Safe coast

Zirfaea is one of the ten ships owned by the Ministery of public works. The complete fleet of the north sea can be looked at on this page. She is a 63 meter long boat used to investigate the seabed, measure the waves, inspect pipelines, detect wrecks of the sea, etc... It is also used if containment in oil spills. It is also equipped with ROHP II, an underwater robot needed for all kinds of inspection ant taking of samples from the seabed. It must be very interesting to visit this kind of boat and understand how they work.

Romantic rowboats

When is the last time you rented such a rowboat and dreamt of stopping the clock? Very picturesque setting for this post I shot in.......a kids' farm yesterday in Zoeterwoude, 20kms outside The Hague. At the end of the day, only the ducks were drifting away, everything else was quiet.

30 Boat houses

About 30 "home boats" are parked in the Soestdjiksekade in the centre. Next month, works will start to give the canal a greener look by planting extra trees. Despite the cold weather, the water on the canals is not frozen yet. We'll still have to wait for a new edition of the 11-city ice-skating marathon (200kms skating race), which took place for the last time in 1997.

Dutch colours

Walking along the Troelstrakade, South-west of the city, you'll find many boat houses where people permanently live. The council house is trying to regulate the number of boat houses by requiring a permit. Expect to pay around 200,000 euro for a 17m*5m boat house in this location....

Sport fishing

That's the great thing about living next to a fishing harbour: you can do all kinds of outings with friends or colleagues such as sport fishing, on one of the pictured boats. Being on the eastside of the North Sea, the coast is exposed to the westerly winds and thus can bring some stiff offshore sailing conditions when the wind is blowing onshore with large waves due to the long stretch, the sloping rising sea bottom en the tidal influence. Great for surfing, and fishing.

Stad Amsterdam

Just saw the Stad Amsterdam moored in the Scheveningen harbour... She is so beautiful! She is now often chartered by private companies for business events, but she is also sailing around the world. I wish I could one day sail on that clipper....