The Search Begins, May 7-10

We had maybe the smoothest flight ever across the Atlantic, not even any turbulence while eating, which is when it’s always the worst.  After landing about noon we sprung for a taxi to take us to the off-airport car rental place.  We really didn’t feel like schlepping our maxi bags onto the bus and then dragging them down the street.  We picked up the car and headed south for the small village of Stevensweert where we were booked into the bed and breakfast apartment at B & B Engelenhoff (http://engelenhof.com) for 4 days.  Mirjam and Koen, the owners, were there to greet us with some wine produced by Koen’s father (which turned out to be quite good!) and we struggled to stay awake until a reasonable hour, trying to defeat the evil jet lag.

What a great place!  Mirjam and Koen both speak English very well, are great hosts and turned out a great breakfast.  The apartment is almost as big as our house and very nicely appointed. Highly recommended!

Friday morning is was off to visit our first boat.   Adelaar (Eagle in English) is in Roermond, just about 15 minutes drive from the B&B. It was the perfect size but would need alot of work on the interior to make it work for us.  The price was also a bit high but we thought, if worse came to worse, we might be able to bargain it down a bit.

Adelaar

Saturday morning it was an hour drive to Nijmegen to see another tjalk, as all of the boats we would see in Netherlands, were. This one is owned by an elderly couple and their son and daughter-in-law were there to show it to us.  This one was not for us.

Sunday it was about 2 hour north to Vinkeveen, coincidentally the hailing port of Odysseus when we bought it.  There we saw De Hoop de Geleid Ons or Hope Leads Us On.  This is a real possibility. 

 The owner is a retired boatbuilder with great woodworking skills.  Cathy Jo really appreciated the finish!  It’s got three sleeping cabins, a nice roomy back deck and a spacious wheelhouse. It moved way up our list.  After visiting a total disaster of a boat up near Amsterdam, we headed back to Stevensweert for another bottle of Koen’s dad’s wine along with a meal of the great Holland white asparagus and prepare for the trip down to France.