... try and find us

The old and the new - apartments now line the old docks in Eastern Docklands After a magical sail down from Enkhuizen, and timing the opening of the bridge to perfection (okay, that was just insanely good luck!), we pulled into the marina in Amsterdam in the late afternoon. This left us plenty of time to head out for a wander, followed by a couple of beers and dinner at a canal-side café.  A pretty perfect way to arrive in Amsterdam! The weather was windy and very wet so we hunkered down and caught up on all sorts of housework, boat jobs, filled out immigration paperwork, administration of life and cooked up a big pot of chili to freeze for our upcoming passages. This cruising life is not all champagne and sunsets! We rode our bikes to check out of the EU at Marechausse and received some very welcome news from the from the very friendly officers.  As Sean is an EU citizen, Kate is able to stay in the Schengen Zone with him as long as we travel together and we don't s...

Once again, Chinook might go cross-country instead of 'cross the sea. Due to the weather conditions in the North Sea, we found ourselves contemplating something we hadn’t expected to do at all—the Staande Mastroute , or Standing Mast Route, through the Netherlands. We had actually eyed this route after our jaunt through the Göta Canal , but our trusty cruising guide had put a rather large spanner in the works. It stated that the route was limited to a mast height of 18 metres. With our mast standing at a lofty 21 metres, we had rather reluctantly filed that thought under “not going to happen.” But the North Sea had other ideas. With the weather not in our favour and the prospect of spending more time than we wanted bashing to windward along the Dutch coast, the Standing Mast Route suddenly started looking rather attractive. Then, as luck would have it, we met the most lovely Dutch couple who completely changed the equation. They assured us that our 21-metre mast would ind...