Woke up to a misty morning. We were moored between two windmills and to our delight they started turning first thing.

The Dokkum windmill in yesterday's evening light.

Unfortunately we also awoke to yet another fire. This time a house on the opposite side of the canal was on fire. The fire brigade and the police soon arrived, but by then the house was well engulfed with sky high flames shooting out of the roof. One of the fire engines extended their boom with two firemen in the basket and they poured water on the flames for a good hour before it was out. Can't help feeling for the home owners.

The weather was a disappointment as we had planned to stay another night in Dokkum and take a long bike ride up to the coast about 14km away. It didn't feel like a bike day, so we decided on a morning stroll through town and then a departure for the mouth of the Lauwersmeer.

Dokkum is a charming little town. It's the market town for a large outlying district so is packed with thriving and interesting shops as well as the usual chains. We've been in some pretty towns on this trip, but I think this is the prettiest with its narrow canals, lovely old gables buildings and white arched bridges.

They have had one event of note - the assassination of St Boniface in, wait for it, ...... 754! You'd think it happened yesterday by the fuss they still make about it. There are Boniface routes, buildings (here he stayed, here he prayed, here he ate lunch, here he pooped -well maybe I made that one up), Boniface pubs, restaurants, drinks, tea towels, well you get the idea.

My Mr Pickles has been keeping
Purrr-ty quiet about his secret business empire ...

We had a hurried lunch when we realised the bridges were about to close again and headed down river with the sky brightening and a lighter wind than expected.
Just beyond Engwierum we passed through the lock into the mouth of the lake. We want to get through the meer tomorrow as the weather is set to take a turn for the worse on Monday and we don't want to be in open water in a wind.

We found a lovely quiet mooring just past the lock. It says restaurant guests only, and there is a restaurant, kinda, nearby but we are so tucked away behind the reeds we are hoping no-one notices we're there. Most places are closed for the season already around here.

With the improved weather we decided on a bike ride after all. We followed a lovely bike track alongside the dikes to a small village called Oostmahorn. No photos, because we forgot to take the camera. The dikes are really high along this stretch because they were once seadikes, protecting the area from influxes of the north sea until the whole Lauwresmeer estuary was enclosed turning it, effectively, into a lake. There are millions of birds and we passed quite a few "twitchers" with their long lenses pointed over the marshes. On the top at one point we came across a delightful eetcafe, and as it was about time to turn around and head for home, we stopped for coffee and apple pie with slag. Slag sounds like something you end up with after clearing your throat, but is actually whipped cream.  :)

We got back to the boat just after 5 o'clock-beer-time. Isn't life grand ...