Netherlands, mini post

[firstfrost]

The week before last,fearless_prime ,marleigh ,fredrikegerman ,desireearmfeldt  and I went on a Mad Boat Trip in the Netherlands.   They let you just rent a boat and drive it around their rivers and canals, with a bare minimum of training in How To Drive A Boat. 

Subtitle: Things Not To Be Stuck In Next Time In The Netherlands:

• A lock
• The mud
• Heathrow
• Phone trees

It was a different sort of vacation than any previous big travel, in that, while there were some visits to Places of Note (the Musical Clock museum in Utrecht, the Gouda cheese market), most of the enjoyment came from being on a boat while scenery went past, and stopping in random places to have tasty food (including the ubiquitous mayonnaise on french fries, which I am a fan of).  It wasn't always as restful as I might have wanted, as navigation and logistics (my main job) was a little stressful, and the boat driving platform was often hot and sunny, but it was a fascinating adventure.     I'll post a link to more detailed notes and pictures when I finish annotating them, for those who like looking at people's vacation slides, but in the meantime, a picture of the boat going through Oudewater.

Comments

[mathhobbit]

I am absolutely certain that you do not *drive* a boat. Clearly I should have corrected this term the first time it appeared, as it seems to have infected the vocabulary of the entire expedition!

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/127034/if-i-drive-a-car-and-ride-a-motorcycle-what-do-i-do-with-a-boat

[desireearmfeldt]

So...I kind of think that when the boat has a motor and a steering wheel, "drive" is really the most appropriate term. It's certainly ridiculous to describe what we were doing as "sailing."

(Having peeked at the link): I can accept that what a boat pilot does to a boat is "piloting," but that's not the right word to describe what a bunch of people on board a boat moving on water is doing.

[mathhobbit]

It may be that there is no right word. I am absolutely certain that "drive" is a wrong word.

[desireearmfeldt]

Can't argue with that, :)

[firstfrost]

"One rank of boat pilot!" was also one of our mottos.

[kelkyag]

A good and useful plan. :)

[firstfrost]

It's also a kind of running joke starting from a long ago Auria run, where Jan's character Edrick would occasionally mention that he had worked on a canal boat and knew how to pilot a boat. At once point, we had to go ashore somewhere that was full of plague, and the captain of the ship we were on wouldn't dock. He let us take a longboat ashore, which we were sure would be fine because Edrick could pilot a boat. It turned out that he actually only had one rank of boat pilot, which in Rolemaster terms is only a little better than none at all, and we were soon drifting back out to sea. Many years later, my new character is a priest of Edrick, and also has one rank of boat pilot, as part of the religious tradition.

[kelkyag]

<giggles>

[fredrikegerman]

In his defense I will say it was in the middle of an ocean storm off a rocky coastline. :-)

[fredrikegerman]

I'm pretty sure fearless_prime ended up with at least 3 ranks of boat pilot.