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| My hired e-bike |
The organised adventure in Zierikzee was an e-bike ride. I was keen to take my own folding bike, which had been sharing my bed without being used, but Gina assured me that we'd be going too fast for me to keep up, and also that there was an e-bike spare as someone had just dropped out. So I went for the e-option. In the end it wouldn't have mattered as we didn't go very fast, and I mostly rode with no electrical assistance at all, but on the ride back into the wind it was nice to turn on a bit of power.
It was my first ever e-bike ride and it took a little while to get used to the controls and the fact that the bike itself is extremely heavy, so picking it up and swinging it around as I do with my road bike at home is not really an option. We rode along the Oosterschelde for a while, then had a picnic lunch and headed inland to a famous tourist village, Burgh-Hamsteede. I'm not entirely sure of its appeal but I went to Lidl and bought some mushrooms, then to a jlly gift shop for yet another pair of earrings and some bamboo socks, We stopped at a rather gorgeous garden on the way back, then pedalled on to Zierikzee, 42km altogether. My bum was very sore! Janet, who has an e-bike at home, coped better than I did as cycling doesn't seem to put pressure on her hip.
From Zierikzee the fleet headed just 14M to Yerseke. I was last there on Kalessin with Sam and Ben and a lot of other Westerlies in 2015. They have done away with the long guest pontoon where we all moored up then, and completely rearranged the harbour. We were told to call the harbourmaster for directions but in fact Cor, one of the Dutch organisers, directed us all to our places. For some reason we were on the other side of the harbour from almost all the other Westerlies and I ended up doing a pirouette in the entrance, as we initially went the wrong way. I checked afterwards and even the photos on the marina website show the old arrangement of the pontoons, so unless you know the harbour there's no easy way to get it right. The odd angle of our berth meant that we passed very close to a very new yacht with Code Zero-style bowsprit. The owner burst up on deck as we passed and it gave me great pleasure to head neatly straight into the correct spot.
Nigel, on the biggest boat in the fleet, had managed to book the last available table in the fish restaurant which we missed last time. I cheekily gatecrashed his party and begged an extra two spaces from the restaurant, and we had an excellent meal with Anne and Tom from Aeolus, Nigel and one other skipper. Alongside my enormous bucket of mussels I treated myself to a single oyster.
From Yerseke we had a couple of nights where we could choose our destination. We headed for the Haringvlieter island in the Veersemeer along with several other rally boats, and James once again organised a meal for which he provided tonnes of food. I took along the Cobb and a splendid, although very warm, evening was had by all.
At this point I stopped updating the blog for reasons I can't now remember, and the further behind I got the more of a challenge it was to get updated. It's now well into September, which is very embarrassing. So the next batch of entries will probably be rather brief and heavy on photos!
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| Excellent mussels in Yerseke... |
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| ...and a single oyster |
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| Moored on an island in the Versemeer. It was quite a tight space and one of the WOA members assured me that actually I would have had plenty of depth on the other side of the jetty, Later I swam there and discovered it was about 4ft deep (Kalessin draws 5ft 6in). Under the jetty there is a steep underwater slope so we floated fine |
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