September 2021 – Part 2
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Leaving the Rally, on the way back to Harderwijk I called in to collect the stove we had ordered for later installation in Shensi.
With only a couple of weeks left of our 2021 season, we moved on from Harderwijk on 17th September to do our final couple of weeks’ cruising this year, now on the Randmeren and with our first stop a return to Eiland Pierland (last visited two years ago). It’s such a nice spot to hang out for a few days (three as it turned out), reasonably quiet and not over-crowded, and I took some time to service the engine and sort out some of the fittings for our yet-to-be installed stove.
Next stop on out travels was a trip to Elburg, a picturesque Hanseatic town on the Veluwe lakes. Originally the intention was to make a stop just to top up with water and then pick up a free mooring elsewhere away from the area, but it turned out to be a little longer – a trip to a local boatyard saw us delving further into arranging to have the boat lifted out of the water for re-painting and to have an automatic pilot installed, among other things, possibly in April next.
We’d also heard of an indoor sand sculpture exibition set up near the binnenhaven, so took a tour around there too – a fascinating and pretty awesome visit – followed by a walk around the town.
We spent a large part of the next day in Elburg, finally leaving later in the afternoon to continue up the Drontermeer and moor up at Eiland Eekt.
Next stop was the island of De Ral for a three night stay, initially on our own but the following day a small number of boats came and went.
For some reason Casper loved this island, racing around all over the place, whereasof late he just trudges along near us.
Still, after the three days we made a thirty minute trip back to Eiland Pierland. Quite a few other boats around but still plenty of space here and so we settled down for a few more peaceful evenings. I took the opportunity of giving the boat a good clean, in preparation for our return to Harderwijk.
When we arrived back in Harderwijk, Hendrick one of the Harbour Masters was waiting to open the bridge and get us back to our mooring. After sorting ourselves out we went to the office to pay for the winter mooring, 661 euros. In the afternoon we sorted out our PCR tests for the return trip to the UK and then a trip to the vet for Caspers health check and vaccinations. So ends another year of fantastic cruising.
