We are now sailing in Europe and are approaching our stop at Ijmuiden in the Netherlands. One of the tours Holland America is offering is a visit to the towns of Volendam and Marken. I have been holding this post for a sea day before the string of ports that concludes with Ijmuiden. This is it!

Some Holland America ships have “made up” names. There is no town called Eurodam, Koningsdam or Prinsendam (I miss that ship.) The four signature class ships are named after the points on the compass. Some HAL ships are named after rivers, the former Rhyndam and Massdam. Some are named after famous places that used to exist like Niew Amsterdam (Even old New York was once…,) and some named after famous cities like Rotterdam or Amsterdam (miss that ship). And some, after interesting places that you may not know about but if you did you would want to visit. We are sailing on Volendam. The ship will be offering a tour to Volendam when we call in the Netherlands. I got a chance to visit there on an Amsterdam layover traveling between Nairobi and Tbilisi on USAID work. My friend Dave Lam came up from his home in Belgium and we had an outing. Here is an edited version of my letter from Volendam.

“God made the earth, the Dutch made Holland.” But they didn’t need an environmental impact statement. During my day long layover in Amsterdam my friend Dave Lam drove up from Brussels and we went to visit two old (you could say former) Dutch fishing villages, Marken and Volendam. Eighty years ago both towns sat on salt water, the Zuiderzee, a 60 mile long inlet from the North Sea. Then they sat on the Ijsselmeer, the freshwater lake formed when a large dyke closed off the Zuiderzee from the North Sea. Now they sit on the Markermeer, another freshwater lake once removed from the Ijsselmeer by new dykes built in the 1970s.

Marken used to be on an island, until it was connected to the mainland by a dyke. There is a long unfinished dyke stretching toward Volendam that was never connected. Both dykes were to enclose an area to be made dry land but the Dutch changed their minds in the ‘80s. Whether it was environmental concerns, cost or the realization that with a lower birth rate Holland didn’t need any more land is the object of conflicting articles. But there is no doubt that both Marken and Volendam were changed utterly by the series of dams, dykes and canals.

The most important change is that the towns were cut off from the sea that provided their livelihood. Now instead of herring and other saltwater fish, the towns’ catch is river eels. Some of the old sailing wooden herring seiners have been reconstructed into excursion boats. Both towns have become tourist towns.

Volendam is a “boardwalk” town, with a cobblestone “boardwalk” along the dyke that used to protect the town from the ravages of North Sea storms and surges that no longer reach its harbor. It is still disconcerting to see houses on one side of the dyke below the level of the lake on the other side although not as disconcerting as if the North Sea were really at Volendam’s doorstep. While the “boardwalk” in Volendam is very Dutch in appearance, it is also very boardwalk, especially in its smells, french-fries, warm sugar from candy makers, frying meats and suntan oil. The Dutch buildings contain familiar looking stores selling t shirts, postcards and all manner of plastic stuff. The boardwalk in Wildwood N.J. does not sell faux wooden shoes but I would recognize most of the other stuff from any other boardwalk from Sharam el Sheikh, Egypt to Seaside Heights, New Jersey. The beach is still there, but instead of salt water and waves there is fresh water and calm. And the water in the lake is a lot warmer than in the North Sea. I love towns like this, even though they are tacky, because people are having a good time, but I have to admit paying 75 Euro Cents to pee is a bit stiff.

You can, as we did, take a boat on the 20-minute ride across what was planned to be farm fields but is still water, from Markem to Volendam. The ride gives you a good lesson in the Dutch use of wind power. Old windmills that pumped water out of farmland before electric or steam pumps, sit next to new windmills generating electricity while sailing boats cruise by both. All harness a source of energy the Dutch have used for centuries.

We had a beautiful day, temperatures in the mid-70s, bright blue skies and pastel blossoms. Volendam gardens feature the Sitka Rose, a plant developed in my hometown from the stem of the wild rose but with some genetic elements of the cultivated rose, especially the rose smell, which, in Volendam, makes itself evident when you get away from the smell of French fries. Before the Zuiderzee was removed from the map the conditions, cool, damp and salty, were very similar to those for which the Sitka Rose was bred.

Here are some pics of our Volendam.

Here is a short video clip that I wanted to share and have been looking for the appropriate post. This seems to be it.

I stripped the audio from this. The industrial sounds distracted from the reflections.