The Skipper Has a Bad Day

Monday was always going to be difficult. We had 13 bridges to negotiate, including crossing a town (Alphen aan den Rijn) over a distance longer than the autonomy of Yo-Yo Ma, with no obvious possibilities to stop to refuel.
The weather was miserable and windy when we left Gouda. The first two bridges are just outside Gouda, and after a short wait in the rain we passed them without too much trouble. After that we slowed down to let other yachts pass us, so we could save fuel by hoisting the jib. The one thing going well was that we had S/SW winds for most of journey North.

Motoring up the Gouwe and letting the rest of the convoi pass so we could use wind power.

The problem was that this way we arrived to the next bridge alone and instead of being allowed through immediately, we had to wait in the increasing wind. First nasty incident of the day: while making a u-turn to point to the wind and come alongside the wanting pontoon, I misjudged the wind, took longer to get the bow into the wind, and a wind gust pushed poor Mekicevica nose first hard into the pontoon. Ouch!
The rest of the day continued in heavy rain, wind that made it difficult to manouver to wait for the bridges to open, but mysteriously calmed down whenever we tried to sail. When we finally arrived to Brassenmeer, our goal for the day, we were feeling tired, cold and miserable.
On the margins of this lake there are many small harbours, but we liked the look of the Brassenmeer Water Sports Centre and aimed there. The harbour was deserted, but I finally managed to find the harbourmaster who directed us to a box right in front of the club house. Very nice of him, unfortunately this was facing downwind. In a tight space and strong wind I decided that instead of turning the motor around into Yo-Yo Ma's idea of reverse it would be better to put him in neutral well in advance and control the approach by catching one of the pillars of the box with a line... but failed. Mekicevica went again with the nose hard into the pontoon. Double ouch!
A day to forget!