Now Iberia is off the options list, what to do with the rest of my life? Back in an unusually cold Dutch spring, I long for something more comfortable in cold weather than my car. But whatever it is, it should move. Without much conviction I start to check out some ship offers. In these poor economic conditions, prices are low indeed. My thoughts are on cutters.

... Harlingen. This affordable cutter can take you anywhere on earth, and its a beauty ... 

... Linge river, his would be a dream place for my movable cabin but no doubt the permission will end with the present owner  ...
... anyway, not for sale of course ...

Going from one ship inspection to another, I keep checking the options for the alternative: taking my movable cabin from the Alps and putting it somewhere. But it should be at the water.

... this marvelous place for my cabin I found on a friend's painting. Sloten (Fryslân)? ...

... foggy Zeeland ...even much cheaper this cutter, but no standing height for me inside, meant to move by engine, it has sails, but not for serious sailing surely not for far sea trips ...

... Rhine downstream Arnhem: the farm does not look rich, the owner may well be ready to rent me a semi legal station for my cabin ...

... low tide at the Ems: wooden, mostly oak ships at a Ditzum shipyard, Germany, just over the border of Groningen
... make your choice! ... and be prepared to work on maintenance even harder than on the dhow ...

... it is almost dark when I look for a nice sleeping place with my car along the Linge ...

It is almost dark when I look for a nice sleeping place with my car along the Linge river. Can you believe it? A signpost reads "FOR RENT". I call the number. Yes, still available. I say a can decide in two days. They agree.

... location of the plot ...

The Linge is in the middle of the Rhine estuary, between the Nederrijn and the Waal. Since those two form a split of the Rhine and have dikes, the rain water between them can not easily be channeled into any of the two. The Linge, a very old, very curvy river bed, catches the rain water of that area, called Betuwe, after the Batavian tribe that lived there in the first and second century AD ^[more]. The Linge pours itself into the Waal at Gorinchem ^{[more about Dutch Rhine estuary]}.

I got two days, but my thoughts turn in two hours. In the dark, I return to the place to check some things out, not anymore to see whether, but to see how I would put my cabin there. I find there the owner-family, father, mother, three boys and a girl, engaged in removing the cut wood with a trailer and a tractor. Very nice people, we start telling our stories and trading jokes immediately. Putting my cabin is probably not according to municipal rules for this land, but we could try and see whether they would actually interfere. Anyway if they would, mooring a ship would always be possible. I realize that whenever I would decide to buy a ship, I would have its mooring place already ... in the middle of the country, silence, trees, birds and navigable water, less one hour by car from all big cities, by water on the sea in a day!

I hired the plot starting June, since before driving the cabin down from the Alps at Bourg d'Oisans, I had to present EthicaWeb on the Scottish Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy IV (SSEMP IV), see next blog page.