Bridges

 As I write, the longest day is passed, and summer has finally kicked in with our solar panels nudging 14volts. We are moored on an island in what would have been the tidal Zuider Zee, before the big dyke enclosed the sea in 1932. We can look out across a wide navigable channel to Flevoland, the vast man made province created in the 1950/60s by enclosing and draining the seas.   

An idyllic island mooring for the night

So why do I write about bridges? Well throughout our European cruising, hundreds have dutifully and promptly lifted to allow our passage. There are close to 900 lifting bridges in the Netherlands alone and they all function on demand! If not, they certainly get fixed quickly. There is engineering and artistic flair in both new and old.

 In 1888 Vincent Van Gogh painted this bridge at Arles and it was probably ancient even then. This classic but oh so simple balance beam bridge is commonplace on the European waterways to this day. 

  
                   

                                                       The 'Bridge at Arles' 1888 

The same structure at Arles close to a century later!

This new Auckland bridge however remains inoperative (picture by Marika Khabazi)

I read from afar, with incredulity, that the Viaduct bridge, the one and only lift bridge in Auckland which merely carries  a walkway over a navigable waterway, after only 2 decades of use, remains broken and probably cannot be fixed for a further six months. 

Footbridge Zierikzee, built 1800s and still working

      

Old but classic functional footbridge Zwolle  built 1820

Original build 1892, fully restored in 2023

Same simple principle, but a more modern version

along the 'turfe route'

Small, scenic and beautifully balanced

I am no engineer, but I cannot help thinking that balance beams would be a simple fix for the Viaduct bridge!!

Meanwhile back aboard Antiope, we come across some massively engineered structures and the just plain quirky! 

This railway lift bridge is obliged to open for any craft with a standing mast

A Meccano set on the Brussels canal, Belgium

The bascule bridge is in Middleburg, just elegant.

OK, let's just lift a whole slice of road  

Or roll it up!

On demand, the right of passage remains with waterborne craft

Over the next few days we will continue southwards to Amersfoort, where we will have guests joining us aboard.

Thanks for reading and do comment if the mood takes you.

Cheers. Charles and Annie. 

Off Grid and Stork spotting

 This week we have the longest day, and by rights it should be high summer. Not so this year, with cold, wet weather persisting across much of northern Europe. Aboard Antiope, however, we have managed to stay cosy with no pressure to travel far. Having explored the Overijssel province last season, we have returned to some of our 'off grid' mooring spots to sit out the wet days. 

Pinned is the Weerribben National Park area

10 pm on a rare clear evening, and almost the longest day 

at time of writing. See blue spot on map

One of our favourite off grid moorings, close to Zwolle

Guests joined us for a few days and despite the weather, we were able to cruise slowly through the Weerribben National Park and do a bit of stork spotting during nesting time. The locals around here encourage the storks by creating nesting sites, even on roofs and on pole structures in their gardens. 

These pics taken by our guest aboard, Gerhard Klaus 

We did venture out onto the Ijssel river, making the passage up-stream from Kampen towards Zwolle. The rainfall in the upper reaches of the Rhine had topped the banks here and caused the strongest current we have yet encountered in the Netherlands. Slow going upstream, but a fast passage back down again a few days later.

Fast flowing current on the Ijssel

The Ijssel in flood

A familiar sight recently from our cosy cabin window!

Ouch!! Was it something I said? 

Sutton Hoo

 At 'Sutton Hoo' or South Hill in Saxon English is the site of one of the most dramatic archiological finds in England. 

1939 The outline of the Sutton Hoo ship is revealed. 

 One of my earliest memories of boating with my father is of his tale of a great ship buried on top of a hill overlooking the town of Woodbridge on the river Deben. This was where we had sailed to on one summer weekend when I was probably 6 or 7 years old. Mystery still surrounded the then relatively recent find and, which at that time, was on private land. Ever since, I have wanted to climb the hill and see it for myself.

What remains today of the hilltop 'Dig' site,  

This Iron sculpture has been created to the same scale as the vessel.  

The site is now managed by the National Trust and is open to the public. Research has determined that it was very probably a voyaging Saxon vessel which has been ceremonially dragged to the top of the hill and buried along with the body of Raedwald the Saxon ruler of East Anglia. He was buried with a hoarde of gold, silver and all the trappings of wealth, at sometime around 625 AD. Nothing remained of the ship's timbers except her iron fastenings and the burial treasures, however her outline was clearly defined against the compacted soil. 

The fragmented remains of the Saxon helmet

A reconstruction of that same helmet

Any visit to the British Museum is an experience in itself

                                       

                                                       An ornate silver dish and two spoons, 

                                                    still immaculate after 1400 years buried 

Items that were found in the ship have been identified as middle eastern.

The find has recently been dramatised with the film 'The Dig' portraying the somewhat amateur but determined excavation by a certain Basil Browne in 1939 which was just prior to war breaking out with Germany. My fascination with the story had to extend further with a visit to the British musuem in London to see the treasures themselves on display. I can now tick off another bucket list item.

Any visit to the British Museum is an experience in itself.

Since our UK visit, we have returned to Antiope in the Netherlands and she is afloat once more. It is great to be able to unpack properly at last. 

A big day. Our summer home is relaunched

Having found a peaceful mooring, we are back in the slow lane

  

 

Mystic

A break from the bustle of New York

Taking time out from the full on pace of  New York we took the train up to Mystic in New England for a couple of days.  For many years, a visit to the Mystic Seaport Museum has been on my bucket list. 

From a distance, a tantalising glimpse of 

Mystic Museum's treasure trove of vessels. 

The New England town has the sleepy charm of a bygone time. In the days of wooden ships, Mystic was a thriving shipbuilding town, its port alive at the peak of the whaling industry of the 1800s. To our minds today, the slaughter of thousands of whales seems horrific but the products derived from whaling back then set up many a New York dynasty. The Macys, the deparment store family, owned a fleet of ships and grew their fortunes on the back of whaling. 

Charles W Morgan, built 1841

While we may now be disturbed by its history, the Museum has done a worthy job of preserving a snapshot of the era. The whaling vessel, Charles W Morgan, is a survivivor of the hundreds of these rugged ships built at Mystic, and is still capable of going to sea under sail, having done so less than 10 years ago. She was not built for speed but was well suited for her grim task and in her working years made several sorties into New Zealand waters.

'Joseph Conrad' her sailing days over, is now a classroom 

Close by lies the gently rusting hull of the 'Joseph Conrad'. She was of particular interest to me. In my youth I had eagerly read Alan Villiers tale of her world voyage 'The Cruise of the Conrad' . Villiers was an experienced seafarer and adventurer. He acquired the retired Danish sail sailing vessel 'Georg Stage' renamed her, gathered a crew together and set off in 1934 to sail her around the world. To this day she still provides a classroom for would-be seafaring students.    

 

Aboard the 'Conrad'. She still has a role to play.

The schooner 'Brilliant' is also owned and managed by Mystic Seaport Museum, She fulfils today's seagoing sail training experience in a very similar manner to that of Steinlager 2 and Lion in New Zealand. Given half a chance, I would have stepped aboard and helped cast off.

The 76ft schooner 'Brilliant' ready for sea,

  with a full season of sail training trips lined up

Among the many museum buildings is the 'Rope walk' where thin natural fibre yarns were 'spun' into ropes and cables. The original 'Walk' was over 1,000 ft (300m) long. This shed is only half that length.

Reels of course yarn 

feed the rope spinning machine

The 'carriage' twists and binds the fibres.  

The rope walk is still in working order

The 'Draken Harald Harfagre'  was built in 2010

 One seemingly out of place vessel in Mystic was this massive Viking Dragon ship. 115 ft (34m)long and 26ft (8m) wide. The dream of her owner Sigurd Aase, she was built in Norway by hand as faithfully as possible to the original Norse lines, to retrace the Viking discovery voyages to the 'New World'. Having proved herself in the North Atlantic and voyages along the US coast, her home has been in Mystic for the past few years. On the day we visited she was hauled out for survey before heading back to Norway, sadly this time aboard a freight ship.

We have delayed the launching of Antiope in order to fly to England and catch up with friends and family for a few weeks. So our next blog update will come from aboard Antiope, afloat once more in Dutch waters.

Cheers Charles and Annie