In a country with a moderate climat, global warming has always sounded promising. Holland could change into some kind of Northsea Riviera.

But now that climat change seems to be on its way, the Dutch weather doesn't get much hotter. Last year, the month of april has been extreme, like summer, and inspired me to buy a kayak, but in the end, july and august were much colder and windier than april.

The mayor change I experience is the winds. There is more and stronger winds around Amsterdam. In the old days I was a fanatic cyclist and I have never been very much bothered by cycling against the wind; it just took some more time. Normally I would start against the wind, so that when I return, I would go with the wind.

In the kayak the winds were much more bothersome. Probably mainly because of my inexperience I was quite weary about waves and winds, that might unexpectedly destabilize the kayak. But now I feel more at ease in the kayak, like yesterday I did the same as I did with the bicycle, I took the Kiawah against the wind to the Amsterdam center, and I glided fast and gently with the wind back to the mothership, in a two hours hike.

In Amsterdam I get a lot of attention and reactions from the people on the shores. Yesterday there was a two or three year old kid, pointing his finger at me, shouting: 'ESKIMO', and I wasn't even rolling!!! His parents seemed to be a lttle embarrased, may be because of political incorrectiveness; 'Should this not be: Inuit?'

Yesterday I took the camera, but made only three shots of the same object: the Muiderpoort. It has been quite a hassle to upload this picture, I have been able to upload it from the notebook, so I had to go to the house to get it here. They say they fixed 360, but still it's bugs all over!!

Finally I have the umts-stick, installed and the mothership connected to the internet!!!!

This will give me the incentive not to use my notebook as a tv all the time, but more as a computer.

But than again, I have not only been watching television, I have been reading books too, and eating bananas.

Yesterday I made quite a hike on the Amsterdam Rijn Kanaal and Nieuwe Diep, eventhough I had entered the kayak with the intention, just to fool around the mothership.

Last night I didn't sleep very well, because of the pain in my back, so I didn't think I would want to go out today, but than the weather was so nice, that I decided to go into the Oostelijke Havens to shoot some pictures.

I leave one on this page, and I have to see where to post the rest, now the FKO gallery seems to be bugged.

Maybe it's the somewhat martial looks of my camouflage baseballcap, which at times makes the incoming blog comments sometimes point in a war-monging direction.

I may have a fleet now, and my biggest boat does have a militairy past, it has an inboard engine and a by-boat, so I call it a ship; my smallest boat is a canoe of the kayak type, which I call a kayak or a boat. I may be known by a Latin name, but I would never call my boats barks, and I would never look upon my fleet as being an Armada.

More than 400 years ago, the Spanish Armada tried to get into the ports of Flanders and Zeeland, from which they wanted to launch an invasion into England. These ports were blocked by the Dutch, and being constantly attacted by the English , the Spanish fled in northern direction, rounded Scotland and went south on the Atlantic, back to Spain. The ships that reached Spain were devastated and two-thirds of the men were lost.

At the time of the beginning of the revolt, the Netherlands had not been an occupied colony of Spain. It had been an integrated part of the Holy Roman Empire, and Emperor CharlesV had ruled from Brussels and when he died, his heir was devided in the two Habsburgian nations; Austria and Spain. When the rebellion began, the Spanish send their army and inquisition, and they occupied the southern Netherlands (later known as: the Spanish Netherlands, the Austrian Netherlands, and now as Flanders, a part of Belgium). The flow of refugees from the south made Holland and specially Amsterdam grow to be a center of Protestantism and global trade. And I think it's because the Spanish never succeeded to occupy Amsterdam, it became the capital of tolerance and a free mind.

The idea of my Kiawah armed with subversive guitar, does appeal to me, (Ninja Ninny once told me I could use my Martin Backpacker as paddle!!!).

It makes me think of Bob Marley, when he said something like:

Hit the people with Music;

They feel no Pain!!!!!