Going Dutch

In 2015, we cruised to Norway’s Lofoten Islands on our Nordic 40, Juanona, which we’d sailed transatlantic from Maine to England. Our 2016 plan was to cruise through the Netherlands to the Kiel Canal, sail into the Baltic as far as Stockholm, then cruise the western coast of Sweden and the southern coast of Norway. We were uncertain where we’d spend the winter of 2016-17, although the United Kingdom and Ireland were our default destinations, because they are much more liberal than the rest of Europe with regard to visas for U.S. visitors.

It’s only a hundred miles from Ipswich, on England’s east coast, to IJmuiden, Holland, an easy overnight sail except for the clutter of targets on the AIS. There was also a lot of chatter on the VHF, always professional but sometimes bordering on the humorous. One cable-laying ship was on the radio much of the night, imploring other vessels to give him adequate clearance. Someone responded, “There’s no way I can give you a mile clearance, give me something I can work with.” after a protracted discussion, they eventually negotiated a half-mile of room.

Every new country we visit requires a learning curve, and in Holland, the challenge would be locks, bridges and sluices, that and figuring out the meaning of signs, chart nomenclature and VHF protocol. Surprisingly few resources are available in English. But we quickly learned that the Dutch are masters at organization and make things as easy as possible. With an age-old orientation to the sea, they give priority and respect to mariners. Traffic on any a busy road was promptly stopped to open a bridge for us.

After our landfall, we headed south along the canals to the town of Haarlem and tied up along the same section of a canal wall that we later saw depicted in an