Latest Adventures
Netherlands waterways cruise – Sojourn in Steenwijk
Netherlands waterway cruise - Steenwijk Steenwijk - visitor mooring in town The best thing about having one's own boat, as opposed to chartering a boat, is you can stop wherever you are as long as you want.In 2011 when we were here on our hired boat, we rather rushed...
Zwartsluis to Steenwijk – first outing of the year.
Deck crew ready for action It actually didn't matter where we were heading - it was just so wonderful to be back on the water!! As I mentioned in the previous post, various circumstances dictated that we simply didn't have time to get to Amsterdam and back, so opted...
Finally afloat and shipshape!
Shangri La heading to the water - Karen looking on. It's been another couple of frustrating days, but we are finally back in the water with nearly everything back working properly. Monday started off with Eric, the mechanic from de Kranerweerd coming aboard to start...
Aboard – but not yet afloat!
Back aboard Shangri La 2 At last the 2014 cruising year has started. Mixed feelings at the moment - thrilled to be back on board, but most disappointed that not much of the work that had been promised would be done is even started, let alone finished. So we flew into...
Planning for our 2014 Netherlands cruising on Shangri-La
2013 - wonderful memories Time flies! Already nearly time for us to head north again, and get Shangri-La 2 back in the water for this year's cruising. Before we left the her at the end of last year, I gave a whole long job list to Wim at de Kranerweerd. Hopefully he...
North Netherlands cruise part 11. End of the cruise and wintering Shangri La.
Netherlands inland waterway cruise To see part 10 - click here To go to beginning - click here Shangri La heading to the crane So we were now back in Zwartsluis. I had kept my RYA cruising log going, and now filled in the season's summary: Days on board:...
North Netherlands cruise part 10 – Full circle: Kampen back to Zwartsluis
Netherlands inland waterway cruise To go to part 9 click here To go to beginning click here Route Kampen to Zwartsluis - Netherlands The last part of the trip completed a full circle, taking us through Ganzesluis into Ganzediep, along the Goot with...
North Netherlands cruise Part 9 – Urk to Kampen
Old time sail trainer on the Ketelmeer To see part 8 click here To go to part 1 of the trip click here The next stage took us from Urk, out onto the Ijsselmeer for a short while, under Ketelbrug and into the Ketelmeer, along Keteldiep and the Ijssel River...
North Netherlands cruise Part 8 – Lemmer to Urk via Emmeloord
Boats waiting at Friesesluis To go to previous part click here or to go back to the beginning of the trip click here The weather was still not particularly great. Frequent heavy rain showers, and gusty winds. Karen had been hoping to go out onto the...
North Netherlands cruise Part 7 – Sneek to Lemmer
Busy canal in Sneek To go to previous part click here or to go back to the beginning of the trip click here After 5 days in Sneek, we were glad to get moving again. When we first arrived in Sneek, we grabbed the first mooring available, which was to the...












My love of boats goes back to my early years when I went on holiday with my parents to Knysna in the Cape.
We stayed at a hotel on stilts, and I played in rowing boats and little motor boats on the lagoon.