Friday 22 July - Monday 25 July 2016

We left J&J after a couple of very sociable days in Muiden and made our way across the lower Markemeer to the Orangesluis which allowed us into the North Sea Canal and enabled us to transit Amsterdam. After endless canal side industries we turned off into the rural canal which would take us southwards to Haarlem, where we spent the night close to but not exactly on the edge - it was just too shallow for us and the next bridge had broken down!

Off the next morning we made a good start just after 0800 and then had to wait for a bridge which did not open till 0900, pressing on after that we had two further bridges which were timed and each required us to wait nearly two hours. We eventually arrived in Gouda and took the narrow industrial sidewater up to the only mooring facility that could take us, we had Dutch friends for lunch the next day and as we needed easy access for them we had reserved a berth there. A walk round this fabulously attractive town was rewarding as the pictures show.

We vacated our shabby mooring up a muddy creek just before 0900 and did not have to wait long for the lock which let us up into a wider canalised river. In the drizzle we motored towards Rotterdam until we arrived at yet another timed bridge, another wait. Then on into the slightly tidal ring around until the railway bridge before Dordrecht, where we waited another hour until finally into the Haringvliet and along to Willemstad, the pretty village before the Volkerac Sluis.

We refuelled and moored up as the day brightened, happy to be free of the brown canal water atlast and happy to be in a nice mooring place again.