October 2022 – Part 1
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The first day of October 2022 began for us under a beautiful blue Turkish sky, very hot and sunny, with anticipation of Adam and Ayse’s wedding in the evening. We spent the early part of the day exploring a little of Izmir and later meeting up with Stuart and Sara for lunch before heading back to our respective hotels to get ready for the evening. We had arranged to travel to the venue with the two of them from their hotel, so once we were ready Nicki and I walked over to Stuart’s hotel, and from there we piled into a taxi for the shortish journey to the other side of the bay to join in a pre-wedding drink with the mostly British contingent, able to see both Adam and Ayse (separately) prior to the ceremony.
The whole evening was fabulous – the bride and groom looked stunning and were so happy with no sign of nerves on either side. Ayse had a couple of dress changes for the various stages of the evening, and in between them there was lots of dancing and enjoyment for everyone involved. It really was a joy to watch them and to be able to take part in it all. Stuart and Sara made a beautiful couple too and it was just lovely to see them together and having so much fun (and Nicki and I scrubbed up well too).
The next morning, Adam and Ayse had arranged for ‘the Brits’ to have a typical Turkish wedding breakfast, and so we had a relatively early start to walk over to their hotel and catch a mini-bus to take us all to the venue, which turned out to be a lovely arty-type restaurant in the surrounding hillside with lots of interesting sculptures dotted around. The breakfast was lovely, lots of little treats and dishes which seemed to just keep on coming – unfortunately there wasn’t enough time to be able to spend time looking around, but it didn’t detract from what was a very special end to the wedding weekend.
Following the breakfast we were all returned to the starting point and Nicki and I decided to look around the area a little more, finding a huge market area which we expected to be closed since it was a Sunday, but in fact it was bustling with stalls and people by the time we got there and we really enjoyed the whole time (until we got too tired).
We also managed a walk around “the lungs of Izmir”, a large park in the centre of town, and came across lots of stray dogs and cats virtually everywhere we went – apparently dogs and cats are considered to be communal in Turkey and so they were in the main all very relaxed, well fed and watered, with many, many bowls of food placed out for them. Dogs and cats were neutered and tagged in an effort to keep the populations under control.
Our last day in Izmir we again spent exploring until it was time to leave to return to the Netherlands and relieve Bob and Jane from dogsitting duties back on the boat in Leeuwarden.
We arrived in Leeuwarden very late at night and we were up and raring to go the following morning and set off in the direction of Dokkum, with an intended stop at the fairly new Marrakrite mooring just outside of the Anne Famke tea gardens (which sadly was closed for the season) where we spent a couple of night before pushing on to Dokkum, one of our favourite spots.
The weather was definitely getting colder now, but still dry most of the time, and the journey there was very pleasant as we passed through the two bridges on the way which each needed payment, firstly passing through Birdaard and then at the Aa brug at the entrance to Dokkum. As we approached we could see that it was very quiet on the water, and so we easily found a nice mooring at the base of the first windmill and settled in for a two night stay. We were lucky that it was dry and we could spend some time wandering the picturesque streets and taking in the scenery, although there was a very heavy rainstorm overnight on our final evening. Now out of season, the town was relatively quiet even though there were still a fair number of people milling around. On our final morning Bob woke with a nasty cough and cold but soldiered on captaining the boat to our next destination.
From Dokkum we were heading off-grid for a few days, and took a two hour cruise to the Lauwersoog area, mooring at a little Marrakrite island – as it turned out we were the only vessel at this location during our stay (although the staging ‘over the way’ had one or two boats arriving and departing throughout, there was no connection between the two areas so it felt as though it was our own little estate).
We spent three nights here and managed to complete a few small jobs, but eventually had to move on, this time to Zoutkamp, a lovely little shrimping town on the Reitdiep with lots of colourful sheds and fish/shrimp barns along the harbour walk, and plenty of interesting boats for Bob to wander round. We all took a short stroll around the nearby streets before finding a supermarket to re-supply for the coming few days.
Moving on once more, we left Zoutkamp after just one night with the hope of mooring up at what Nicki and I have dubbed ‘Customs Island’ (so-called following an extremely unexpected inspection by Customs Officers on a previous visit, and not an actual island, but a fenced-off grassy area along the edge of some farmland) on the way to Garnwerd along the Reitdiep. Here we took the opportunity to try out lowering and raising the wheelhouse roof just to make sure everything worked smoothly, especially as we are planning to head to France next season where we will definitely have to lower the roof for quite a long section of the Nivernais. Thankfully it was a success, and whilst the roof was down we did a spot of cleaning around the window and door frames to clear out any tricky spiders hiding in the grooves. It really was a nice location, very quiet and secluded with only birdsong and the occasional boat passing alongside or plane overhead.
A few days later we woke to a very foggy, cool morning and made the hour and a half journey along the river to pull into Garnwerd mooring outside of the restaurant; after a stroll round the quaint older area of the village we hunkered down for a quiet evening, which it was until the early hours of the next morning when a nearby party finished and people started walking past the boat to the annoyance of Pip, who made her feelings very loud and clear until I gave up and brought the dogs into the bedroom with Nicki and I so that they would settle better.
The following day we were off again, now heading to Reitdiephaven to settle Shensi for the winter season – Bob had his final chance at taking charge of her until we made the turn into the haven where I took over for the final few meters. The last few days of living onboard saw much tidying, cleaning and clearing up going on plus engine maintenance and lots of other more minor jobs, all in preparation to winterise the boat, and then that was it for our cruising in 2022 (except for a quick move around the marina to top up with water and make a final pump-out prior to leaving for the UK).
This year we’ve managed to travel through various parts of the Netherlands – some previously visited areas, some new – crossing the border into Germany as far as Berlin and the northern lakes, then back into the Netherlands. Lucy and Amy have visited us at different stages, and Bob and Jane joined us in September until the end of our cruising, when the four of us returned to the UK via the ferry.
