Nieuwport to Ramsgate

We left Nieuwpoort at 0500, and were off Dunkerque by 0800. The swell had decreased over night and Julian began to cheer up as he accepted that stopping at Nieuwpoort had not been a mistake! In the end we had a good crossing, having timed the tide right to let it carry us down channel until we were past the Sandette Bank, then back up towards Ramsgate. The wind was in a better direction too, and we motor sailed most of the way. The waves, though hardly flat, were beautifully regular and did not knock us back, just broke with a crash of spray under Kajan's bow.

We entered Ramsgate harbour at 1800, and tied up in the Royal Harbour Marina West. Yvonne had never actually been there before, always tying up on the East marina with the fishing boats, but it is a lot quieter on the west! We showered, then all had fish and chips together, before Julian and I headed for the train station. We left Yvonne on Kajan to wait for new crew, to finish her journey home.

The three of us were on Kajan for 24 days, travelling for 20 of them. We did 557 nautical miles between 22^nd July and 15^th August, so an average of 28 nm per day we were on the move. We saw a lot of the Netherlands, in company with some great people, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves thanks to the Dutch OGA's 10^th Anniversary Tour.

Vlissingen to Nieuwpoort

The forecast for Thursday was not hopeful for a crossing straight to Harwich and we would have had to leave at 6 am to get the best of the tide. We were all tired, and my cold was in full force, so we decided not to set an alarm and see when we woke up. Not surprisingly we woke at 8 am! The tides were not ideal to leave then, but the forecast had got better overnight, so we headed out and were through the last lock and into the sea by 0900.

The tide helped us out of the Westerschelde but the seas were as big as we had feared in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Bertha, and by 1100 we knew that heading straight across the North Sea for a night crossing would be difficult. Yvonne really did not want a long passage, so we turned and went along the coast, heading for Dunkerque. It was much easier travelling across the swell rather than in to it, and we got a little help from the sails. The tide also helped us at first, but by 2000 we were only off Nieuwpoort, and with the tide now against us it would be gone midnight before we reached Dunkerque. 
 
Julian wanted to press on, but Yvonne and I made the case for stopping; the tide was against us now and we needed to beat if we were going to sail, but we could leave Nieuwpoort early next morning, in time to catch the next good tide, after a proper night's sleep. Julian reluctantly conceded and we headed in to Nieuwpoort and tied up at the harbour master's pontoon. There was no one there to direct us to a different mooring, or give us the codes to the toilet block. We ate at the yacht club and used their toilets, as they did not have the marina codes either!

Zierikzee to Vlissingen

By Wednesday we were ready to move on, and after shopping and filling up with diesel we headed away from Zierikzee. Yvonne got the bowsprit out as we motored along the Haven Kanaal, then we had pleasant sail on staysail and engine all the way across the Oosterschelde to the lock into the Veerse Meer through the Zandkreeksluis. We moored up outside to wait for the green light, and waited, and waited.... We were surrounded by French and Belgian yachts, but one of the skippers understood Dutch, and translated the tannoy messages for his co-linguists, one of whom then translated them for us! We had arrived just after the bridge mechanism jambed, and it was two and a half hours before they could lift it to let the boats on the other side into the lock.

We ate lunch there, sausage rolls heated in the Omnia we got in Williamstadt. Yvonne thoroughly approves of Kajan's new “oven”. The weather was great, sunshine from a blue sky, but the wind was still stronger than ideal, and we could tell it would be on the nose once we left.

We finally got through the lock at 1535, then motored through the Veerse Meer towards the lock at Veere, wishing we had enough time to sail. The lock had been absolutely full, with some boats having to wait for the next lock through, and there were so many boats around that tacking in the shallow waters as the small boats were doing was not really practical. We would have tried if we had not taken so long to get through the lock, but we were hoping to get all the way to Vlissingen. It was a shame to rush through the Veerse Meer; it is an attractive place with lots of areas to explore, but we just stayed in the main channel and motored.

One of the French boats we had been stuck with at the Zandkreeksluis went through the Veere lock with us, then we were back in the canal system again. The French boat turned off into Middelburg, but we kept straight on, and encountered our first bridge. We hung around waiting to be noticed, but we were the only ones there and eventually decided we had to call up the bridge controller for the first time on the whole trip!

Going through the Kanaal Door Walcheren is easy from Vlissingen to Veere, as a convoy forms by the Keersluisbrug in Vlissingen and the bridges after it then lift in sequence. It is not so straightforward travelling alone in the other direction, and we did a lot of waiting around. We eventually got to the marina on the other side of the Vlissingen railway bridge just before it got dark. The harbour master was in his hut at the entrance, and told us to take the empty box along at the far end of the entrance row.

Unfortunately we could not manoeuvre Kajan into it, and ended up tied up alongside it instead. Luckily the harbour master was okay with where we were so we stayed put. About an hour later another, much bigger boat came in. They had tried calling the harbour master and got no response, so they asked us for advice. We suggested the box we'd tried for, since we could help them in, but it turned out they were too beamy for it.

There were only two aboard and both were tired, with the skipper the only one who really knew what he was doing. He put the novice on the helm, which ended up with some damage to the boat as he could not control it well in the tight confines of the marina. The harbour master suddenly appeared and directed them to a pontoon further in, and Julian and Yvonne went to help them moor up.

Day in Zierikzee

We moved Kajan to a mooring box next morning as the harbour master wanted the pontoon for a large barge, then looked round Zierikzee at a leisurely pace. We climbed the “Monster Tower” for a great view over the town and the Oosterschelde, then Yvonne had a hunt round the tourist market, while Julian and I looked round the boat museum and haven. 

We saw another gaffer moored by Kajan's new spot, Rula, a Solent based Ketch, who had joined in for the first weekend of the OGA celebration, but found the pace of travel north too hectic and decided to stay in the south and move at their own pace. They are nice people, who invited us for drinks before dinner, which I could not appreciate as I was coming down with a cold; in the event almost all of us drank tea!

Williamstadt to ?

Next day we left the inner harbour at 0830, heading for the fuel dock to fill our cans and tank. Quarter of an hour later, as we motored out of Williamstadt, a huge Dutch motor-barge cast off and came out at the same time, making the channel feel rather tight, but we were soon out in the Hollandsche Deep, heading for the Volkerak Sluice. It's not far to the lock, and we saw Margo ahead of us just about to enter the lock, so we followed her in. The “sport” lock at Volkerack is quite a big lock and there were only 5 boats in it, but it was still half full as the 2 boats ahead were huge. One was the motorboat that had come out of Williamstadt with us, and the other was a true commercial barge with only 6” of free-board. The other boat was more Margo sized!

We had encountered enough chop and spray on the way to the lock for Julian to want his waterproofs on before we headed westward towards the Krammersluizen. I already had my jacket on so took the helm. Progress was slow (1-2knots) when we were absolutely head to wind along the Hellengat, but we managed 3 in the Noord Volkerak when the wind did not head us so directly. The forecast was for force 4, gusting 5 SW but I am certain some of the gusts were F7 because spray was being blown off the top of the waves. The weather was lovely though, sunshine and blue sky with fluffy white clouds.

The other boats that had been in the lock with us disappeared ahead and there was no sign of them waiting for the Krammersluice, just one little motor boat about to moor up. The light on both the locks was red, but the gate to the starboard lock opened before we could tie up, so we motored forward very slowly, keeping close to the pontoon. Five yachts came out, then one got stuck somehow, the bow coming sideways across the lock while the stern did not move away from the wall.

We could not tell what was going on, but there was obviously a delay, so we tied up. We could hear instructions (in Dutch) from inside the lock and the disabled yacht tied up its bows again, which let another 4 yachts come round it and out of the lock. Then they closed the lock gate again with the disabled yacht inside. Luckily there are two “sport” locks in the Krammersluizen and the other soon opened and let us in.

Once out of the Krammersluizen we set off down the Keeten channel towards the Oosterschelde. Progress was slow (2½ to 3½ knots) but steady until the heavens opened just by Stavenisse. There was a huge crack of lightening ahead, and by the time I heard the thunder I could hardly see the end of Kajan's bowsprit for the rain bouncing off the deck. Yvonne and Julian were already below and I advised them to stay there! There were no boats visible at all and I had the chart plotter to make sure I did not stray out of my part of the channel.
Luckily the downpour did not last long, but the wind was increasing and shifting, so it stayed on the nose as we entered the Oosterschelde and turned towards our intended destination of Katz. I handed the helm over and went below for my turn in the dry as it started to rain again.

After a few minutes Julian called down to say that he could not make any progress towards Katz. I checked the tide and it was beginning to run harder against us at 2 hours after high water. It would be difficult to make any progress west for the rest of the tide, and the wind and tide together were raising short steep seas of the sort that stops Kajan in her tracks. The conditions were not nice for staying out, with frequent rain squalls, strong winds, and lumpy seas. I looked for a port of refuge down tide and found Zierikzee, a picturesque town with a good harbour only 2 nm away. Julian had not thought of it while choosing to go to Katz as it was on the north bank while we were heading south, and west of the Zeelandbrug, a long bridge over the Oosterschelde. We had seen one span of the bridge lifting though, so we decided to head for Zierikzee.

When I checked the pilot book for information on the Zeelandbrug it turned out that we did not need to worry about it at all as our air-draft let us go under almost all of the spans. By 1910 we were thankfully moored up outside the harbour master's office in Zierikzee after a 10½ hour passage that included 2 locks. A meal out in a nice friendly bar made an enjoyable evening, and we decided to stay the next day, as the forecast was no better and we did not want another day like this one!

Day in Williamstadt

The weather forecast for Sunday was dismal; strong head winds and heavy rain in the afternoon. We decided that a day in port was in order, but one of the Dutch boats inside us wanted to leave as did Harbinger, and since she was inside a raft there was some shuffling of boats. Kajan ended up with a 27' Bermudan, called Margo, outside her, crewed by a single handed English sailor.

We had coffee and apple cake in the morning, in a café that had wi-fi, so Julian and I picked up e-mail. Then we had a look round the Williamstadt chandlers, which is really good; we bought Yvonne an Omnia oven like we have in Robinetta since her built in one has stopped heating properly. Yvonne tightened all the rigging which had worked itself a bit loose over the last month, then we cooked on board, having just made it to the Supermarket in time on Saturday before it closed. After that it was a peaceful afternoon on board, listening to the rain and reading. We filled up the water tank after dinner since we discovered we'd emptied it.

 The rain cleared in the evening, and the martins came out, hopefully to catch the midges which had given me some nasty bites!

Moordrecht to Williamstadt

It rained quite heavily around 5 am, but it had stopped by the time the kettle went on at 0630, although the wind was still gusty. We cast off from our helpful barge at 0713 and motored down river for an hour until we reached the Algera Bridge, where we tied up to wait until rush hour finished and bridge lifts resumed.

When the bridge lifted at 0925 we passed beneath it in company with four modern Bermudan yachts, while another two bermudans headed the other way. The clouds had lifted and the sky was mainly blue but the wind was strong; not as strong as in the UK though, where the dying tropical low that had been hurricane Bertha was about to hit!

We retraced our route to Dordrecht, going from the Hollandse Ijssel to the Nieuwa Mass to De Noord. All the canals were busy with frequent wash and mostly a head wind, although we did manage to use the stay sail for a few minutes. We did not need to wait for any bridges since Kajan's air-draft is only 8m, and we had 11m clear which was plenty, even though it did not feel like it due to wash and waves! The yachts we were with at Algera, that had all motored off much faster than we could, were all waiting for the lift when we got to Alblasserdam Bridge, but we just went under it and kept going.

At Dordrecht we turned to starboard onto the Oude Mass, a very busy stretch of water. There was a quay available for a lunch stop (3hrs max) where we could have moored up, but it was only 1130 so we did not bother. When we got to Dordrecht last time, from the other direction along with about 40 other gaffers, we had waited for the railway bridge to lift, then travelled in convoy escorted by a police boat into the old harbour; this time we did not need to wait as our air-draft let us pass beneath.

A big barge came off a fuel dock by the bridge just before we got there, and we followed it through, keeping out of the way of another big barge manoeuvring onto the fuel dock, and a 3^rd barge heading in the other direction and using the same bridge span. I did not look up to see our clearance (it's scary); I knew our air draft but could not help crouching slightly in the cockpit as I steered with a careful eye on the barges!

Turning into the Dordtsche Kill from the Oude Mass took fine judgement! We had to slow down a little to let a barge pass us, then turn to port to cross the Oude Mass, making sure we did not obstruct a barge heading along the Oude Mass towards Dordrecht, another 3 heading up the Dordtsche Kill to turn into the Oude Mass both to port and starboard, and another one coming fast behind to turn the same way we wanted to. Not to mention the 6 leisure craft of varying speed and size that appeared from behind the barges! We had been told that the junction of the Oude Mass and De Noord was the busiest junction on the entire European canal system. We had only had to turn to starboard there, staying on the same side of the river, and it had been easy. This junction was not!

We had soup, fruit, cheese, and crisps for lunch as we travelled down the Dordtche Kill. The weather was great, sunny, with fluffy white clouds and a strong breeze to cool us. The occasional gust reminded us why we were motoring through canals rather than sailing home! After that we turned onto the Hollandsche Deep for another head to wind motor, but with a longer fetch that raised waves to slow us down. The big barges stayed stayed in the middle of a wide lake and the yachts coming towards us were sailing very broad reached, but tacking is forbidden in the Hollandsche Deep so we just motored the rest of the way to Williamstadt.

We entered the harbour (which has a new marina to one side) and headed for the harbour master's barge. He was already on deck and told us to go into the Old Harbour and raft up right at the end “on the other old boats” Just what we wanted to do!

There were 2 rather smart Dutch steel yachts (one almost exactly the same shape as the old bottar we sailed on at Hoorn) and an OGA boat, with the gaffer flags still flying. Harbinger, a Solent based boat had been with the fleet on and off since Wemeldinger, but had parted ways at Edam to head south. The two bridges we had easily got under had cost them an entire day's travel due to their greater air draft. We moored up outside the two Dutch boats, which as well as being longer than Kajan were also beamier, which is not something we are used to!