Sails up for a 3 week journey

We left Monnickendam with a nice breeze. To get to Enkhuizen sailing. We first made a small turn towards the horse of Marken and then in a nice straight line to Enkhuizen. All sails up and we’re doing just under 7 knots. The lock Enkhuizen went fine and we wanted to wave to our friends Marcel and Astrid who wanted to see us off.  Unfortunately, we were looking at the wrong shore side🫣. Meanwhile, they took a nice picture of the WJ. 

The sun was already burning briskly and it was busy on the water. Not surprisingly, of course. We have a lovely chill sailing day, but just before Medemblik we do adjust the engine to make some more speed. The wind is already dropping and our speed proportionally to 3.5 kts. With quite a few miles to go to Den Helder and the Stevin lock in between, we want to speed up a bit. Unfortunately, on arrival at Stevin, the lock turns out to be out of order. Oops. We moored her in front of the lock and took a refreshing dip. Just under 45 minutes later, the problem was solved and we entered the lock, where as always all sorts of things happened behind us. Among them was a boat with a German couple that got stuck across. The skipper tried to avoid a collision course, which almost succeeded, and ended up next to another ship. His wife had not yet realised this and was still trying to get lines ashore. “Rina, du darfst an die andere seite sein”. (Rina, you need to be on the other side) And so things worked out after all. 

After sailing out, we arrived on a smooth tidal sea. The wind was completely gone. So everything on the engine. We spotted a porpoise and 2 seals during a lovely sail. At the Marine Caught Club Harbor we were warmly welcomed and moored between the other grey ships (the battling kind😉)  We had dinner at the Naval Yacht Club. The boys then disembarked. A lovely start to the holiday.