April 12 – Veere-The Delta Works, Middleburg, the Netherlands. Today we are docked in Veere but we're heading out to the Delta Works. If you look at a map of the Netherlands you can see that the ocean goes inland quite a way in a few areas in the north. Since a great deal of the country is below sea level over the centuries they have built a series of dykes to keep the ocean out. A bad storm coupled with a very high time in the 1950s flooded much of this land with loss of life and a lot of property damage. This led to the building of better dykes in the places they broke and several new dykes in places that had previously been open to the sea.
The dyke they built in one place cut the estuary completely off from the sea. Over a few years this produced ecological disaster in the estuary. The water couldn't be refreshed by the sea. As it evaporated it became too salty to support the animals and plants that grew there. Dyke building in other areas that would also have closed off areas from the sea was halted and a new plan was devised. It involved creating barriers that could be closed if there was a threat of flooding but would mostly remain open allow the estuary to remain healthy. There are two types of barriers. One type consists of two steel arcs that can pivot and close off the estuary by meeting in the middle and forming a dam. This type was used where there's a navigable river that needs to remain open for shipping. The second type, which we will visit, consists of a standard dyke with gaps in it that can be closed by lowering barriers into the water, sort of an extra-large sluice gate.
The tour starts a 7am and that means you have to get up at 6am to get breakfast and hit the road. Which is exactly what we did.
It took about 45 minutes to get from Veere to the Delta Works. It's pretty cool and very windy making it seem cold. The visitor's center has displays showing the specialized ships that were built to install the flood gates. It had diagrams of the project and other displays about the area. We watched a 30 minute documentary about the building of this project. We came in three busses and after the documentary and looking around the visitor's center they asked if anyone didn't want to go out and visit the structure and would rather go back to Veere for a look around the city. Lots of people decided to do that as the wind made the temperature pretty uncomfortable for them.
Our small group, with a local guide headed out to inspect the project. It was a fair hike out to the actual works, I'd say about a half mile. The wind seemed to be picking up and D would have been miserable if she had stayed. Across the top of the dyke and the flood gates they've built a roadway. We crossed the western part of it on the way to the center. There are three sections with flood gates, two shorter ones to the east of the center and a much longer one to the west.
At the end of each gate is a large concrete pylon that had the slot to hold the gate and the mechanism for raising and lowering it. About a mile away from here, not far from the visitor's center they build a facility for casting them. They're very large and wouldn't be easy to transport on land. In fact, due to bridges and overpasses it would not be possible. They built two specialized boats to put the pylons in place. One very stubby U-shaped boat anchors in the place where the pylon was to be positioned and another longer U-shaped boat picks up the pylon and carries it to the position of the short boat. The two lock together with the pylon in the open part of the U on both. They then lower it into position and fasten it to the prepared base.
Later the gates and the lift mechanism would be mounted between the pylons and everything would be tied into a master control station. When weather threatens there are two commissions that have to agree to lower the gates, an emergency actions commission and an environmental commission. As you can imagine the emergency action commission is worried about people's lives and property damage. The environmental commission is more worried about the spotted owl or the snail darter or some obscure sea slug than people or property so the two can rarely agree to close the doors. Fortunately, while they dicker, when the water reaches crisis level, the system automatically closes the gates, no human intervention required. Of course, this pleases all the people threatened by the potential flood and raises a huge cacophony of complaints from the greenies.
When we reached the Delta Works gate system we were on the ocean side. We had to take a catwalk to get to the inland side. It was clear that the tide was coming in because the water on the land side was turbulent as the water rushed through the gate. At this point we went inside the concrete structure and walked through a tunnel lined with maps, models and displays explaining the system and how it works.
After we had inspected the displays we walked up a few stairs and outside over one of the gates. To get down to the gate level we had to take a catwalk and some very open steel grating and stairs. It's very windy out there, plus you can hear the sound of the traffic on the road that is now over our heads. The metal doors are painted almost black and are convex steel plates reinforced by a skeleton of steel tubes on the inland side. They will never be used to keep water in, only to keep water out.
Our committee, having inspected and approved the project, began the long windy walk back to the Visitor Center and then onto the bus to join our mates back in Veere.
During lunch the Swiss Jewel sailed from Veere to Middleburg where we will be tromping around town on yet another old town walking tour. My legs will be in great shape before we're done with the Netherlands.
Middleburg has several claims to fame. One is that when the Protestants were successful in taking the city from the Spanish Habsburgs the so-called low-countries formed the Netherlands as a Protestant State. Later in the 1600s during the Dutch Golden Age it was the second most important port after Amsterdam. Unfortunately a good deal of that trade was in slaves.
Second it is the burial site of Samuel Ben Israel, son of Menasseh Ben Israel. Menasseh was the person who negotiated with Oliver Cromwell to open England and her colonies to Jews. There are both Sephardic and Ashkenazic cemeteries in Middleburg. The synagogue is the third one to be built in the Netherlands during the Golden Age.
It's currently a town of about 50,000 residents. The marina here is large as well and the sailing must be great. The Delta Works created a large estuary with no ocean swell and plenty of wind. It's still tidal but that's a small price to pay for such a great place to sail. Of course it had many canals and the canal front houses bring a hefty premium.
The city has a lot of nice buildings but the grandest of the all is the former City Hall. Our guide had the key so we were allowed to go inside. One of the rooms is still used for civil marriages and it's a nice setting for it. A large carved desk, old tapestries on the walls, fine rug and nicely carved walls and ceiling, a fireplace and a large chandelier.
From city hall it was back to the ship in time to have dinner. Later the crew put on a show for us. It was hilarious, mostly comedy skits. However the Indonesian crew members formed an angklung band and played a song. If you are unfamiliar with the angklung, search for it on Google. It's a bamboo instrument tuned to one note and played in cooperation with others like a bell choir. It has a pleasant sound and the Indonesian crew on HAL ships plays it in their crew show usually as the final act.
No comments:
Post a Comment