16 August
Haarlem to Katwijk

Disaster! We had run out of gas for our BBQ. As this would mean cooking on my part, I made it my mission to track down somewhere to change the bottle. It took telephone calls to three marinas before I found a near-ish one where we could make the exchange, so that was the first stop this morning. It took us 8km there and back out of our way to the Doesburg marina and also involved dropping the aft-deck-tent and the windscreen, but needs must.

Our first stop today was down this small side canal
to the Doesburg marina to buy a new gas bottle.

Thereafter we headed 5km downstream and then turned right towards the coast, rejoining the Rijn River. The distance was not great, a total of 20km not counting the gas detour, but it took us all afternoon because of the 23 bridges, most of which were lift bridges and at some of which we waited ages.

This chap had the smallest of turning circles to get
through the bridge. His stern was 3 metres from the side of our boat. (We were tied up to the bank in Leiden). He really knew what her was doing though.

The plan had been to stop the night and perhaps two at Katwijk, which is a seaside town. Blech... we took one look at the passantahaven, which was CHOCK-A-BLOCK and surrounded by ugly modern buildings and decided to backtrack a little ways up stream to a small marina we had passed a couple of km back. Much more our thing and only a couple of km down a lovely cycle track to the town.

Today's route was through suburbia.

Katwijk was in full party mode with the streets lined with hundreds of stalls, food wagons, displays of classic cars and even classic fire engines. There were appropriate hordes of people too, and it was nice to see the beach sunny and windless for a change - still crowded, even at 6pm.

Katwijk seafront. Like seafronts the world over. They all seem to look more-or-less the same.

Katwijk passanthaven. Nope, not for us.

Oompah band.

While wandering around we spotted a board outside a Greek restaurant advertising a mix grill 16 euro per person. We wandered straight past, but just then a waiter delivered some enormous, colourful platters to a street-side table and we were hooked. Delicious but far too much, so we brought at least half of it home for lunch tomorrow.

This ouma, in traditional garb, was selling knitted beaded bags. Very pretty, but dunno what I would do with one.

Skip at the "Happiness Station"

Except his tummy was full of ice cream when we spotted this.

Graeme needs a sign like this outside his door :)

Anyone for walkies?

So RED, so SHINY

All that's left of the river Rijn as it peters out at the coast.

Back aboard, skip turned to a local TV station and we watched the gymnastics and cycling. GO team GB. Doing brilliantly. I think the whole of the Netherlands, though, must have been in mourning as their favourite, "the Flying Dutchman", who was a shoe-in for gold on the high bar, fell off, slap bang on his face. Despite the bleeding nose, though, he got back on and finished his set. What a shame.

Don't like Katwijk enough for another day here, so tomorrow we'll head south for a bit.