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Sailing the Dutch Canals
Written May 3, 2000 while transiting the Kiel Canal
My last log was written while we were waiting for the 1313 bridge to open outside of Gouda. We made it O.K. and resumed our transit through the Dutch Delta canals.
Following our route, I last talked about leaving Middelburg, which was our first stop in the Netherlands. From there we went up the canal to a new (since about 1987) lake called the Veerse Meer. This lake was enlarged as a result of the Dutch Delta Project which I will talk about later. It is a long narrow lake with several mooring pontoons in park areas for picnics or overnight moorings. It was grey, cool and windy during our transit, which took about two and a half hours. Next we went through another lock and bridge into the Oosterschelde, a large inland sea walled off from the North Sea. This is where the east (Ooster) branch of the Scheldt River empties into the North Sea. Where we entered Holland at Vlissingen was the Westerschelde, the west branch which is open to the North Sea. That west branch leads down to the major port of Antwerp. The Oosterschelde is a salt water sea about twenty miles long and three miles wide. This Southern Delta region is known as Zeeland, the origin for New Zealand which was originally colonized by the Dutch.
We went up the Oosterschelde to a delightful town called Zierikzee, entered after going up a half mile entrance canal, through an open flood gate barrier, past the local yacht harbour and moored fishing boats into the center of town, to some convenient pontoons alongside (not the box moorings). We were helped alongside by Ron Newsom and his wife Averil from England, whom we met through Fred and Kathy when we were in Middelburg the previous day. Small world!
 Zierikzee is an ancient town dating back to 849, besieged by the Spanish in 1572, and badly flooded by the tidal surge of 1953. It originally had direct access to the North Sea before the Delta Project and was an important town in medieval Holland. Its streets are all cobbled and the houses tilt at precarious angles into each other or over the narrow streets. The canal entrance is dominated by the Monstertoren, an imposing square tower in dark stone with a square flat roof; funds ran out before the belfry on top was finished. It is a macabre structure squarely dominating that end of town with its dark towering lines. A hundred yards down from where we were docked was a traditional town gate overlooking the canal, with a draw bridge still operating to give access to the outer part of town across the canal. It is one of three that still rim the original town site.
In town there was a canal barge museum with a dozen leeboard canal barges on display in a closed off section of the canal, and an indoor section located in a 15th century prison with some of the original cells exhibited, as well as a display of ship models, and Roman artifacts from the port garrison Rome established in the area. We have found the museums in Holland excellent. The canal section adjoined a cobblestone town square overlooked on both sides by high narrow Dutch houses and businesses, as well as the medieval town hall with its wooden spire. It was a delight to walk the narrow side streets and see the old traditional Dutch houses leaning to and fro, with their various gabled styles and their spotlessly clean front windows. I kept thinking of that old Danny Kaye movie of Hans Christian Anderson. I felt I was in a time warp with the cobbled lanes, small corner stores, no sidewalks, bicycles everywhere, and the front doors and windows right on the narrow streets.
One of the main reasons for stopping there was to take a local bus to the Delta Project Museum, located on the tidal barrier with the North Sea. It happened to be Easter Sunday when we took this trip. This museum and display is variously called Delta Expo and Waterland. To reach it from Zeirikzee we got a 12 guilder day pass and caught the 133 bus to Hamstede Kirk and then the 104 bus to the Expo. This was an extremely worthwhile display costing 50 guilders ($38.00 Canadian) for the two of us. It is a full day experience with the displays being on two sides of the barrier (i.e. the North Sea side and the Oosterschelde side) On the North Sea side was the headquarters of the Barrier Control with several floors of displays and explanations of the Delta Project. It had excellent audiovisual displays that illustrated the effects of tides and currents on the soil, sea and bird life, and the constant struggle the Dutch have had in defending themselves and reclaiming land from the sea.
The other side had a dolphin pond where stranded and sick dolphins and porpoises were taken for recovery and reintroduction to their natural habitat in the sea. There was a 45 minute cruise around the barrier and the sand bars showing the effects of the tide on the shifting sands and the aquatic and bird life in the area. There was also a good film on the project, and the neatest water playground I have ever seen. It was a series of concrete pools and ponds interlinked with a water source at the top funneling down through streams that could be blocked off by the children (or more likely the adults) with guillotine type dams, to watch the way the waters found a new channel. There were Archimedes spirals to lift water up a level by turning the hollow spiral, as well as water wheels, fountains, water terraces, and stepping stones that were connected to sound vibrators as the kids stepped across them, possibly getting wet feet in the six inch depth.
The Delta Project itself was started as a result of the 1953 tidal surge and flood that broke dikes in 89 places and killed over 1800 people in Zeeland, the southern area of the Netherlands. In this area the rivers Rhine, Maas, and Schelde empty into the North Sea from their European sources as far away as the Alps. This complex delta area contained many islands below sea level, protected by dikes which would periodically be breached by tidal surges. The now completed (as of 1987) Delta Project controls the entry of tidal salt water and the exit of fresh water from the rivers, by a series of dams and locks inside the delta and gigantic storm surge barriers facing the North Sea. In the process this created several new large islands and lakes interlinked with canals, locks and bridges. There was an outcry by conservationists about damming off the sea totally, especially in the Oosterschelde, and so a complex locking system was set up to permit salt water to come through the tidal barrier at controlled levels, but the locks going into the canals and fresh water lakes were designed to permit fresh water to exit into salt, but not salt water into fresh. These locks took longer to fill and empty, but were an effective way of allowing the Oosterschelde to remain a tidal inland sea, preserving the salt water fisheries and the intricate sea life and bird life found at the commingling of fresh and salt waters.
Before we left Zeirikzee the next day, Judy went up the mast to take down our roller furling system and replace a bearing that was broken, probably a result of that gale we went through before we diverted to Ramsgate on our way over here. The combination of mast steps and a bosun’s chair makes doing masthead work easier and safer. She was quite a spectacle for the locals walking along the waterfront. However, we got it down, replaced the bearing, and up again in time to leave shortly after noon, heading for Dordrecht.
Our route through the Netherlands took us through the canals, lakes and locks of the southern and northern delta areas up through Dordrecht, Gouda, and Haarlem, to Amsterdam, and into the Ijsselmeer where we exited into the Wadensee, through the Frisian Islands into the North Sea and up to the Kiel Canal in Germany. But more of this in later logs. As I finish this, I am sitting on board Veleda at the British Kiel Yacht Club in Germany, and hope to be able to send it from here tomorrow.
Next Log
Links:
Waterland / Delta Project
Netherlands Water Partnership
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