21 August
Dordrecht, still

Luckily this is a great place to spend some days, 'cos today poured most of the day. We did have the odd spell of sunshine when we thought "OK, let's go", only for the heavens to open again shortly after.

So, it became a day of below decks maintenance and installation.

Skip spent most of the morning upside down in the bilges, lockers, etc. and most of the afternoon with wires and electronic bits.

I could not resist taking this ;)

I will leave him to elaborate.

Skip here: "I was tidying up wiring and installing the fresh water-tank meter which will tell us how much is in the tanks. I was also going through the "work-shop locker" and chucking out unused bits like a coffee maker that was taking up too much space."

I spent the morning writing yesterday's blog and sorting photos - discarding blurry, overexposed, underexposed, duplicates and any ugly ones of myself ;), while nibbling on the biltong we had forgotten at the back of the fridge.

The sun eventually came out in the afternoon so Skip put his bike ashore and went for a ride while I took a stroll around town. I discovered that the two museums, right here on the quayside behind the boat, are open on a sunday afternoon so I visited both. The one was lovely, the other interesting.



In the center of the pic is the Huis van Gijn with the 1940-1945 museum next door. Zoe was moored right in front.

The lovely one is the House van Gijn. Van Gijn was a wealthy business man, lawyer, and a prominent historian and collector. He lived in the house on the quayside here from 1864 until his death in 1922. When he died, childless, he left his house and collection to a local historical society with the provision that it be turned into a musem open to the public.

On my wanderings around these old dutch towns, I often wish I could see behind the huge doors and windows, and it was such a treat to finally do so.

And quite the collector old Mr van Gijn was. The original interiors from the 17th, 18th & 19th centuries have been maintained, and stuffed full of his extensive collections. Much is made of the gilt leather room (unique in Holland) dating from 1686 but I gotta tell you, it is UUUUGLY!



A sneak pic of the hallway.

The museum right next door is dedicated to Dordrecht 1940-1945 and is a most interesting collection of mostly donated items from this period in the town's history. I found it fascinating and spent over an hour there.

For the most part I stayed dry - during one heavy shower I took shelter under a cloister in the Augustinian monestry. In the square outside a bad rock band was giving it stick and I imagined the monks turning in their many graves.

The Augustinian monestry, Het Hof. A meeting here in 1572 by the 12 cities of Holland marks the beginning of the Dutch state.

I also got the charts out of the Biesbosch, which is going to be our next destination.

The Biesbosch is an extensive national park and one of the last freshwater tidal estuaries in Europe.  It is criss-crossed with tidal channels, willow woods, grasslands and fields of reeds. The channels and sandbanks are constantly changing so an up-to-date chart is essential (we purchased one yesterday).