240 km in 4 days across the Netherlands in my yacht: Awesome experience

All in all, a lovely trip. There were one or two small mishaps that require some DIY attention in the days to come.

BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Mrs D and I just returned from a four-day trip on Sirion. And it was a glorious trip. The weather was outstanding, sunny but not too hot, the food superb, we explored several new towns, met up with other boaters and to cap it all, the Dutch Air Force treated us to our private airshow whilst sailing on the river Maas!

We did about 240 km in four days. Every day we did about 6 hours of sailing. We were leaving around 10.00 o'clock and tying up in different marinas daily.

The main towns/villages we visited were all along the river Maas.

We had to take a bit of a detour on the first day as the Wilhelmina locks near Andel have been closed for maintenance for two months. Which meant going through the Biesbosch lock and sailing along the edge of the Biesbosch. Not a problem, it does add some time to the trip, but it is very pretty.

Sirion in the Biesbosch lock behind some other yachts.

A couple of hundred meters after we left the Biesbosch lock we overtook this lovely steam paddler!

As always gorgeous sailing here.

As the weather was so nice, Mrs D decided our Downey covers could do with some airing.

Our first port of call was Kerkdriel. The main reason for going here was to talk to the local yacht carpenter about some of the teak wood that needs replacing.

We docked at around 1600 hours at one of the three local marinas.

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All three of them are huge marinas with excellent facilities. I chose this one as it also has a pretty good restaurant. Well, it turned out to be an outstanding restaurant. We had a superb dinner! Overlooking the marina, we could see Sirion! Really nice, these days strictly non-alcoholic beverages and wine for us.

The next day the carpenter, Jos, came aboard and we discussed the work that needed doing. It will be done early next year, probably early April.

At around 10.00 o'clock we cast off again. We sailed for several hours, very pleasant when all of a sudden we heard a low-flying chopper.

Look at this!!

This Apache helicopter was out on manoeuvres. It was practising some low-altitude nap of the earth flying. We also saw it making countless "strafing" manoeuvres in a nearby field. Very spectacular.

The Apache pilot and gunner entertained us for some twenty minutes. There is a large Apached base at Gilze Rijen, less than 20 kilometres south of where we were sailing. Right opposite my old office! The next day as you will see later, we were entertained more, this time with planes, compliments of the Dutch Airforce again!

We were really surprised at how pretty and attractive the river Maas was. Fairly wide, with little current, and some commercial traffic but a lot less and much smaller barges than we had encountered on the river Waal.

Not all pretty, these are some of the outskirts of the town of Den Bosch.

A few little shipyards and drydocks along the way.

Around midday, we arrived at the locks at Lith. This is a massive facility, both a dam and two large locks.

I contacted the lock on the radio and they told us they would be ready for us in 15 minutes, so we tied up to wait.

After 15 minutes the lock opened and some yachts came out. By then several other yachts, two tugboats and a barge had also arrived behind us.

I called the lock operator again to check who he wanted to come in first. First the two tugs, then us, all other yachts should wait, then the barge. However, I was the only yacht with a radio it seemed. We let the two tugs go in first, but all the other yachts followed after us.

Which meant that the barge had to manoeuvre in with all the yachts in the lock already. Not a huge thing, just slow and time-consuming.

Look at the walls of this lock, you can see we will be lifted about 4-5 meters up!!

Here we are leaving the lock behind us and continuing on the Maas.

We came across this strange-looking vessel. I looked it up. Although it is a Dutch navy registration it is a diving training and support vessel of the Dutch army.

This guy was tacking with his sailing yacht on the river. It is allowed, but that doesn't mean you should do it. I gave him a wide berth. Technically he should have given way to us as we were following the starboard side of the river. But there were several other yachts and a barge near, so I made some room for him.

Endless pretty villages along our route. A friend of Mrs D lives here, right on the waterfront!

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