In the Locks

Bonita is having a well deserved rest while D and I rush around catching up with all the home-based stuff that seems to accumulate when you spend a month away. Readers might be interested in this picture of a group of Gaffers squeezing into one of the many locks on the Dutch waterways. Reserves of skill and patience are needed as most of the boats have bowsprits, many are difficult to manoever and some either cannot reverse, or at least not with any degree of predictability.  As always it helps a lot to have an agile crew who can anticipate problems including sometimes the skippers slow reactions.

The picture below shows Bonita on a previous visit to the Dutch canals. She is possibly in the same lock, the photo taken by our friend Trevor some years ago. D is on the foredeck waiting for the lock gates to open when all the boats will start moving again. D perfected the art of running out on the bowsprit to fend off other boats or sometimes harbour walls that had got in the way. This skill came in useful yet again on our latest trip.

Home

 After days of strong SW winds we are now promised a few days of summery weather and light winds. Dave and I left the Roompot marina at around 5am and locked out into the North Sea at first light, about 6am Dutch time. The passage planning for a trip back to England is more complicated than it used to be a few years ago as there is now a huge windfarm off the Dutch coast, and yachts are not allowed to go through this - we had to divert down towards the south for a trip towards Kent. We had the sails up which makes the boat more visible to shipping, but the wind was very light and we ended up motoring the whole way. Chugging across the North Sea and along the Kent coast to the Swale took 30 hours and half a tank of fuel.

This is Daves photo of the sun rising behind the (much smaller) Thanet windfarm off the North Foreland.  Bonita is now back on her mooring after more than a month in Dutch waters. Thanks to all my crew for help in negotiating the difficulties in taking the old boat on a trip never imagined by her original builders. We have had a marvellous time as guests of the Dutch Old Gaffers and enjoyed meeting many old and new friends.

Roompot again

We have come back to the Roompot marina ready to clear customs ( have our passports stamped) and lock out into the North Sea as soon as the weather looks reasonable. We have had strong SW winds for days, but all the forecasts say it should be more favourable tomorrow and Wednesday. We are here with Transcur and Clytie, also keen to get back to the Thames area.

There doesnt seem to be much permanent habitation here. Apart from the marina, there is a large holiday camp with beaches etc. We were puzzled that all the signs seem to be in English and Dutch, despite the fact that there are no English visitors apart from a few yachtsmen.

Most of the visitors cars have German number plates, and of course Germany has very little North Sea coastline or coastal resorts and so many take their holidays in the Netherlands. We were interested that sensitivities are clearly such that signs for foreign visitors are in English rather than German.

On a more practical note, we hope to be locking out at first light tomorrow......

Colijnsplaat

It was not quite so windy today but still a brisk S - SW wind mostly force 6 with gusts up to force 8. We left Willamstadt this morning and progressed south through two sets of huge locks.Mostly we were motor- sailing with jib, staysail and mizzen, though we were able to rest the engine for a bit. We  had planned to meet up with Transcur and Clytie in Zierikzee, but this is approached by a long canal running SW, ending in a congested harbour. I was anxious about Bonitas manoeverability is a strong following wind, so instead we came to Colijnstaat, on the other (south) side of the waterway. I have not been here before: it is a fishing port but also has plenty of yachts. There is an active yachtclub- they had races planned for this afternoon which were cancelled due to the bad weather.

There is also some history here: unusually for Dutch towns this is known to have been a Roman settlement. Ships traded from here along the coast and also across the North Sea to Britain. We can only admire the skills of those who sailed primitive boats along this featureless coast with few if any navigational aids.

There is a model of a Roman trading ship in the village known as Caudicaria Navis. The original would apparantly have been about 25m long. It is supposed to be an accurate model, though  we werent clear how good the evidence for this was. I was surprised to see that the model has two steering oars, one each side. I has read that Roman ships only had one steerboard, always of course mounted on the starboard side.

Windy in Willemstadt

With deteriorating weather forecast yesterday we wanted to move on from the rather limited attractions of Strijensas. We extracted the boat from the box berth and in company with Barbara on Moon River travelled the 7 or so miles west to Willemstadt. The wind was SW force 6-7 and its impossible to tack down the Hollandsch Diep here due to the constant stream of barge traffic, so we motored slowly into the wind with a little help from the mizzen. Last time we came to Willemstadt the old harbour in the centre of town looked very congested, so we went to the nearby Batterij marina instead. This time though the harbour looked less crowded and we tied up at the town quay overlooked by shops and restaurants. We were soon joined by Transcur, Clytie and Moon River.

We found a local restaurant that had a table for 9 a few yards from the boats and enjoyed a sociable evening. 

Its very windy today ( Friday) and there are gale warnings in nearly all sea areas but is supposed to be slowly getting better in the next few days. We stayed in port today but hope to be on the move again soon. Its frustrating not to be making better progress. However prolonged bad weather such as this during summer is very unusual.