(2) Another boat, another beer.

Another boat, another couple of friends, a lake instead of an ocean and another beer, but brilliant none the less.

Here she is (picture above) A beautiful 'Standvast' (40 ft). She belongs to good friends of mine, who were kind enough to invite Eric and me for a weekend sailing on the IJsselmeer.

The IJsselmeer used to be called the 'Zuiderzee' (or 'Southern Sea') until the government decided that we needed more land.  And so they closed off the Sea with a huge dike which, if literally translated, is called 'The Close Off Dike' (funny people, those Dutchies). Below is a picture from May 1932 where the last gap in the 1st layer of the dike is being closed.
(In mei 1932 werd het laatste gat in de Afsluitdijk gedicht. De bedenker van dit spectaculaire waterproject, Cornelis Lely, werkte er tientallen jaren aan.)

After that, they pumped dry about half of the then created, man made lake to make 'Polders' for people to live on.

A great feat of engineering, I know, but somehow I have always had this little voice in the back of my head saying..... Honestly! The audacity of it! Who are we to 'shut down' a sea and push back the waters so that we can have more land?

How typically Dutch of us.....Ve vant more land, and sooo ve vill make more land, ja?

So, 'the large lake which once was a fish-filled sea' was visited by us last weekend. The weather was beautiful and the waters were calm.

My family and I used to spend our holidays sailing on the lake and we passed 'our' harbour Andijk on our way to Medemblik, which, in turn, used to be Eric's harbour. We had plenty of time for reminiscing and talking about the good old days.

We didn't just talk though. There was also plenty of time for eating and drinking some fab. food and beverages. When we arrived in Medemblik we started the evening with pink Champagne, strawberries and Dutch, sweet, whipped cream (see picture).

A belated birthday celebration for Mary.

                                         It's the best!
(top picture taken by Eric)