Writing retrospectively enables us to confirm that the day, when it dawned, was to be the dullest, greyest affair that we would see for several weeks.
We hadn’t slept particularly well, and as it turned out neither had Chris or Annie. We couldn’t work out whether we were excited, perhaps a teensy bit anxious about taking off onto a busy waterway against the tide or if we were all just chomping at the bit to get underway, impatient to wait for the tide to recede sufficiently so that we wouldn’t be facing the worst of its race.
For reasons which we haven’t yet discovered, all of our tidal information was hopelessly optimistic in forecasting the time of the high at Rotterdam. Even though we had patiently waited until morning tea o’clock before setting out, for the first few uncomfortable hours we found ourselves fighting a tide which simply refused to turn.
Cruising at speeds which at times dropped to four and a bit kilometres per hour on a highway littered with ships and ferries travelling at up to ten times that speed, is not everyone’s ideal of romance but for those who wait, better things are just around the corner, if indeed one can avoid the turning ships.
By day’s end, it hadn’t rained more than a few drops, once off the main river the cruise through the suburbs and farmlands was mostly pleasant when it wasn’t being delightful. As we expected it would, all that anxiety had come to naught.
We finally had the sense that we were on our way, and were more than excited at the prospect of discovering the delights of Gouda after what no doubt would be a very sound sleep for all that night!
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