Franeker – Wide Ie

So I happen to have a boat that goes by the name of Balkonia. It needed to be transported from Franeker, in the Friesland province of the Netherlands, to Bremen, Germany. Since both places are located at some kind of waterway the obvious mode of transport is to cruise her along the Dutch and German canals and rivers. The total distance is about 300 km, and the top speed will be 6 km/h.

The day of departure had been delayed by some technical problems but today everything was solved and fixed and I finally set sail left Franeker at 2pm, short-handed (on my own).

The route goes mostly in an eastish direction, first following the Van Harinxmakanaal to Leeuwarden. On an earlier attempt last week we had moored in the city for one night, but today I sped past with still a few hours of sunlight left.

A few kilometers after joining the Prinses Margrietkanaal I decided to anchor in the Wide Ie, a lake-like extension on the canal, near the shore and well away from the navigation channel of the canal. Earlier in the afternoon I had seen another ship anchor in the middle of a lake so I figured doing so would be ok.

The cruising had been easy today. All bridges were high enough for my little boat and there were no locks. That is going to change tomorrow.
I was still a bit stressed over those problems that delayed my departure, but that is slowly fading away.


This entry is part of the Going Home on Balkonia trip. Country: . Bookmark the permalink.