Flevoland - Lelystad

So far we have been having history lessons, now we are into geography.

This is a map of holland in 1580 showing how much water there was and marking where Lelystad on Flevoland now exists and shows the island of Urk and Schokland in the Zuider Zee which were later incorporated in the Noordooste Polder.
This map in 1943 shows the Noordooste (North East) Polder already reclaimed and where Flevoland Polder will be.

This tells about the building of the dikes and polders.

This photo shows the building of the first dike.


Flevoland - Lelystad
East Flevoland was reclaimed in 1957 and South Flevoland in 1968. They were designed on the drawing table to an exact plan, entirely manmade by putting up dikes round the sea and then draining the water off. There are two major canals in the polder as well as many drainage canals. About 50% is used for agriculture, new forests have been planted and there are two major cities of Almere and Lelystad and several smaller towns.

We entered off the Ketelmeer through a lock which took us down 4.5m below sea level then about 500m away another lock took us down another 3.5m into the Lage Vaart Canal. Here we are 8 metres below sea level and along with 300 000 people are trusting the dikes around the province to keep out a lot of water.

Along the canal we passed some of the farming area, many, many wind turbines.


We found a mooring on a pontoon about 5k out of town alongside a small forest where we stayed for three days. Penny and Russel joined us here as this weekend there is a boat show on in the Batavia harbour.

The harbour has many large sailing ships and the new part of the harbour was completed in time for the Sloop show. We had a lovely time wandering among the tall ships and the festivities around the sloops. The small runabout sloops are very popular here in Holland where people do cruise up and down the small canals for a day trip.





We checked out the new harbour with the pontoons for the sloop show.

We returned to the sloop show the next day and it was all go.
While looking around the business tents we came across this marvellous lounge for the garden especially made to keep out of the wind. I would love one for home.




Lelystad is a popular place with the Yacht harbour full.

The next day we visited the Nieuw Land Polder museum in Lelystad which has a lot of archival film of the building of the polders as well as artefacts found during the draining of the sea. The Zuider Zee was land approx 6000 years ago then the sea level rose and flooded the land. Archaeological finds were from villages in the area including the skeleton of the Swifterbank man.

Many ship wrecks were found on the bottom of the sea and some have been preserved and are on display. One poster we read said approx 400 ships or part of were sighted during the draining of the polder with almost all left in place. The spot is marked by a red sailing ship and can be found alongside roads or in fields all over the polders.

The land is reclaimed by putting up a dike to exclude the water and then draining the sea by pumping out the water into the sea outside, making drainage canals and locks. All over the province are huge pumping stations which monitor the water level inside. Once the land was drained the cultivation and organisation of turning the sea bed into agricultural land took place then the construction of roads and buildings.

Lelystad has a full size replica of the Batavia so we went to check it out. Of course we told them that we had the real one at home. It is always interesting to see a full replica of a sailing ship and to wonder at the cramped living conditions the sailors had. .

Can you see the rear of the jester climbing through the window into the ship? It must be something that was done on old ships. I will have to find out.

This is the view of the jester from inside along with his mate.

This is kevin holding the pole which the helmsman moved from side to side to steer the ship. The helmsman was below decks and steered the course using a compass. I am glad we have a wheel.

Of course the toilet humour always comes out in the boys no matter what age they are.



We left Lelystad to cruise to Urk on the Noodeooste polder, not sure of which way we would go as it depended on the weather and wind as we hoped to go out into the Ijsselmeer.