Leaving Enkhuisen

We left Enkiusen at 1040 and locked back into the Markemeer for a 24 nm passage back to the Oranjisluice, which would take us into the Nordzee Canal through Amsterdam. The wind was almost on the nose so it was a motoring job. We got the tiller pilot on and I went below for a nap while Julian and Yvonne stayed on watch. I woke up after lunch much refreshed!

We got the sails up for a short sail once we were past the lighthouse at Markun, but the wind was very light and only just enough off the nose for us to sail, so they went down again before we reached Dugerdam.

The Oranjisluice came into view, all lights red, so we moored up to wait at 1650. It turns out that they don't operate between 1600 and 1800 because of rush hour. If we'd known that before we would have tried to leave Enkhuisen earlier. We met up with Avola while we waited for the lock. They were planning to head for Ijmuden and home from there. Once we were out of the lock and into the Nordzee canal we soon lost sight of them as Avola is nearly twice as fast as Kajan under motor.

The Nordsee Canal is so straight that Julian put the tiller pilot back on once we were clear of the ferries from Amsterdam Central Station. Once we passed Amsterdam Marina it felt like we were the only yacht in the canal. The occasional yachts heading towards Amsterdam felt a long way away as the canal is so wide.

A huge cargo ship came up astern of us as we passed the entrance to the Afrikadock. The entrance into the ZijKanaal C was to port just after so we throttled back to let it go past. The ferry waiting to cross the Nordzee canal also waited so we got past their bows beside the cargo ship, then crossed the ship's wake towards the ZijKanaal C.

We had seen the bridge lift and fall at the mouth of the canal just before we reached it, so expected to wait, but got the red over green “close up to the bridge” signal before we could tie up. We were soon through, and into the narrow confines and quiet rural scenery of the ZijKanaal C. There is a small marina just past the bridge, and we thought about stopping, but the next bridge we needed to get though only opened a couple of times a day, and we wanted to check the next lift. As it was only 1 mile on from the marina we decided to motor there and check the time board before deciding where to stop.

We knew that the bridge opened early, but thought it was 6am; when we reached the bridge at 2045 and could see the board we discovered it would open at 0530. However checking the time was why we had gone to the bridge! The annoying thing was that the previous lift had been at 2000, which we would have made if we had not needed to wait at the Oranjiscluice! With a 0530 start in prospect we moored up overnight on the waiting stage rather than going back to the marina and Julian cooked cheese omelettes for supper before we turned in early, with the alarm set for 5am.