BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts: The next morning I was awake at about 06.30 AM. Dark and foggy. So I had a very leisurely early morning, waiting for it to become light and less foggy. I called the VTS Operator to check about the fog conditions towards the Oranje-Locks. She told me they had well over a kilometre of visibility. Good enough for me, but still using radar as well as AIS of course. Always lots to see and some interesting ships here on the IJ and the surrounding shipyards. Old and new go together at this yard! Still a bit foggy I passed the Oranje Lock within 10 minutes of me arriving. Only vessel in the lock. Here we are passing the Schellingwoude-bridge. Pleasure crafts need to stay left of the bridge and pass underneath the fixed part. And once you pass the bridge, you will need to keep left (port) for about 1,5 km before crossing over to the normal side of the canal. All to keep pleasure crafts away from the barges as much as possible. The city of Almere in the (foggy) distance Onto the IJmeer. Some marinas with lots of sailing yachts in the far distance. Pinpoint navigation. That is our position!! I have an electronic chart plotter, a navigational app running on my iPad, two independent GPS systems, AIS and a Doppler radar, but I still keep track of the position of paper charts as well! From the IJmeer we sail onto the Markermeer. I am keeping Sirion about 1,5 km from the shore of the Flevo polder. Close to the buoys, marking the main channel, but it is deep enough for Sirion to stay out of the main channel and leave that to the professional barges. With about 65 km to go, I am keeping Sirion at a sedate 10 km/h. Hardly using any fuel and we are in no rush. We make it to Lelystad and its locks within a few hours. Approach to Lelystad and the Houtrib locks Close to the locks is also the Batavia-werf (Batavia-Yard). They have built this replica of the VOC ship Batavia. These are the Houtrib locks at Lelystad. About 5-6 sail yachts ahead of me. There is a bridge that needs to open for these sailing yachts. The lock operators put the first set of lights on green and the second set on red/green. On the radio, he asks all the sailing yachts to bunch up as close as they can to the red/green lights. Once all the sailing yachts are in position, he opens the bridge and turns the second set of lights to green as well. All yachts pass the bridge within a few minutes. So the road traffic has to wait only a few minutes. For the first time out on the IJsselmeer. The IJsselmeer used to be the Zuiderzee, open to the North sea. In 1932 the Zuiderzee was closed off from the North sea by means of the Afsluitdijk. It took several years to build this dike. More about it in relation to Urk in a minute. It might be the future, but it ain’t pretty. There are two massive wind farms out here in the IJsselmeer. Check out the size of these things. Look at the size of that barge in relation to the windmill! Approaching Urk. I had called the harbour master earlier. Urk has a lot of yachts coming and going. Basically, you sail in and find your own spot. They have signposts on the various jetties to show what size boat goes where and whether open positions can be used by Passanten (passerby’s such as Sirion) Found Sirion a nice spot. Each berth has a QR code attached to it. You scan it, and you are directed to a website where you will enter the boat dimensions and number of people on board. Once you have paid you will have shore power established as well. Also, you will get the codes for the toilet/shower fascilities and WiFi codes sent by email. Works really well, but you don’t see or get to talk to the harbour master at all. We have been to Urk a few times before. It is a small fishing town, very traditional and religious. It used to be an island in the Zuiderzee. Its fishing fleet used to sail across the Zuiderzee into the North Sea. As mentioned, the Zuiderzee became closed off from the North Sea in 1935. That also meant the Zuiderzee ceased to exist and the water changed from salt sea water to fresh water! By the 1950’s Urk also ceased to be an island. As the Dutch started to reclaim more and more land from the former Zuidermeer, Urk all of a sudden became part of mainland the Netherlands. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urk) So there has always been a huge historical connection with the sea and fishing. Not sure why they chose an Orca for a statue here on the marina pier? Its very rare for Orcas to be seen on the North Sea. But tourists love to take a selfie with it in the background. The marina is still surrounded by all kinds of professional fishing and yard-type activities. I made my way into the old centre of Urk. It has a lovely museum. We have visited several times and highly recommend it, as it gives an excellent overview of what Urk used to look like. In front of the museum an old “Kromhout” Diesel engine from one of the old fishing boats. I took these images at the museum. Here you see the original island Urk and it shows how small the actual village was. Here, you see that same image of the island Urk, overlaid on the current Urk. You can also clearly see, it is no longer an Island. This highly independent community all of a sudden, was connected by two dikes and the water was being pumped away on the east side! Lots of information on fishing and what life used to be on the island Urk. An old village shop. Apparently, most of the shops in the village were owned and operated by widows, wives who had lost their husbands at sea. When walking through this museum, it is easy to become a bit sentimental about the olden days. But life at Urk was very harsh. It was a tiny community and had to be completely self-supporting. Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.
