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Playgrounds of my youth.

As my father was a lover of solitude we never went to the crowded beaches at the part of the island facing the North Sea. One of his favourite parts were the silts of the Oosterschelde at the end of the Long Road (Lange Weg) in between the villages Bruinisse and Oosterland. Two miles further on the silts used to be a ship-wreck yard and spread out over the silts we could find many bits and pieces.

While my father was fishing I spend hours looking for treasures. My secret hope was, I never told anyone, to find substantial proof of the existence of mermaids. In my fantasy it could be a comb, a strange formed necklet, anything. My favourite spot was somewhere in the middle of the silts where a huge anchor half buried in the mud found it's last resting place. Around it a little pool was formed of left behind water.

Only at the point the tide was dangerously coming up we hurried back to the shore. Since the Oosterschelde became a nature reserve it is forbidden to trespass. My granddad used to cut "zeekraal", a sea vegetable, on the silts all his life but when he was 91 years old he got a fine for insulting a police officer. He said some bad words when the man said he was committing a crime. That was 10 years ago. My granddad is still alive and though he is very active he doesn't cut zeekraal anymore. I don't know if the anchor is still there.