This weekend I joined a Peddelpraat club trip around Ameland. Aart had a lot of work with the pre-trip planning, because the planned campsite had a beach rugby tournament with a permit for an 'after party' until 03:00 AM. That meant increased logistics of taking a taxi to another campsite, far away from that beach. Ameland Adventures were very kind to allow us to leave our kayaks safe with them.
On the Saturday we had a break at the eastern tip of the Island. With the start of the ebb it was clear that a tide-race would be forming here in an hour or two. Unfortunately we did not have time to wait for that. Also getting a laden sea kayak to surf is much harder work and still a long way to go.
Some pictures have an oil-rig (more specifically a gas-rig) in them. For many years now the NAM is test-drilling in the Waddenzee for natural gas. Despite that mainland Groningen is now suffering from increased earthquake activity and structural damages to old and historic buildings. I am curious about the answer to the question just how many billions of euros the damage compensations will run up to in the next 50 years in respect to the money the gas industry has made for the Dutch economy. Politicians and promises... Everyone that is affected is promised full compensation. Anyway, the Dutch economy has floated on the natural gas 'bubble' for the last 50 years and it is about to run out; the more they take out, the more the Groningen province wil sink. Sort of "what goes up, must come down...". So far this 'political statement'.
Navigating around Ameland will prove more difficult. With almost no wind and surf, it was already difficult to find the safe inside channel of an extensive sandbar on the northwest side of the island. Last year it was difficult to spot. Now it was just remembering that it was near the last building on the beach. Anyway, we did it again. So the title of this post is a bit misleading.
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