The Windmills of Kinderdijk
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| A windmill window |
Wednesday, June 18
We went to bed shortly after sunset – in other words, the normal time, around 10:30, and jet lag woke me at around 3:00 AM. I tried to get back to sleep, but couldn't, so was up and around by 4:00 AM. It was just starting to get light, and we were moving – sailing on a river – and I didn't want to miss anything, especially the sunrise. Catching sunrises on cruises has become sort of a tradition for me. So I was glad I was up. I made my way up the stairs to the roof deck to see what we had come all this way to see.
A couple came up on deck after a while, and we chatted about how great it was. They had been up earlier than I, and described the locks the ship had gone through. I'm beginning to think that we're not going to be sailing on rivers, but instead, something different – bodies of still water between locks and dams.
After about forty minutes, I went down one deck and sat in a comfortable chair; the walls are essentially all windows. It is very odd to be moving in silence, with no visceral sense of movement, yet having the landscape slide by. I ran my lines, at all times being distracted by the scenery, but I did OK. We're passing small towns – villages? - each with what seem to be, from a distance, one Romanesque church, made of stone, with a tall, simple, elegant spire. The same church, with little variation, each time. Where did they get the stone? The couple this morning said that their walking-to-Amsterdam tour guide, who was born and raised here, told them he had never seen a rock until he was eight years old. Sounds like a story he tells, probably exaggerated, but even so – this is not a rocky country.
As the day begins, we're passing more and more long, narrow barges, and most of them look like floating refineries or floating tank farms. Unsurprisingly, commerce in Holland moves on the water to a much greater extent than in America (and, probably, anywhere else).
According to the sun, we are heading west from Amsterdam, which makes no sense. I'm very disappointed at the lack of comprehensive maps of our route and the surrounding countryside. I spent some time with the Google map of The Netherlands, and I could not figure out how we had gotten from Amsterdam to Kinderdijk, where we stopped this morning. [UPDATE later in day: we've spent from 10:30 this morning cruising a fascinating river (see below) but have no idea of where we are and even what the name of the river is, except that it is one of the pieces of the Rhine delta. It is instructive to me that no one else seems to care.
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| World's smallest cruise ship dock |
By 8:00 we were docked at the world's smallest cruise ship dock, a maybe 10' x 10' cement block sticking out of the water, with a ramp to the shore. The crew maneuvered the ship very neatly up against this block, and the gangway lowered onto it and the “Viking” flags were installed in brackets on the gangway. By 8:30 our group was off to see the windmills of Kinderdijk.
I asked Google how to spell “hydrography” and I got a bonus: a concise, complete description of the water issue in the Netherlands, which you have to have at least a passing knowledge of to understand what the windmills are about. Here it is:
The hydrography of the Netherlands is dominated by its low-lying geography and extensive coastline, leading to a significant reliance on water management and maritime activities. The country's hydrography is shaped by its location on the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta and its proximity to the North Sea, resulting in a complex network of rivers, canals, and coastal areas.
For almost a thousand years, humans have been trying to make this land – half of which is below sea level – habitable. I'm not going to write an essay on Land Reclamation in the Low Countries - Its History and Function (aren't you happy about that?). I'll just say that the windmills of Kinderdijk were part of that process, which is, at its simplest, moving water from one body of water to another.
The windmills of Kinderdijk were built in the early eighteenth century. First they built them from stone, but they were too heavy and tended to sink, so they built more from wood. Today they serve as examples of windmills that were built all over the Low Countries to move water; having these intact, working, 300 year old marvels of engineering survive until today is really a magical gift.
We walked from the ship over some bridges to the windmill that was available to visit. Abbey and I both climbed up as high as was possible. We had visited the windmills – and this windmill – when we spent a few days in Amsterdam after the PHC Norway cruise (which began and ended in Rotterdam). What was memorable for me was the simple but massive engineering. The sails turned a horizontal axle, and a simple but massive wooden gear in the very top of the windmill translated this horizontal circular motion into vertical circular motion, meaning a huge beam running right down the middle of the windmill rotated. At the very bottom of the windmill – kind of in the basement – was an even larger wooden gear, which turned the motion back to the horizontal, and paddle wheels moved the water. Simple! Whole families lived in the windmills (which also ground wheat into flour at times); one of the families who lived in this windmill had ten children. The sleeping arrangements seemed to be: where ever you could fit a small box and attach it to something. According to our guide they all slept sitting up (something about the Devil getting in if they laid flat - ?), so needed less space.
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| Windmill life |
There were also some more modern pumping stations at the site – one which was more modern but not modern enough to still be working – including the one which actually moved the water now. The water still needs to be moved.
Two pretty interesting hours and lots of walking, and we were back on the boat, and the boat shoved off (I guess 'boat' and 'ship' are interchangeable; not everyone agrees, but I'll spare you that debate).
Commercial traffic is pretty constant, at least during the day. Most are self-contained self-propelled barges, at least as long as our ship, with a pilot house in the back and the cargo hold stretching forward, long and narrow. Most common cargoes seem to be chemicals and other liquids (petroleum?) in tanker barges; dirt or sand, shipping containers, and scrap metal. About half of them have covers over the cargo, so no idea what's in there. We saw a big tug pushing four barges full of coal: two side-by-side, and the other two ahead of them, side-by-side. A truly monumental load. It was headed in the same direction as we were – toward Germany – which seemed ironic since Germany is well-known for prioritizing renewable energy.
Shipping containers are stacked high on their barges, and the wheelhouse/bridge at the back is perched on a tall column, so the pilot can see over the containers. It's almost humorous, with a long stairway to reach it from the deck.
Dinner was very nice! We got a table for two (there are two of them) just inside the bow deck. We could hear each other, and there was a great view. The food was, again, delicious, and again, notably better than on other cruises. Again, we had the regional specialty. Then we went up on the top deck, hid behind the plexiglass screen – the breeze is still a factor – and enjoyed the sunset, which occurred just around bedtime.
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