Week 35 Admiraliteitsdagen _ Dokkum

 Dokkum 2022

This week could also be titled "the art of doing nothing". 

Just living on the boat or on the grassy bank - lots of walks, lots of reading, too much eating.

The grass in front of the boat was mowed, so Janny asked the house owner if we could use his rake. No worries - he's an 87 year old chap who seems to keep going through love for his garden. His house is our undisputed favourite in Dokkum - given it's position on the water with it's own mooring.

On Wednesday, I tried the Omnia Oven out on something more serious than bake-off bread rolls. It was still pretty basic but really excellent! I now have the Omnia Cook Book to work from - so far, so good.

By Thursday, they had finished setting up the various stages for the musical side of the festivities - with all the necessary lighting and sound - quite a challenge - it took them over a week to finish it.

An early rehearsal...

Waterteunisbloem

We asked the couple of workers what they were doing? - fishing out a very threatening weed called waterteunisbloem - water evening primrose...

(translated from wikipedia)

Water evening primrose ( Ludwigia grandiflora ) is a perennial aquatic plant belonging to the evening primrose family ( Onagraceae ). Water evening primrose roots in the riparian zone and forms dense mats floating on the water surface. The plant is originally from America , this pond plant and exotic comes in the Netherlands in the wild since 1975. It was already introduced in Europe at the beginning of the 19th century (1823). She ended up in the Netherlands through the trade in pond plants. The first report of naturalization in the Netherlands dates from 1993, when the plant was found in a pond in Dalfsen. Most, if not all, places to grow in the open water can be traced back to the dumping of excess pond plants.

Evening primrose grows in and along shaded, stagnant to slow flowing, nutrient-rich waters, such as ditches, canals, ponds, lakes, streams, rivers, city canals and sand and clay extraction pits. Once established in the open water, further spreading occurs through dislodged stem fragments carried by the water current. It is still unclear to what extent the plant can form germinating seeds in the Low Countries. In 2000 there was for the first time serious nuisance caused by water evening primrose in the Netherlands. Large masses blocked the water discharge in a waterway near Tiel , so that the water board was forced to remove the plants. Up to and including 2008, the plant showed a strong increase in distribution. After intensive control and a few harsh winters, the plant seemed to be on the decline in the Netherlands, but after that it increased again. The large amount of biomass that is formed threatens the flow of waterways and hinders the growth of submerged aquatic plants through shading. The original fauna is impoverished and in stagnant waters there is a lack of oxygen.

Janny went supping - we forgot the fin and paddle of the 2nd board - so I was spared...

We "clicked" with our immediate boat neighbours - so we had drinks even before we headed off to the festivities. They ended up with a couple of our spare stubby holders...

They are very Frisian with names Watze and Metje - we compared boats - Watze is very knowledgeable having completely stripped the interior of their boat and rebuilding it himself - along with all the bells and whistles of solar panels and inverters and so on...(my head spins with that stuff). It's his hobby, he says.

His real work is also interesting. He is a "Process Operator" at a paper factory in Sumar (originally named because it is a tiny village "South of the Lake" (mar = lake)). He said the factory has been in different hands over the years and not so long ago some of their machinery was sold off - some of it went to Brazil - the workers were at a bit of a loose end and so a few of them decided to build a new machine from scratch - it is truly unique in the world and the factory is now the biggest earner for the parent company - at 32 million euros per year! - no mean feat for a tiny village like Sumar!.

Watze said that the patents have now expired for the machinery and a sister company in America is going to make one of their own - a team of photographers came  to make 3D photos of the whole thing as the first step. They said this would be cheaper than transporting the whole thing to America.

Watze also said that he fears that this may well be the death knell for the little factory in Sumar - but. maybe they will pay him out so that he can retire...(to the boat, of course).

I managed a little play on words when we said goodbye - in English it came out as "Nice to have met yer, Metje" (also pronounced metyer or even metjah). Not sure how good their English is, but I think she got it...

We swapped phone numbers (mostly for Whatsapp) and email adresses.

We had great weather for the week - although it did get windy and in the evenings it cooled off enough to remind me that we usually light the fires in September. Still very uneasy about the steep gas prices - Janny's new kitchen and living room will have to wait a while - which is a pity because so much of it was to include better insulation and hopefully get off gas altogether.

Saturday

Janny took Boeke home and picked up sister Bertha and brother in law Gerard...

The music was even to my liking for the afternoon and evening - so we ate and drank too much and played cards as we watched all the people coming and going...

...and  then back to the boat and another game of cards that took us past midnight...

Sunday

This route to Lauwersmeer is currently being worked on - raising the bridge heights to 2.4 metres - to be completed for the 2023 season - so we now have that in the planning (along with a few hundred other things!).

We left Dokkum at 0920hrs and arrived in Heerenveen at 1600hrs.

I wanted to try out the Omnia oven again, so I made some scones!

More weighty matters...

Rhine water levels

from https://www.bnr.nl/

The water level also has consequences in the Netherlands. The construction sector threatens to stagnate because no sand and gravel are supplied from Germany and without sand and gravel there is no concrete. That writes the AD. 'If it doesn't start to rain very soon in the Rhine catchment area, I will hold my breath. Then in two and a half weeks, when the holidays are over everywhere, construction will stagnate', says Pim van Baaren, chairman of the board for inland shipping shippers of the association of entrepreneurs evofenedex.

Sand and gravel vessels can only transport half of the usual cargo due to the low water. In many places the fairway is so narrow due to the shallows that overtaking is prohibited. And there is a shortage of ships. Germany is chartering every possible barge to supply coal for power plants now that Russia is supplying less gas. Ships are also needed for grain transport from Eastern Europe.