Learning About Wind Farms...

The following day was all about wind farms. David, who’s studying engineering at Cambridge, also joined us in Amsterdam at the offices of Gemini, the company behind building one of the world’s largest wind farms off the Dutch coast. With 150 wind turbines it will generate enough energy for 1.5 million people in the Netherlands. Luckily the presentation wasn’t entirely over my head, although one speaker seriously got carried away while talking about cables. 

Once the presentations were done at Gemini, we hopped back on the bus and were taken to the coast where we boarded this fishing boat.

The classiest thing about this ship was definitely the cute dog.

We had sandwiches for lunch and just hung out until we reached our destination: the Egmond aan Zee Offshore Wind Farm.

The wind farm, built in 2006 as a joint venture between Shell Oil and Nuon Energy, consists of 36 turbines about 10 miles offshore which generate enough energy for 100,000 households. Although it was the first large scale wind farm built off the Dutch coast, it is small compared to the Gemini project, however, much closer to shore so easily visited in an afternoon.

The high point of the afternoon was the fresh herring that we were served; we all agreed that it was the best herring that we’d ever had. That evening, I went to a FILTH hash while Jimmy and Veronica went to a lecture. The following day, he took the group to the Deltaworks and then to Rotterdam for a walking tour. I eventually met him there, but first I went with Veronica back to Voorschoten.

She was catching a ferry that evening, but there was no train service to Hoek van Holland, so she had to catch a bus from Scheidam which ran so late that I received a call from Stenaline Ferry asking where she was (I was impressed that they called instead of just leaving without her). Jimmy and I stayed at the Lloyd again, had a nice breakfast out and then he hared an Amsterdam hash with a twist—the beer and bags were transported on Derek’s boat and the pack had to take a ferry across the IJ to get to the end. Afterwards, Jimmy and I went for a boat ride with Derek and Abbie, which was the perfect way to end another fun weekend.