When you sail, the quietness is never far away...

I made this drawing from a photo I took during a winter sailing trip. It is a picture of a lock in the Wieden-Weerriben National park.

You won't guess it from either the drawing or the original photo, but during the summer, this area is one of our country´s main tourist hotspots. Hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world come here to visit the area's most notable village: Giethoorn. And a lot of Dutch and German people have boats or summer houses here, so they can enjoy being on the water during the holidays. 

 

The original picture

But in the winter time, the tourists are gone. You have this place all for yourself. And during wintertime, this place is is even prettier than it is in the summer. In an earlier post, I wrote about a winter trip in this area.

That's what I like about sailing. Our sailboat makes it easy to find the quiet. Even in an overcrowded country such as the Netherlands. All one has to do is to stretch a little bit out of one's comfort zone. In our case, that means sailing in wintertime, when everybody else seems to think it is too cold to sail...