Holland - at last!

It feels like we have been sailing along the coast of France forever.
After our last posting at Fecamp we Sailed to Dieppe. A nice town with echoes of the well to do English visitors of the early 20th century. Sisley stayed there and painted some pictures of the town and it's folk, and the "in" set of the era including Noel Coward frequented the town. Unfortunately we had to stay there for 3 rather than 2 days because our next port of call Boulogne was closed due to a Regatta! Can you imagine closing Fowey for visiting yachts during Fowey week, to say nothing of Falmouth? We considered Calais for about one minute because it is not a place that I would choose to visit in a yacht.
So finally on Sunday 27th May we left Dieppe for Boulogne, and down came the fog! Thank goodness for radar, a chart plotter and AIS because for 7 hours we had not more than 250 yards visibility. We used the chart plotter and the radar to enter Boulogne as we could only just see the light tower as we entered the harbour. Of course by the time we got to the marina the sun was shining!
Boulogne is not a place we will return to in a hurry, a scruffy little marina right alongside one of Europe's biggest fishing ports with a smell to match.
On Monday May 28th we sailed for Dunkirk, a distance of about 50nm, ( all the legs in this part of the cruise are between 40 and 55nm, a comfortable days sailing).
Fog again, and this was a real concern because we had to pass Calais and enter Dunkirk, both harbours being ferry terminals with ships entering and leaving all the time. Fortunately the weather cleared by the time we rounded Cap Gris Nez so we had visual contact with the ships as well as via radar and AIS.
Both ports have a traffic control system which is very good at Calais. A very nice lady told us to "attend" until the Spirit of Normandy ( high speed ferry) had left. And then we could scuttle across the shipping lane like Miss Marples crossing the M25.
Dunkirk was a big disappointment. We had planned to stay at the Yacht Club de Mer du Nord marina as it is close to the centre of town and the yacht club has a nice restaurant, but we had not counted on Monday being a French bank holiday and the marina was full. We were obliged to stay at the new Marina Grand Large in the outer port. Large the marina is but definitely not grand. Set in an industrial estate half an hour brisk walk from the town and badly managed, it has nothing to recommend it.
Rather than stay for more than one night, we decided to push on and get to Holland so we sailed on Tuesday 29th for Vlissingen (Flushing), with possible stopping places at Ostend, Zeebrugge or Breskens if we got too tired.
There is a big shipping lane just offshore along this part of the coast so we stayed well inshore, in about 10m water depth to keep well away from the behemoths and to cheat the foul tide which runs at anything up to 3 knots along the coast. Once agin we had to play dodge the shipping across Zeebrugge entrance and waited for permission from Port Control.
The shipping along this part of the coast and into the Westerschelde ( which leads eventually to Antwerp via Vlissingen) has to be seen to be believed. A line of ships going East and West stretching as far as you can see. No wonder the French, Belgians and Dutch have such a sophisticated jointly controlled radar and shipping control system. They say you can be fined for crossing the shipping lane without calling them up!
Finally at 6 pm a very tired crew made the Michael de Ruyter marina in Vlissingen, and were treated to the best supper we could find.