Friday 3 November
Opting for the cautious method, Skipper reversed me back down the channel to the main canal, where we waited for the railway bridge to open for us to pass through. This was a more interesting and varied stretch of the journey, passing some very elegant riverside properties in a mixture of towns and villages. After following a barge through a very narrow part where the houses were close to the waterside, some leaning perilously askew from their neighbours, the vista suddenly opened up to vast swathes of farmland. Like railways and major roads, the canals are mostly built above land level, so my crew looked down on fields, many in their winter dormancy, some arable land for sheep, cattle, goats and horses, and acres of glasshouses where Mate imagined salad crops and soft fruit are produced, much of which are exported to British supermarkets.
By now my crew had established a routine for the frequent bridges: when they come into view, radio the watchkeeper to ask for it to be opened, hover at a safe distance until the lights change from red to red-over-green, which indicates the opening procedure has begun, listen for the bell that warns of the barriers coming down (red lights are flashing on the approach roads as well), watch the bridge open in one of three ways, gradually creeping forwards, and then when the lights change to green only, give Trevver a burst and through we go, giving a cheery wave of thanks as we pass the control booth or camera, as many are remotely operated.
Bridges are either swing, which pivot horizontally; bascule, which raise from one side to nearly vertical; or lift, where a central span is drawn up to the appropriate height. The operator of the latter assesses our mast height as we approach, and each time has lifted the bridge to 24 metres, as displayed on a light board beside the bridge. As soon as we are through, the bell sounds again and the bridge is closed for land traffic to resume its journey. In Holland, even motorways have bridges that open for canal traffic.
Having joined the Oude Rijn, we paused for fried cheese sandwiches with salad for lunch on the town quay at Alphen aan de Rijn, a busy shopping centre with another church with a carillon sounding every half hour.
Following the channel across Braassemermeer, a shallow lake, as the evening sun sank below the cloud base to give a last burst of golden light across the water, huge skeins of geese were spotted, first by their calls, streaming across the sky towards the Northeast.
Having been on the helm 
most of the day, Mate brought me neatly into another alongside mooring for the night, next to a fairly quiet road on the edge of a small town just North of the Meer.