VERBODEN IS NOT "FOR BOATS"
LIFE International, Fall 1965

A BITTER JULY RAIN hummed hard on the deck—and dripped through the windscreen onto my youngest daughter’s bunk. All three children were hungry. I needed a drink. My wife, who has been known to show seasick symptoms in a rowboat in New York’s Central Park, was threatening to jump ship and swim back to the Amsterdam Hilton. It was the end, I thought gloomily, of our cruise on the canals of old Holland.

Our ancient 26-foot blue cabin cruiser, Sekieta, was going round and round in a reedy backwater with an unpronounceable name—Oosteinder Poeltjes (see map). Peering into the wet and quick-thickening darkness, I flabbily nosed us here and there searching for a mooring for the night. Its hull could resist anything I might run into. Behind lay our first full day on the boat—and my first time ever at the wheel of any vessel with a motor. Seen at this depressing moment, the trip through Amsterdam, which we had left two hours before, seemed little more than a maritime nightmare of narrow bridges, enormous barges bent on crushing us and locks that could not be found or would not open. The only bright thought in my mind just now was the knowledge that Sekieta’s chunky blue hull—solid steel and weighing 10 tons—could resist anything I might ram it into.

 “You won’t need an anchor,” the ex-royal Dutch Navy officer who rented us the boat, explained. “You can tie up just anywhere.”  It sounded fine at the time—and later in fact proved true. But in the Oosteinder Poeltjes I was convinced that what you really needed to moor in Holland is some solid shoreline and a free tree. In the growing darkness the only trees near the water were either already taken or bore on their dark boles the forbidding sign: VERBODEN.  Minutes passed. We can say we thought it meant ‘for boating.’ It got darker. Finally my 14-year-old son Colin, who was acting as map expert and navigator sang out: Let’s tie up where it says verboden. If anybody complains, we’re dumb Americans. We can say we thought it meant ‘for boating.’” (Why is it, these days, it’s always the very young who offer worldly advice?)

American image and all, I would have taken him up on it, when suddenly, along one of the small meandering channels, we came abreast of a dark slot in the swamp grass. No real trees stood out of the reeds around it, but two bushy chest-high shrubs clung to the boggy soil not far off. I cut the engine. As we drifted in sideways Colin and I climbed on deck and flipped part of our 30-foot bowline over first one, then the guzzled Dutch cornflakes and milkother bush, securing the line aft. There are no tides on Dutch canals so we’d be safe for the night.

Eventually, when everybody had guzzled Dutch cornflakes and milk and stumbled into bed (the three children forward, my wife and I in a curtained lounge aft) the rain began to slacken. As we were about to drop off to sleep, emerging from the quiet which the rain left behind it, two at first soft sounds rose. One was, yes, what else? The high whine of mosquitoes patrolling the cabin. Beyond that came the thunder of jets thrusting off from some nearby airfield.

 “The best of both worlds,” whispered my wife through the darkness. “Nature and civilization. Malarial swamps and jet exhaust fumes. There’s nothing like cruising on Dutch canals.”

 “Do anything for a laugh,” I growled, reflecting bitterly that just two days before, I had rented Sekieta sight unseen from Never begin a cruise on the Dutch canals on a Sunday. a boatyard on the lake at Nieuw Loosdrecht. Fully equipped and able to sleep six, she cost a mere $165 a week. Wasn’t it a fantastic break! We all wanted to see Holland and boats usually have to be spoken for a year or so ahead. Sekieta’s owner had had a last minute cancellation.

We started our cruise on a Sunday. Unless you’re an experienced boat-handler, never begin a cruise on the Dutch canals on a Sunday. On that day every drawbridge charges a toll. The amount, usually about 50 centimes (14 cents) is negligible, but the wear and tear on a green skipper and crew can be horrendous. Time and time again, just as we would Our first two tries were clean misses.plow under the raised wings of a bridge and think we may just manage not to tear away a piling or spin sideways in the bath of thundering barges, suddenly a wooden shoe on a string would swing out from the tip of a pole held by the bridge keeper and dangle briefly beside the cabin. Finding and getting a 50-centime coin into a shoe sounds simple, but our first two tries were clean misses. (We had to go on through, get out of traffic and back up to pay.) At the third bridge Colin just barely got the money in--by clinging on tiptoe to the shoe until I was certain he would go over the side and be churned to ujitsmijter (Dutch omelets) by the barges. Sekieta’s behavior provided a good deal of amusement for the natives, at least for those whose boats were safely beyond the reach of her all-steel hull.

Of course, my own Compleat Greenhorn’s Guide for survival in Dutch waters would insist on a chapter called “Stopping the Boat.” Schooled only in small, fast sailboats where this is no problem, I have gave no thought at all to slowing down or stopping during the half hour in which I practiced handling the boat on the Loosdrecht Lake where we rented her. It was during our first day on the canals—when I was continually wondering why the boat slewed around whenever I tried to If we were going to hit anything it might as well be head on. shift into reverse—that a drawbridge suddenly appeared round a sharp bend and headed directly for us, obviously intent on no good. Happily a big barge was running interference ahead of us. It gave three blasts of the horn (the required signal) and the bridge yawned open. Nothing to worry about, I thought. But as we drew near, the bridge began to lower again. Desperately I tried to reverse. Again, the boat slewed round sideways. Carried forward by momentum and a slight current we didn’t stop, or even slow down much. I straightened out thinking “If we were going to hit anything it might as well be head on.”

The drawbridge served a major highway. Cars were stacked on either side waiting and people began craning out their windows to watch us. The bridge keeper peered down in The Dutch, apparently, are accustomed to idiots in boats.gabble-faced dismay. Suddenly we were in the shadow under the bridge and the only thing to do was plunge on at what, in Sekieta, it was laughable to call full speed. Halfway through I looked up—only a crack of light showed between the drawbridge and the road. I blew the horn three times. The bridge continued to fall. We slid out in full daylight just as the panel settled fully into place and the cars began to roll across.  The Dutch, apparently, are accustomed to idiots in boats and the bridge keepers knew our speed better than we did.

Nudged by all these memories of the last two days and lulled by the drone of mosquitoes and the warm full-throated cry of KLM jets, I gradually fell asleep. The next morning, as so often happens on boats, especially in Holland, things looked better. The crises of the last two days quickly appeared more like what they were—the result of bad planning and worse weather, and the folly of trying to switch overnight from sailboat to motor cruiser.  Bright sun drenched Serkieta’s decks and turned the swamp grasses dark green. Though we were right next to Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, the light Damp sweaters, socks and dish towels were draped from the mast to dry. breeze blocked the roar of jets now and brought instead the sound of song birds. We seemed completely alone—until a young family of swans floated up and begged all our breakfast bread as well as the rest of the Dutch cornflakes. Damp sweaters, socks and dish towels were draped from the mast to dry and, with our two daughters (age 10 and 11) lounging on the top deck to sunbathe, keep track of the scenery and count if more people to port than to starboard wore wooden shoes, we chugged out into the canal and headed toward three of Holland’s best-known sailing lakes. Westeinder Plas, Braasemer Meer and Kager Plassen.

   Like the two days preceding, it was a day of discoveries but this time they were all pleasant. The boat was easier to handle—either because I was getting used to it or because we had fewer docks and bridges to pass through. I began to look around more. Our first discovery came when Colin broke out into the oily, traffic-choked maze of the waterways in the Dutch capitalthe charts to check the route and estimated our progress on the day before. Sekieta had a 40-horsepower Parsons engine which looked, and sounded (and later acted) as if it had been put into commission by Lord Jim. With the needle shuddering at 1,500 rpm she would just about touch six knots. It was not surprising, therefore, to learn that yesterday we had traveled only 25 kilometers from Weesp on the Vecht River through Amsterdam to Oosteinder Poeltjes. Yet we had passed from the fine old mansions and sweeping empty farmland near Weesp into the oily, traffic-choked maze of the waterways in the Dutch capital, navigated the city as we dodged merciless excursion boats, barges and even one oceangoing cargo ship in Amsterdam Harbor. Now, only six kilometers from the metropolis of Amsterdam, we were in full country, headed southwest on the second leg of a small roughly triangular course which led toward the old university town of Leiden, then on to Gouda (pronounced Howda, the cheese town.

One great advantage of cruising in Holland was that in a country so small, so various and so full of history, a trip of even a few miles can seem like a long and satisfying (or, of dumpling-shaped Dutch girls sunbathing course, exhausting) exploration. Under the sun, a special canal-side world began to blossom for us, different in country and town. In the country, long picket lines of trees, slightly tilted by a steady prevailing wind, stood guard along the waterway. Farmers in potato fields, dumpling-shaped Dutch girls sunbathing, old fishermen huddled against the wind behind portable canvas frames, a woman who had dragged her sewing machine to the water’s edge—everybody waved. Even swimming children stopped in mid-stroke to greet us. Shingled and mostly idle windmills hove into view, plump Dutch sloops with ear-shaped lee boards slid by under motor power. The great barges, loaded to the gunwales, plowed up majestic bow waves to rock and roll us off our course. Small boys on homemade rafts, middle-aged women grimly propelling kayaks, and dozens of ducks and ducklings scooted out of the way. Now and then, dazzling white in sunlight reflected off the water, the bellied sails of sailboats lucky enough to be able to run before the wind, skimmed towards us on the breeze-scuffed surface of the canal.
        
All this, I noticed, was producing an extraordinary sensation in us all—something not unlike a two-martini glow. New and handsome as the spectacle was, I could not at first account It was a bit like sailing along the crest of a hill.for the sensation. Then I realized that we were sailing on top of the world. Dutch canals are at sea level or above, while the surrounding countryside is usually well below it. Plowing along in Sekieta we were actually looking down on the surrounding fields and flocks which stretched away below us at either hand from the grassy slope of the canal retaining wall. It was a bit like sailing along the crest of a hill, or being able to navigate high above some valley, along the raised channel of a Roman aqueduct.   

   
In small towns the effect was not one of height or distance but of amazing intimacy. Gliding through a Dutch town on a narrow canal conveys the feeling of being able to see, close up, without being seen. People do wave, though not as often. But they have long since given up thinking of passers-by on boats as interlopers—the water traffic is too heavy for that. For the boat people it is a little like being on a train at night and sliding by another train. You get a brief inside glimpse of a whole series of scenes from other people’s lives, close enough so that you can almost reach out and touch them. The feeling is strongest passing houseboat colonies which string out as a kind of waterborne suburb near every sizable Dutch city. I’m sure the house-boaters usually keep their shore side shades drawn. Not so facing the water. Through the canal-side windows, each view framed by lace curtains and geraniums, we got a glimpse of cats complacently cleaning their whiskers, children clustered around television sets, a dinner party with candles, a baby in a high chair having breakfast, a tired old man fishing from his living-room window.

By the time Sekieta turned into Kager Plassen just after lunch, even my wife was hooked on the inland waterways of Holland. The lakes presented a kind of sailboating circus, not like the masses of sails during a race day in the U.S. and English harbors but something thoroughly Dutch and different. Channels ran this way and that through trees and fields, past a 20-foot sailboat booming along full tilt past us down a canal no wider than a country road farms and windmills, like bridle paths in a vast park. Sailboats disappear in the woods, or glide by behind a hedgerow as if sailing on dry land. It is a remarkable use of small space (a Dutch specialty) and the sailing, often down canals too narrow to come about in, is peculiarly Dutch too. We moored, climbed a fence into a field just in time to meet a 20-foot sailboat booming along full tilt past us down a canal no wider than a country road.

We shouted and waved at him. “Beautiful day!”

“Most beautiful place in the world,” he shouted back. A slight pause as a characteristic touch of Dutch honesty took hold of him…”At least when it doesn’t rain.”

From this point on the joy of the trip seemed proof against any disaster that might overtake us.  It soon began to break down into a series of events and places which almost as they happened, began to collect luster as FAMILY EVENTS. Often to be recollected afterwards together, always to be a dead bore for anyone who wasn’t there at the time.

Leiden, for instance, is not only one of the loveliest university THE DEAD-END CANAL capertowns in the world but the scene of a siege which, when it was lifted in 1574, saved the town, insured the birth and continued existence of Dutch democracy and may even have been a decisive blow to Philip II of Spain’s Counter Reformation. (To liberate Leiden from the Spaniards, the Dutch cut the dikes and the river-retaining walls, letting water flood the countryside until, in troop-laden barges, they sailed to a city cut off from land.)

We will remember Leiden best for THE DEAD-END CANAL caper. We followed this canal as it got smaller and smaller—and nearer and nearer the heart of town. We suddenly found ourselves in a black dead-end pit of water, only a bit wider than Sekieta’s length, full of floating stuff that might have been there since the siege was raised. Maneuvering to get out we collected an admiring crowd of urchins who later pursued us down the quayside on bicycles.

One of the many branches of the Rhine flowing westward through Holland to the North Sea is a Rembrandt-brown stream with a consistency about like Kickapoo Joyjuice, that goes under the name of Oude Rijn. It is a historic and decided to pole-vault to shorepicturesque river, giving on old shops and churches, tiny gardens where no blade of grass is allowed to be askew, sometimes tenaciously kept next door to a scruff little factory or a junk head. (Holland is so small a country that when slops move in next door, even if you can afford to, you apparently do not move away. You just try to shine things up a bit more than before and hope for the best.) We might have better remembered the Oude Rijn for itself if it hadn’t become THE PLACE WHERE COLIN FELL IN. We had tied up just below the tiny town of Koudekerk. With our long boat pole Colin took depth measurements from the roof of the cabin and then decided to pole-vault to shore. He failed miserably. I figured the specific gravity of a thin 14-year-old and that of the dirty THE PLACE WHERE THE BOAT FIRST BROKE DOWN  Oude Rijn would be about the same-but he did sink for a second. When he’d dried off, we moved on. It was getting dark. Where we were would have been an attractive place to spend the night, but to tie up we would have had to stretch our lines to the trees across the voetpad (footpath) along the river. Four kilometers beyond, in Koudekerk itself, we tied up to a pair of wooden piles behind the town’s principal bank.

In Gouda we missed the weekly cheese market (naturally it had been held the day before we came) and we had to reassure our two girls that the townsfolk would let us buy some cheese anyway.  The town has a fabulous market place, as well as the Dutch Reformed Church of St. Jan, with some of the most astonishing stained glass in the world. Good as it was, and much as I’d like to see it again, I think of Gouda more readily as THE PLACE WHERE THE BOAT FIRST BROKE DOWN.  This happened just after the great Juliana Lock outside the town. We had joined fleets of yachts and barges piled up for the long wait to go in.  Once admitted to the lock we tied up to a friendly barge to be dragged through. In spite of this rest, once we were out, Sekieta began throwing steam.

First we cut the engine and glided, periodically honking the horn four quick blasts in succession (which means Kan niet manoeuveren —I can’t maneuver). Finally, like donkeys, we In a half hour two mechanics had taken the engine apart.dragged her along the canal by her bow line. Somehow I did not want to do this all the way back to Loosdrecht and I was just beginning to think I might have to when we saw a sign, the only one like it during the whole trip: SHEEPSMOTOREN (ships’motors). In a half hour two mechanics had taken the engine apart, found that grass had clogged the strainer in the water-cooling system, cleaned it, and downed a glass of whisky with a glass of wine as chaser (we had run out of water and hadn’t yet learned to keep jenever—Dutch gin—in steady supply. They refused cash. “I’ve traveled in America,” one said. “If I can help you, I will.”

Moving away from Gouda, now along another quiet stream known as the Hollandsche Ijssel, we woke one morning to find three bulls pressing their noses against the boat’s windows. A bit further on, without expecting it (as we had expected sights in famous towns like Leiden and Amsterdam), we stopped at Oudewater to get rid of a box of rubbish (this is harder to do than you think unless you want to toss it into the canal) and to take a one-world-type of snapshot of a very small Dutch boy picking up Peruvian fishmeal sacks along the quay. Looking around, however, led us up small streets to a square where step-gabled brick houses, mostly built before 1600, sagged authentically over the square, the streets, and baby a handful of youths in black jackets and duck-tailed haircuts, coursing nervously around town on their motorbikes canals suitable only for navigation by ducks. The town is one of the oldest incorporated villages in Holland (since 1265). It also used to be the European center for the weighing of witches, and still has a building entirely constructed for that useful purpose. A perennial collection of storks obligingly was roosting on a chimney top just below the church spire—to draw tourists of course.  The only other sign of the real world in this apparent Eden was a handful of youths in black jackets and duck-tailed haircuts, coursing nervously around town on their motorbikes. They bothered me a lot more than they troubled a mother duck who was bringing up a brood of young ones in the open square in front of the witch-weighing station.

  Farther down the Hollandsche Ijssel, near Montfoort, southwest of Utrecht, Sekieta’s antique engine fell ill again. This was to be our last stop—the end of our trip—but none of us knew it at the moment. We tied up to a handy highway post. Early morning mist still hung over the river. A few cars whizzed past. Finally a Dutch state trooper rolled up in his white Porsche convertible—which we found is standard trooper equipment in Holland, though whether because the cars offer a good disguise, or make constabulary duties pleasanter, or merely the better-to-catch-you-with-my dear we never a Vermeeresque woman in a yellow dress wearing wooden shoes came out of the red-brick house opposite uslearned. The trooper said it was forbidden to tie up to highway posts. I said we had broken down. He granted us some hours’ grace but explained that boats tying up to highway posts are a big problem in Holland—passing barges rock the boats, their lines draw tight, the posts come loose. (I didn’t believe him until later in the day when, in the wake of a passing oil barge, Sekieta pulled a post.)

When the policeman had gone a Vermeeresque woman in a yellow dress wearing wooden shoes came out of the red-brick house opposite us and began scrubbing the bricked-in area between her house and the highway. Her name turned out to be Madame van Jaaarsveld. She was charming, a farmer’s wife with three small girls. During the rainy hours while we waited for the mechanics to tell us that our trip was over and that Sekieta would have to be towed back to its home in Nieuw Loosdrecht, the Van Jaarsvelds took care of us with a kindness that should be reserved for refugees of real disaster. By the time we left them, we were swollen with coffee and cakes and half the games and toys in their house had been carried aboard Sekieta.

Kindness and good will, I can definitively report, do not make it possible for people to communicate. The Van Jaarsvelds knew no English or German. None. We knew no Dutch. We were literally and desperately reduced to drawing pictures. But at least here, the last scene of our trip, there was none of the kind of confusion that can happen when a slight knowledge of a language joins with a desire to be polite and becomes unbearably charming (or maddening) depending on how urgently you need to exchange facts. I’ll always remember the event, when we began our trip five days earlier, of stopping in a tourist center to buy canal maps. A pretty girl who apparently spoke and understood English told us that no maps now existed of the area we wanted. Construction was going on, canals were being worked on, and the maps would have to be remade. She offered us, for the interim, a mimeographed leaflet.

 “When all the construction is finished,” I asked slowly,” will there be more canals or fewer canals?” She reflected gravely and then replied with one of the warmest smiles I’ve ever received: “I suppose so.”