What would you describe as a highlight of your life? Did you go to Woodstock or a Queen concert, visit Antartica, were caught in the tragic aftermath of a terrorist attack, or were witness to an Olympic milestone. Well this year Peter and I visited the 10th edition of Sail Amsterdam aboard our Joie de Vivre. This experience certainly is up there as a memorable highlight of our lives.

Sail Amsterdam has been held every 5 years since 1975. The first edition celebrated the 700th anniversary of the city of Amsterdam. The 5 yearly event was cancelled in 2020, yes you guessed it, due to that virus that disrupted so much in so many ways. So this year it was 10 years since the event had been held. A noteworthy milestone. Held over 5 days it celebrated all things nautical, that had shaped Amsterdam over the past 750 years.

And how do I describe it? Well for all us yachties there are not enough superlatives in the dictionary to put my emotions into words. For the landlubbers, well I could say exhilarating, terrifying, awesome, majestic, spectacular, moving, daunting, breathe taking. I guess I could go on forever! But maybe some pictures will get you over the line

DAy 1 the sail in

We left our harbour off the Amsterdam Rijn canal and headed in a westerly direction to meet the tall ships who had come though the sea lock at Ijmuiden

Day 2

We caught the tram into the city to walk around the harbour, where the ships were resting. We were hopeful that we would be able to visit a few of the ships, but hopeful was the operative word, as the queues were eye watering long. But we certainly got our steps in, covering almost 9kms! Well done Peter!

Day 4

Im jumping to day 4, as day 3 was nominated as a get the boat ship shape again day. Plus at least I needed to recover from all the excitement.

Each day boats cruised up and the canal, avoiding the commercial barges and ferryboats, who call this waterway home. And then of course there was the parade of boats into the IJ Haven. We had seen the tall ships from the dock, so Peter bravely decided that we should join this parade. Choking down my fear, I couldn’t refuse him.

Day 5

The tall ships were scheduled to leave the harbour at 2pm and we were there to say goodbye. We thought the sail in was busy, but the sail out was at another level all together. With a bit of breeze it was the closest we can to having our paint scratched. Luckily I had a spare fender to hand to avoid a disaster

That night we celebrated with our new Dutch friends with a barbecue at their yacht club. We will be forever grateful that firstly we made their acquaintance and secondly that they organised a mooring for us