After last years heat wave, we decided we needed to put more opening windows in Oldtimer. The wheelhouse with all its glass is like a greenhouse and only the two back ones open. Also, there are only two very small windows that open in the galley and we need more ventilation there, too. We had made contact with a window manufacturer in Holland and he had given us a pretty good price for the work. We looked into having them installed in a yard in France but we thought that would be too complicated. The windows are being produced several hundred kilometers from the boat. The old windows would have to be removed and shipped to Holland for use as patterns, then the new windows would have to be shipped to France and installed. What could possibly go wrong? Why not just take the boat to the windows? It would be easy for the window man to install the windows himself and we could just leave the boat there over then winter giving him plenty of time to do the job.
After parking the boat in the Charleville marina we rented a car and made the 2 1/2 hour drive up to Maasbracht, the Netherlands, the same place we started our boat search last year. We even ran into one of the owners of the B and B we stayed in last year on the street. That was quite a surprise! You just don’t expect to have someone calling out your name while on the streets of Maasbracht. We don’t, anyway. We made arrangements to have coffee with Mirjam and Koen on Wednesday afternoon.
We went over our window plans with Yvo de Ruijter from Omru Scheepsramen (boat windows in English) and he set us up with a berth for the winter at the Stevensweert municipal marina. It’s a huge slip and there’s lots of cruising territory around if we want to do some of that. We’ll have the slip from this September 1 to May 1 next year.
Our spot is on the east/west finger that sticks out from the land in the right hand lake.
We’ll be right across from that small power boat with the tan cover.
After spending the three days in the Netherlands it all came back to us. Everything is very clean and tidy, business is pretty straightforward and almost everybody speaks English, but don’t expect to get seated for dinner in a restaurant after about 7:30pm. Not in the small towns, anyway, tourist towns or not!
Business completed, on Thursday we headed back to Oldtimer in Charleville. We were invited to a big birthday bash in Burgundy on Saturday night.
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