Thursday 15 March
The morning began in a fairly stiff wind that would have made it difficult to leave the quay wall, so the crew decided to stay here for a second night and explore the village. Marken was established as a small island fishing community. One January night in 1916, the village was almost destroyed by severe flooding. A causeway was built in the 1950s to link it to the mainland in the Southeast corner of the IJsselmeer.
Small buildings around the harbour, originally fishermen’s family homes, are built of horizontal wooden planks on a brick base. They are painted black with the ‘joins’ picked out in white, a distinctive architectural style even by Holland’s decorative standards.
Behind the harbour is a community of varying ages of homes, a primary school and one small supermarket. The island’s main economy is tourism, and even this early in the season entertains occasional ferry-loads of day trippers from Volendam, across the Markermeer on the mainland. 
There were also several coaches bringing passengers from Amsterdam to visit the Clog Museum and hunt for souvenirs. One lady cycled by wearing traditional local costume. A small herd of pretty brown goats grazed in a smallholding.
Feeling peckish, my crew finally decided to brave a local delicacy from a street food van, ‘kibbeling’, lightly battered fried fish with a mustardy mayonnaise. This proved delicious, and a relatively cheap lunch snack. They also picked up some lovely fresh tuna to cook for supper.
On returning home, an elderly gentleman hovering around the boat turned out to be the Harbourmaster, who granted us a “special deal” of “only” €32.80 for two nights, one with electricity, but no water, facilities or rubbish disposal available.
The sky remained grey and flat, but the wind gradually dropped during the afternoon, bringing rain after nightfall. Tomorrow we need to move on to a more sheltered spot, ahead of a new lump of sub-zero temperatures and strong winds forecast for the weekend: but at least the sun’s supposed to shine.