Day 12 - Windmills Below Sea Level

Day 12 – Thursday, April 2 – Windmills

We passed into The Netherlands, which wasn’t particularly noteworthy. As we approached the mouth of the Rhine, the water is deeper and there is MUCH MORE traffic on the waterway – large barges two and three abreast across the widening river. The shoreline was filled with a wide variety of warehouses and shipyards.

We got to a place called Kinderdijk, which is home to some famous windmills from centuries past. We signed p for the walking tour to the windmills and to learn how people live below sea level. Once again, it was very cold – cloudy, windy with an occasional drizzle in the air. The tour was interesting and seeing a working windmill from inside and out was neat. The windmill we went to once held a family of 13 children which by my estimates it should have been able to hold two with two adults – maybe three children at the most. Inside, the hardened oak wooden gears and drive shaft have been operating for about 300 years. No planned obsolescence in those days!!

On a windy day like the one we were having, the blades are turning at about 80mph – man, are they whipping by when you get up close. The gears are turning a large paddle wheel that is pushing water out of the lowland and above sea level (we were 6-7 feet below sea level. They said that these things can “pump” 50,000 gallons per hours or about 14 gallons per second. The big paddle wheel has very large paddles/scoops and it is turning quite fast, so it seems believable. Wind power!!

We had a brisk walk back to the boat (ship) where we warmed up, began packing, and prepared for our last night on board.

 

Now, at this point in the story I need to relay a theme that went through the entire trip. We had been eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same table for 8 for the entire cruise. We were served by Ana (Spain) and Adam (somewhere in the far east) with an occasional assist from Alexandra (Romania) and Brianna (Romania). They knew us and we got to know them; they knew what we liked and were exceptionally attentive. This is one of the values of a small cruise. They would even save our table for us by putting napkins over the backs of the chairs. Well, on this evening some group removed the napkins and “stole” our table and servers. For the first time we had to split up and eat with … strangers! Ana and Adam apologized profusely for this, but hey, it wasn’t their fault and we reassured them that we would have that table for breakfast for our last meal on the ship (boat). But we did get to meet some new people and hear some new stories.

We drank the night away in the lounge listening to our local pianist while some meandered off to get a good night’s sleep.

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