A few days ago there was one of the summer activities in the harbour here. It was very small and featured old-style fishing boats and demonstrations of things having to do with sailing such as rope making, net repair and so forth. As I said, it wasn't a very large 'do', but I found it interesting...and perhaps some of you who have something with the sea will enjoy this little nautical posting. Here you can see parts of a couple of the boats and the folks in the background demonstrating and the lookers-on. The skippers hung some nets up to dry. Looking around there, I saw a little still-life that was appealing to my eye. Here are five boters, as we call them. They were allowed to come in here and tie-up alongside the quay. Earlier in the morning, the small bridge by the harbour tower was raised by hand to let them in...just like in the old days. A vid showing the boters coming into the inner-waters of our town. I hope that you enjoyed seeing a bit of our harbour here. Technically, it isn't the harbour proper, but rather one of the canals in the city where goods were brought in and unloaded. This particular place is called the "Fish Market", which gives a hint as to what was traded here in days gone by. If you look over to the right, you can see an old pakhuis (store house), which is where goods that were brought in on the ships were stored. There are now flats in it. A little further up are more pakhuises, some of which used to be used to store cheeses to ripen before being taken to market and when I was younger, I used to work in one of them on weekends. It did not pay a lot, but I enjoyed chatting with tourists and posing for foto's in the summer time.
I think its quite interesting. Those are the neatest looking boats. Are they primarily wind powered ? Or do the have motors too ? Didn`t see any. Ooops,, Never mind,,just read the post again. Ignore the last question.
Lovely photos and quite like your still life. Excellent. Love seeing snippets of peoples lives Very interesting
Great set of pictures Sjoerd Thanks for sharing them. I love the cantilever bridge, but winding by hand? That is really tough Really like the video with the canal going right into the heart of town.
I'm glad that you found the posting interesting, MART--I was hoping that someone would, if only to get an insight into my town. You saw correctly that the boats have no motor. They are more than 100 years old...perhaps older. Folks like to buy them and then restore them. That's good to hear, 2OF. It showed pics that you perhaps don't often get to see where you live. Cheers ISLAND-- I enjoy seeing snippets of folks lives as well. RADDANG-- Yes, that raising by hand is heavy, and of course there was a time when all bridges like that were raised and lowered in that manner. The person who raised and lowered the bridge would tie a little can on the end of a barge pole and lower that down to the boaters and they would drop a small tip into the can...sometimes there was actually a charge. Those days are gone. I figured that you would like it, PHILIP-- it was an interesting day.
