That's the slogan of LeBoat, the company we've rented our boat from. It's a large company, with locations in a number of countries, France, Scotland, Canada, a few more. I wonder if the no license part is true in all the countries.
Our boat is the smallest they have, the Cirrus B. It's great for two, or a family with a couple of kids. They have a number of larger boats, some of which we've seen in our travels. I'm not sure I'd recommend the trip to someone with no experience. Loring has some, with smaller day boats like the Boston whaler we had in the Bahamas, and the one his family had in New Hampshire. That one was about half the length of this one, and much easier to manouever. Here you need to be able to navigate through bridges, and locks, and it's not so easy to dock either. And I am of little use, can barely toss the ropes ashore and only if we are very close to the dock. I am a happy passenger but not a very helpful boater. Luckily there has often been someone on shore, another boater or someone personing the lock, to help.
And I feel like the slogan, written on the side of the boat, brands us as newcomers. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
We are now docked in Breukelin, have been here overnight. It's the original town for which Brooklyn New York was named. It's another charming little town, with a number of restaurants, at least half of them with Asian cuisine. We did find one with more Dutch style food, which included a lot of steak dishes, so not exactly local cuisine. Had a nice meal of a steak salad, sauteed vegetables, mushrooms, and fries. It's actually the first time we've had fries here, although they are very popular, served in a paper cone on the street. They eat them with mayonnaise, which is the way I eat them at home too. I think the Dutch spelling is frietes. Did you know that French fries is a misnomer, because they actually originated in Belgium? And who remembers when our over patriotic government renamed them Freedom Fries after France refused to support the Iraq war?
Breukelin also has a number of shops, most of them women's clothing, shoe stores, etc. Outside one shoe store was a rack of Dutch souvenirs, almost entirely miniature wooden shoes. But I spied a magnet that had both Breukelin names, and bought it for Aaron and Ilana who live in Brooklyn. Do you think anyone else has ever given a refrigerator magnet as a wedding present? There are also several barber and hair salons, which seems to be the case in evert town. And wellness spas seem common too.
We will soon leave Breukelin for Weesp, which will probably be our last stop before returning to Vinkeveen and returning the boat on our last night. I think we have three nights left. It's hard to keep track. Loring had plotted out our route back to Vinkeveen from Weesp, before he called the leBoat office this morning to reserve a taxi back to the airport. Lucky he asked them about the route, because they told him that the planned route was impassable because of weeds, and that there was an X on the map they gave us to indicate that. The online app he's mostly been using doesn't indicate that, although it's got lots of information. So it's certainly a good thing the subject came up or we'd have been in for a very long and frustrating last day. Of course, who knows what's in store for us for the next few days. One thing we've learned on this trip is to be very flexible. Although I doubt that the recent heat wave has been much of a problem, if any, in the past.
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