4th - 6th October. On across the Markermeer to Muiden, then on to the River Vecht.

By Sunday morning the wind had changed, to come from the north, so we were very sheltered on our mooring. We walked to the far end of Hooft Island to see how rough our crossing was likely to be. The waves were rushing past the end of the breakwater, so we waited until late afternoon to cross over to the mainland at Muiden.

It was a very unusual sky later on, when we were out on the Markermeer, but the water was much calmer for our crossing.

On the approach to Muiden, we passed the Royal Marina. This white boat is the Green Dragon, which belongs to King Willem Alexander, the king of The Netherlands.

Muiden is a pleasant town, and we managed to fit in, backwards, on to the visitor mooring. Last night there was a converted lifeboat in the space next to The Puzzler, but we were socialising on his boat until late, and he left early this morning. It was a fascinating boat.

Update here! Rob has sent us this pic of both our boats at Muiden.

Walking back to see Muiden lock in the morning, it had lost the busy atmosphere of last night, when all these chairs were full of gongoozlers. (These are interested non-boaters, watching boaters!) The castle can just be seen beyond the yachts, which are moored beyond the lock.

We are on a staithe mooring on the river Vecht. These moorings are free but, as there is no access to land, they are not great for Shannon!

1st - 4th October. Our location in Holland on Flevoland. On to Almere-stad, then across Gooimeer and Markermeer to the island of Hooft.

Having been right over to the eastern border of the Netherlands, we are now back in Flevoland, as shown by the orange dot.

This mooring in Flevoland caters for campervans too, and we found extremely good walking in the woods nearby. We are quite near to the town of Lelystad here.

Our original idea was take our time on Flevoland, and to cross the Markermeer on Sunday, but the weather forecast has changed its mind, so we have pushed on, missing a visit to Lelystad. We managed to reach our friends, Ed and Olga, in Almere-stad by Thursday evening and had a great time with them.

In order to reach the lock at Almere-Haven by 10am, our booked time, we set off just after 7am, as soon as it was light. However, our route was across the Noorder Plassen, where we had to stop for half an hour, as the mist was too thick to see anything! After a while it began to clear, so we crept on until we found a marker to follow for our route.

Almere Sluis is built into the dike ahead of us. At this time of year it is only opened at 10am and 3pm, by arrangement. We managed to get here by 9.45, despite being delayed by the mist, as the sun eventually broke through.

Once in the lock, it seems a long way to go up!

We go up 5 metres in this lock, but these "floating" bollards make it so gentle. I kept waiting for the surge of water coming into the lock, but it never came!

From Almere-Haven we sail along Gooimeer, which is the most westerly part of the Randermeer. If we had wanted, we could have sailed along the full length of the Randermeer, to the south of Flevoland, all the way from Ketelmeer, but we prefer the inland route to these wide waters. We do not have a choice about this part though!

We have to go left of the green marker, then on  through the arch marked by the two yellow lights at Hollandse Bridge, which looks tricky, from this view! However the work barges are actually further from the bridge than it looks, and there was plenty of room to go behind them. They seem to be building a new bridge here, beside the current one.

In the distance we could see innumerable swans, sitting on the rocks.

As the weather was so calm, we went across to Hooft Island for a break, before the final stretch across to Muiden. It was so lovely that we stayed there until Sunday, only regretting it during some strong winds on Saturday, when we did bounce! During the weekend more boats of all types arrived, and the wind moved to the north, so the island protected us.

The island of Hooft is made of sand, but is protected from the waves by breakwaters, especially on this northern shoreline.

Well, everyone needs their own director's chair!

27th - 28th April. Across the Markermeer to Marken, then on to Volendam, and back inland at Edam.

We spent two nights at this idyllic spot. miles from anywhere, or so it seemed. The first day was extremely wet, but two walkers passed us and recommended that we go to visit the island of Marken.

The following morning we took them up on this, and retraced our steps to Monnickerdam, and on out through the lock and harbour.

This route took us out into the Markermeer, which used to be part of the ZuiderZee. We passed a dredger working to the right of the navigation channel. The island of Marken can just be seen in the distance to the left of the dredger, although it is not now really an island as it has a causeway to the mainland. The three miles across open water to get there seemed a long way!

Marken Harbour is very attractive, with the houses surrounding it. Most craft here were yachts, with a few smaller cruisers too. The village is quite large, away from the tourist shops around the harbour.

We walked the two miles to the far end of Marken to see Marken Vuurhuis, or lighthouse. This was as close as we were allowed to go though.

Shannon did the tourist bit, with the large clogs!

Coming out of Marken Harbour, we turned right to follow the passenger ferry across more open water to Volendam, which is another tourist destination. The two boats on the skyline are actually enormous cruise ships, heading for Volendam.

In the harbour, The Puzzler can just be seen on the right, under the bird, while the cruise ships are beyond the ferry, just outside the harbour wall.

In Volendam Museum one whole room contained mosaic pictures, which had been made from 11 million cigar papers. Other rooms showed Dutch life in various scenes, with an interesting video presentation about the importance of the fishing industry to Volendam. As we are learning Dutch, we could understand a little of it.

We stayed at Volendam until 7pm, as the wind was too strong before then for The Puzzler to be out at sea.. Sally was at the helm again, for the last leg of our sailing across the open waters of the Markermeer. Well, along the edge of it anyway! This part was round the headland to Edam, but we had no markers to help us this time, for most of the way.

It was a relief to see the entrance to Edam harbour ahead of us. There are always a few red and green markers to guide ships in, from the Meer.