Home and aground



Often when you're planing a passage home you keep an eye on the longer-term forecast for the days you hope to travel and watch in despair as the forecast changes from (say) NE3 with sunshine and flat seas to SW6-7 with rain, rough seas and poor visibility. Not this time. From the moment when it first appeared on the GFS 10-day forecast until the time that it happened, the wind was forecast to go N during Friday, drop in the afternoon and go a bit NE overnight, with seas moderating from just over a metre at midday Friday to about 0.3m by Saturday afternoon.


Thursday was a bit of a push to windward across the Markermeer. If we'd had more time or less far to go we could have sailed more. The wind was SW3-ish, just where we were going. We could have sailed almost to Lelystad, tacked and gone into the Ij, but instead it was on with Mr Volvo and Mr Tillerpilot once again with the crew generally dozing. We got back to Amsterdam Marina in the middle of the afternoon, and this time moored in the east basin, which is definitely choppier (and in fact a bit uncomfortable when there's a lot of barge traffic, although we were almost at the back of the basin) but has a better view. You also get more of the smells from the steak restaurant which was a mixed blessing as we weren't planning to go there. However, I did get another bath.


On Friday morning we had plenty of time for me to have a run past these rather nice houses, make a lasagne for Friday night and a big soup for Saturday, before heading off down the Nordzee Kanaal. The wind was showing no sign at all of going north and was on the nose most of the way, but very light. I suspect it's funnelled down the canal and most of it was apparent anyway. After a long wait at the lock, and then in the lock, we got to IJmuiden about 2pm and found the fuel berth, which I got us into extremely neatly as the space between the two moored ribs was only marginally longer than Kalessin. Then we tried to get fuel. The machine rejected my smile debit card (normally rejected by fuel dispensers), my Santander business debit card (which usually works) and my Smile credit card. Oh bugger. Then Anne tried her Monzo debit card, which is Mastercard rather than Visa (generally better news in the Netherlands) and it worked. It transpired from the warning texts I received that the system precharges a stonking €1250 which seems to trigger numerous fraud sensors. Anyway thank you Anne! (and Monzo).

Departure around 1830 saw the wind in the N as promised and the sea still a bit lumpier than I would have liked, which had a rather negative effect on Ben, unfortunately, especially as we were sailing for the first hour or so. We all had some lasagne and then everyone except me went to bed and the engine went on by about 8pm. I took the first watch until 2300. Fortunately our route this time was south of the anchored tankers which got in the way so much on the way out, and S of the Luchterduinen windfarm which was a very handy seamark. The air was remarkably warm and the sea continued to moderate. The moon came up over the Dutch coast, soaring up like a vast orange hot-air balloon.

Ben did the 2300 to 0200 watch, still feeling distinctly queasy, I did 0200 to 0500, Ben got dawn and breakfast and then slept almost to midday. Sam had refused to be wedged behind the saloon table in the port bunk, so we got him half-sitting, half-lying sideways across the bunk, propped on a folded duvet, which meant he could lie back to sleep and sit up to eat or take notice. It worked quite well on starboard tack but might not haven been so good if he had been tipped the other way. It also meant there was a vacant area of port bunk next to him just big enough for me to curl up in like a dormouse, and to my surprise I slept soundly for at least two hours on each of my off watches, although I woke with cramp from being curled up. After my second dormouse effort the elastic of my thermal leggings was digging in so ferociously that I clipped it with a pair of scissors. Time for a new pair of leggings...

The sea got calmer and bluer until it was positively hot. We had chosen the calmest possible day for our crossing but I did feel I should explain to Anne that the North Sea is not normally like this.

New EA1 windfarm under construction
Finally it was time to turn into both wind and tide to turn down the Sledway. On previous crossings we have been lucky to get both wind and tide right for a gallop down the Sledway. This time the tide was against us and as we passed north of the Greater Gabbard windfarm we were down to less than 4kt over the ground, despite boosting the engine revs to 2300, so I expected a painful crawl home. But in fact the wind direction and strength were perfect to make the most of motorsailing, where we were filling the sails with our own apparent wind, and we managed a respectable 5 to 5.5kt down to what used to be Wadgate Ledge, and just now seems to be Ledge beacon.

By the time we reached SYH it was LW. As it was a day before springs and the lowest water was forecast as 0.5m above chart datum I expected the channel to be narrow, but water levels to be ok. In fact we touched bottom on the approach to the safe water mark, and as we turned into the marina we saw a yacht clearly aground in the fairway. I thought I could creep round him on the inside, but oh no, there is definitely a bump there. We got off, crept into a handy spare berth, and had a dinner of reheated lasagne and soup which fortunately was all ready to go. We did enjoy a gorgeous sunset and with the very very last of the light finally got into our home berth around 2030. Time for that well-earned drink.

The yacht behind us draws 6ft and was well and truly aground

No comments:

Merry Christmas from just me

Video of photos made for Sam's funeral    Dear friends and family As I hope you all know, this year has been a difficult one for me. On ...