The Piet Hein the ship reminded me of Piet Hein who, among other accomplishment wrote Grooks.  Though that Piet Hein was Danish, not Dutch though I’m not absolutely sure where this ship is from.

Piet Hein (16 December 1905 – 17 April 1996) was a Danish scientist, mathematician, inventor, designer, author, and poet, often writing under the Old Norse pseudonym "Kumbel" meaning "tombstone". His short poems, known as gruks or grooks (Danish: gruk), first started to appear in the daily newspaper "Politiken" shortly after the Nazi occupation in April 1940 under the pseudonym "Kumbel Kumbell".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Hein_(scientist)

GROOK ON LONG-WINDED AUTHORS    

Long-winded writers I abhor,

    and glib, prolific chatters;

give me the ones who tear and gnaw

    their hair and pens to tatters:

who find their writing such a chore

    they only write what matters.

WHAT PEOPLE MAY THINK

Some people cower

and wince and shrink,

owing to fear of

what people may think.

There is one answer

to worries like these:

people may think

what the devil they please.

Another interesting name; Sailing Home.  Sometimes these monsters come quite close though their captains seem to be not the least bit worried about us.

Our very own flag display.. laundry on the bow.

The Netherlands says windmills and bicycles to me, but we certainly saw lots of horses.  Herds of horses, cattle and sheep were all grazing along the river at various places.

Climbing aboard

After the customs officials in France, I’ve gotten used to officials in rubber dinghies pulling up to DoraMac and climbing aboard.  This helpful fellow wanted to mark our charts to make sure we followed the channel correctly because there’s so much shipping that everyone has to be exactly where they should be.

Lots of cycling paths and ferries to transport riders across the river.  The 870 is the kilometer marker just like the mile markers on our highway maps so you know where you are on the charts.

The 8.1 is kilometers per hour so we’re going pretty slowly because of the river current against us. Usually we’re not even going this fast, more like 6 kilometers or less.

Signing in with the harbor master in Emmerich, Germany.

We just used the docks for tying up, but these water fowl used them as a place to build their nests under.

We left Emmerich as early as possible because we had a long way to go and were moving very slowly.

Rick pointed this out as a NATO Cold War boat ramp in case they had to move troops quickly across the river if the Russians invaded.  There was a ramp on the opposite bank.

Coal Barges

Nuclear Power plants were along the river. 

Lots of industrial scenery replace the lovely horses, sheep and cows of the Netherlands.