Hattem

Today we managed to pry ourselfs loose from the dock in Zwolle. We stayed there longer than expected, but there was too much to do and too many people to see!!! All and all had a great time.

Today we started to move up the IJssel. The first stop is just a few miles from Zwolle. Hattem is a nice place to hang out for a while. The unique thing is that a cousin and her husband were standing on the shore of the IJssel just before we entered the channel into the harbor of Hattem. They had no idea that we where coming to Hattem!! We recognized them and waved so!! Janske, and Geurt ( the cousins standing on the shore) come over to the boat once we were docked and had a cup of coffee with us. Nice surprises!!!
Le reve also made the paper again Click the "paper" on the end of this post to check it out
Paper

Still in Zwolle

We are having such a good time in Zwolle, that we seem to be stuck there!!!

It is nice to have people spontaneously drop by to say "hello". The other day someone knocked on the side of the boat, and asked if I recognized him. I told him "sorry" but no I do not recognize you. As it turned out, he used to come over with his parents when they came to visit my parents. We were just small boys at the time, and played together. He learned from the news paper article that we were docked in Zwolle, and when a bike outing with his wifes family( the Schutte Fam.) took him right past where we were docked they came by to say hello. We invited them for coffee and all ten of them came on board and had their morning coffee on the back of the boat. We had a real nice visit with them.
Thanks for coming by to say hello!

Le rêve in the paper

With our attempt to make it all the way up the little stream of "de Overijselse Vecht" and our consequent grounding in the lock Le rêve made the headline in the "Zwolse Courant (vechtdal edition) To check it out you can click on check out story

Our location

We will be in Zwolle for the next few days.
You can click on the "We are here" on the end of this posting and the google map will come up.
We are here

All we can do is tie up in front of the lock, and spend the night. The next morning we headed back down stream, and found a marina in Zwolle.

We ended up going to Dalfsen by car, and spend the afternoon at my sister to watch the opening of the Olympics.

Almost in the lock.

The lock keeper was kind enough to check out the exact water over the sill with his measuring stick.
It will be close at 1.45meter so we carefully snuggled up to the lock

Unfortunately we did not fit over the sill, so we unload the dingy and try again. No matter what we do there is just not enough water to allow Le reve to enter in.

Up to Dalfsen

From Hasselt we tried to make it up the Overijselse vecht. I was worried about fitting under the bridges, so we made sure the fuel tanks were full. We made it fine under the bridges but had other problems

The first lock had a "sill" and we did not know if Le reve would float over it