Long weekend in the Netherlands

Katrin, my UW-photographer friend, came to get me early on friday morning and together we drove the 4 hours over to Scharendijke in Southern Netherlands. The first pic shows our hotel which is a purely divers hotel with space to store your wet stuff downstairs. If you cross the levee you have the closest dive site... in that area you always have to cross the levees to go diving which is a little bit tiring since the dive gear with the weights is sort of heavy.... but divers are used to sweating...



Big dove


The cemetery of Scharendijke


After one dive and checking in Katrin and I decided that the weather was so nice that we would take advantage and go to take some overwater pics. Our third friend Bettina was not due to arrive till later so we had a couple of hours. We decided to head to Middleburg, a little village that is very picturesque (I think). Going there we had to cross the Oosterschelde flood gates. They are famous because they can be closed when a storm flood comes in and it is to protect the Netherlands area that are mostly below sea level. We stopped after two sections of the flood gates. Wind turbine:


We liked these stairs...


The flood gates. There are three parts like that.


Once we were done taking pics there we suddenly decided not to go to Middeburg but to Veere (I think this is the netherlands word for 'ferry') where I have been in 1976. Loooooong time ago. But first we stopped in another small village that we loved.






Continuing we saw this wild flower field...


And then we saw Veere. Of course we needed to take pics of a typical netherlands windmill...


This ferry works with manpower...


And then we were there and Veere was beautiful. I didn't remember anything at all but we loved it there.




















When I came back home I looked for the pics from 'back then' and the house where we had stayed must have been one of those on the right side of this street.










Finally we got something to eat. We hadn't eaten all day but there were so many photo opportunities that we just didn't have time... It was about 9 PM by the time we finally got some netherland specialties (of course unhealthy ones... ) and we sat close to this canal while the sun was setting.


Continued our stroll and took some more pics. We LOVED it in Veere and I am glad I had the chance to go back after so many years.






By the time we got back to our hotel Bettina was finished with her night dive and we met her down at the restaurant of our hotel to chat till the wee hours...

Bettina didn't stay at our hotel so for the next morning we had made appointment with her on a dive site. You will always see the parking lots full over divers in that area. But three women without any men was somehow an exception and even more since all three of us had a camera (Bettina and Katrin both have a DSLR with underwater housing so their gear was even bigger than mine).

We went in and lost Bettina immediately. Not a problem though as she is used to diving alone. So we were not worried (wouldn't have done that with other persons). Unfortunately visibility was not really good. Here are some pics from underwater. It is a mix from all the dives. I don't really have more overwater pics as after the morning dive we went back to a dive shop where I had bought a lamp the day before. It drowned on the first dive that morning so we had to go back to exchange it. Wasn't my fault that water was getting in so they gave me a new one without problems. In the PM we went to a dive site that was the worst of all. Generally it would have been a nice site but you couldn't see anything.

Katrin and Bettina did a night-dive after dinner but I was too tired. Sunday morning Katrin and I did another dive at the hotel dive site. Then we packed out everything in the car and started to head home. On the way back there was a dive site where Katrin had seen skeleton shrimp before. We both love skeleton shrimp so we decided to go there. And they were exactly where Katrin had told me - I just didn't see them. :doh2: Didn't know there were red ones. I have them on my pics but they are not in focus... next time we will so at least two dives there....

So here an excursion to the underwater world of Grevelinger Sea...

shrimp cocktail anyone?






The lobster are HUGE there so we had the lamps to shoo them back inside their caves. Don't have a pic of a blue one. That'll have to wait till next time.














Lots of babies...












Sea dahlia with shrimp












Part of this red stuff are skeleton shrimps... I just didn't know that. *arg*




After the last dive we continued our way back home and we decided to do it again...