Before we knew it, we were in the Netherlands! Our journey in the North Sea not only entailed route planning based on Marinas location and availability but also lock schedules.

Where were they? What times do they open? and the real question was always…do we fit?

We soon realised we were the biggest boat in every lock we had experienced along the coast and sometimes with only a meter to spare on each side. Not only were we learning how to navigate with our new boat, we were also thrown in the deep end due to pure necessity with the locks! Until now, we still nervously laugh about those days and unsure how we made it through!

As we entered the Netherlands, we had some friends in different areas we wanted to catch up with and started looking into the possibility of sailing into Amsterdam - but we thought, surely, we wouldn’t fit? After a bit of research - we were en route to Amsterdam!

Entering Amsterdam with our own floating home was one for the books - we’d been there before but there was something about sailing your home into this iconic location that made it a lot more fun! We docked in at Amsterdam Marina and didn’t waste any time!

We considered getting around by Ferry or Uber and remembered we could just dinghy to get around! Our 3 days in Amsterdam included a trip to the awesome NEMO science museum, a visit the cute zoo (on a coincidental heat wave day!) and lots of reunions!

It’s always hard to say bye to friends so we thought we’d sail to Ijmuiden and bring them along for the trip! We then sailed to Stellendam, our last stop in the Netherlands, where we made an unexpected visit to the Vogelobservatorium Tij aka Bird Observatory and it was gorgeous last stop in the Netherlands!