New boots but.. there's no water, only ice.

I finally have some proper boots for windsurfing in cold weather: Atan Mistral Hot boots. With 7mm of neoprene covered by a layer of latex I think it will be enough to keep my feet from freezing. I just tried them for a while (at home) and they feel comfortable and very warm. I can't wait to try them but for that I have to wait: the only change of getting in the water is to go in the North Sea, as the several lakes and inner seas of Netherlands are filled with ice, and I don't feel like going alone to the North Sea. With this cold temperatures if something goes wrong your doomed.

The water is at 2°C so, without proper protection, a person has a time of survival measured of about 90 minutes. A thick wetsuit (as the one I'm wearing in this post) should extend that time quite a bit.

I start to understand why so many Dutch painters like to include the sky in their creations. Be it Goyen, Willem van de Velde the Elder, or a more recent van Gogh, Wijnand Nuijen, Jan Vermeer or so many others it easy to look at the fight between light and clouds, sun and shadow, and appreciate it and then, locking at the paintings, recognize the skill and ability of the artists.

I am reading Neal Stephenson book The System of the World, the third volume of the The Baroque Cycle (8 books published in three rather thick volumes) where a big part of the action takes place in the Netherlands, England and France. It's nice to be close to this places and let my imagination run. I'm also getting to know the history of this part of Europe a lot better. It's not uncommon for me to pause reading to research some more information of historical events or persons. If only studying history in school had been as much fun...