June 2021 – Part 1
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Out first day of traveling in June saw us arrive at Zoutcamp, mooring at Hunslingo Sluisbrug. A nearby stroll took us to the harbour area, which was very picturesque and boasted a shrimp auction house, borne out by the number of shrimping boats moored alongside the harbour.
Zoutkamp 
Zoutkamp 
Zoutkamp
Well today was weird …. we had moored in a very remote location surrounded by farmland when there was a totally unexpected knock on the door. A couple of customs officers stood on the bank, having found us by our AIS signal and then parking some way away and walking across the farmer’s cow fields to check up on us! We were pretty amazed that they had gone to so much trouble to reach us, especially as just a couple of more days and we would have been in town and easily accessible.
After getting over the surprise we had some friendly discussions with the officers and were then able to provide them with all the information they needed arranged neatly in a folder (per advice from Chris Grant in our early days) . They were particularly interested in our fuel records and seemed very happy with what we had. They were curious about us flying a British flag and said they would check up on whether that was valid but I don’t think that will be an issue.
After our encounter with the customs officers we carried on down the Reitdiep until we got to Garnwerd aan Zee, mooring in front of one of the restaurants and just before the bridge. Beautiful sunny day and the locals were out in force sunbathing and swimming in the river. The restaurant would have been perfect for an evening meal, unfortunately it was super popular and fully booked for the two days we stayed there so we settled for a takeaway pizza instead.
The village was pretty in places but was basically two restaurants, a windmill and bridge although there was an interesting walk around the area.
We left Garnwerd and made our way to Groningham with the intention of mooring in the town centre but I bottled it and went to the Reitdiephaven on the outskirts, where I also committed to a weeks stay. Whilst marinas are not generally great for getting dogs off for a walk, this was otherwise a brilliant setup with some very picturesque houses alongside of us, and lots of late afternoon action when the resident children came home from school and doesn’t the rest of the day in the water near the boat.
The marina had a big supermarket nearby as well as an Action general goods store, and a couple of nice dog walking areas.
A big factor for mooring in/around Groningham was that we were due to get our first Covid vaccinations there the following weekend, so we decided to combine a visit into town with a recce of where this was to take place and with that in mind we chose to ignore the local bus and decided to walk the three miles into town following the canal path along the way on a lovely sunny day. On arriving in the town and after a wander round we stopped for a coffee outside of an amazing restaurant in the town centre. I’d like to see if we can book up there when we return.
Afterwards we headed off to find the vaccination centre, still some distance away. It was pretty busy but we thought we’d ask if it was possible to get our vaccinations earlier than next Sunday. We were told they were too busy but it might be possible at 9 the next day so we headed off on yet another long walk round a very large park before returning to the boat, stopping to eat some snacks we’d picked up in town. By the time we got back to the boat we’d covered 14 miles, so we were pretty much done for the day.
Groningen 
We walked back in again the next day to get there for 9 but were met with a firm NO. The walking in and out was starting to wear a bit thin so I thought I’d have a go at registering with one of the electric scooter companies. This worked out well and a couple of days later we took our first scooter ride (without Casper) into town via the vaccination centre to try our luck once again. This time when we asked for an early booking, we were told it would be ok but unfortunately we didn’t have all the necessary documentation with us, so we had to leave it for yet another day.
Watch out Groningen, here we come
On our wanderings we had found a mooring near the vaccination centre that looked like it might not be used much so on Saturday we left the marina in SHENSI to try and moor at this location. We managed to capture a good time lapse video of the trip which included a lot of lifting bridges and a trip through the town centre, which I later posted on Facebook.
As it happened, there was another mooring that worked out better because we could avoid a complex bridge combination. For the hell of it, we went along again to check if we could get our jabs early and this time there was no problem and by mid day we were both done. Nicki struggled a bit because they could not find her on the system which was odd as I was ok other than a slight misspelling of our surname. Afterwards I was fine but Nicki had a really painful arm for the following 24hrs.
It’s good to have a challenge every once in a while, although living on a boat has more than its fair share anyway. Still we left Groningen, a bit later than expected due to bridge issues, finally getting underway on a “planned” trip to the lake Schildmeer via quite a long trek down the Eemskanaal and then a right turn though an old lock and on towards the lake.
When we got to the lake, there was a lifting bridge to get through but this one is manually operated and you need a key to do so. Well some of the documentation says you get that from the lock keeper but as the lock was operated remotely, we thought we’d wing it. Big mistake – on arrival at the bridge it was absolutely no key, no opening’ with the added bonus of it being too narrow to turn round and retrace our route.
So, we phoned the contact number on the bridge for help/advice but they didn’t understand where we were and couldn’t help. Fortunately a local lady helped out and whilst the support line was not going to be able to help us directly, the local lady did have a key which she offered to use and let us through. Next problem … getting out again but that was for another day.
