring spot, and we also decided to take the dinghy out for its maiden voyage. Even Casper joined us on that short journey, and after some initial hesitation he was quite happy to jump in and out fairly easily.
By this time the weather became quite chilly and wet again, and on our final day in the national park it was quite breezy, which gave us a different set of challenges as we navigated some narrow and twisty waterways and bridges. Eventually though we arrived at Leeuwarden and happily found a quiet mooring a mile outside town where we spent three good nights; as a bonus, almost on our ‘doorstep’ was a lovely, pleasant dog walking island, so we were all happy. From that mooring we were able to take a couple of long excursions into town, clocking up 10+ miles each day! The centre was an interesting and bustling place to visit, and after so many weeks and months of lockdowns and social distancing it was strange to be part of so much activity again. After strolling around the town (taking in lots of street art decorating various walls, and particularly a huge multi storey carpark) we meandered along the banks of the canal and decided to take the boat along there as we left Leeuwarden to take advantage of the free water, electric and pump out facilities before seeking an overnight mooring elsewhere later in the day.
Our final night outside of Leeuwarden found us having an earlish night (all that walking over the past few days had finally taken its toll), only for us to be shocked fully awake around 11pm by both our phones vibrating along with a full volume siren alert proclaiming an emergency in the town – it turned out that somehow our phones were linked into the Dutch emergency alarm system. Good to know we could be in danger I suppose, although on this occasion it transpired that there was a major fire about 1km away from us so not quite as desperate as it seemed. Anyway, having settled down again there was a burst of what sounded like very large fireworks going off, possibly linked to the fire. So much for our early night! Still, we got off to sleep at last until at 6am another starting alert gave us the all-clear. Ahh, happy days.
Anyway, we woke to a public holiday in celebration of Ascension Day so following our early wake-up call we set off along the Dokkumer le, as planned via a parkside mooring in Leeuwarden to fill up with water, top up the electric and empty out the waste tank. Filling the water tank was painful as it only worked on a 4 minute push button timer allowing 50 litres at a time and we needed 2000 litres – that took a lot of button pushing. After all that finger exercise it was time for a little walk through the park in glorious sunshine, with lots of people out and about enjoying a socially-distanced day, under the watchful eyes of teams of park wardens/security monitoring activity and ensuring Covid rules were adhered to.
Finally we were ready to get going again, this time with the added challenge of lots of day boaters desperate to get in our way and make things harder for us. For quite a way we were on high-alert to avoid them all, but eventually they thinned out and we were able to concentrate on keeping our eyes peeled for somewhere to moor for the night which we came across about 40 minutes later, just a very small grassy area but fine for one night.
Next day, onwards and upwards towards our destination of Dokkum with a brief stop in the tiny village of Birdaard before pushing on a little further. Not sure of what to expect and being a little tired, we spotted a reasonable Marrekrite mooring just as we passed the sign welcoming us into Dokkum, so pulled in for the evening.
From this point it was just a half hour cruise into Dokkum centre where we found a lovely mooring along a grassy stretch between two windmills, and where we would hopefully spend the next week.
Out first visitors in Dokkum 
One of the two Dokkum molens 
Dokkum centre 
