Folks:
Sorry about the lack of blog! The PC decided it did not want
to access WIFI, and the fix necessitated my brother Mike refreshing the whole
stupid machine, which meant we had to download all our apps again (including
Microsoft Word).
Bright and early on June 21st we extricated
ourselves from the crowded Sixhaven marina in the centre of Amsterdam and
motored down the 12 miles of canal to the lock into the North Sea at Ijmuiden.
For a while we sailed south along the Dutch coast with a fair wind, but before
we got to Scheveningen the wind backed south west and we had to motor sail the
last fifteen miles in a lumpy sea. Scheveningen was a disappointment. We
remembered the marina from when we lived in the Hague as it is only about 10
miles from where we lived, but our recollections are dated as the marina is now
very crowded with hardly any space for visiting yachts which are moored far
away from the shops and cafes.
The next day was a long one for us, sixty six miles to Zeebrugge
in Belgium. We had thought about stopping in a southern Holland port but the
wind was fair, and the day sunny so we forged on down the Dutch coast across
the busy Westerschelde, and down the Belgian coast.
The 23rd was a rest day spent catching our breath
and, at the advice of the lady in the yacht club restaurant, taking a train to
Bruges. Bruges (or Brugge) is a delightful medieval town with many quaint
buildings about six miles inland from Zeebrugge and well worth a visit.
Ever onwards, and on the 24th we sailed again down the coast forty four miles to Dunkirk and so back into France. Once again the wind did not play fair with us and we only sailed without the motor for three out of eight hours. But who are we to complain? The sea was not to rough and the sun shone so we thankful for what we were given. Last time we were at Dunkirk, two years ago, we could not stay at the Yacht Club Mer du Nord as they were hosting a regatta and had to stop at a very soulless new marina. Better luck this time, but we thought that the much vaunted restaurant was over rated.
So eventually on June 25th we arrived back in the UK, at Dover from Dunkirk. Crossing the Dover straights is always something of a chore because four hundred ships a day pass through the shipping lanes, not including the numerous cross channel ferries. We felt like a little old lady scurrying across the M25! Actually this time it was not too bad, there seemed to be less shipping going north and south, the wind was fair and we had another sunny day with good visibility.
We had intended to have a rest day in Dover and stay there two nights but although the marina has good facilities, there is not a lot to see close to it and a forecast for impending strong south westerly winds helped make the decision and we set sail in the afternoon of the 26th for Eastbourne arriving at the Sovereign marina at 9pm after another sunny sail, this time with the wind dead astern.
At Eastbourne we definitely needed a rest day, so we spent
the time sitting on the boat reading books and dozing.
We made the next day a short one and only sailed twenty
three miles to Brighton marina. This is supposed to be the largest marina in
the UK, and that’s about all there is to recommend it, expensive with only
average services and a tricky entrance that you would not want to attempt in
strong onshore winds.
Bob to date had seen a lot of marinas so we decided that the
anchor needed wetting, and on June 29th sailed into the Solent and
up the Emsworth channel where we anchored in a little bay off the village of
West Wittering. It was nice to sit in the cockpit and watch the sun set and be away
from a crowd of boats.
From here we sailed up to the Town Quay marina in
Southampton where Bob left us for his long journey back to Australia via
Stuttgart and my brother Mike joined us to stay overnight and sail to Poole
which we reached after a rather windless day motor sailing. Poole has always
disappointed us and the place lived up to expectations. We stopped at Saltern’s
marina because it was close to the entrance, we thought it was fairly close to
the train station for Mike, and it had a fancy write up. £42 a night with extra
for WIFI and the facilities on the other side of a large car park! We have
stayed in better for fifteen euros.
The barometer was still at 1030mb meaning that the good
weather should last, although the forecast was for a low to come our way soon,
so on 3rd July we said a glad goodbye to Poole and headed west
again. We had originally planned to stop at the new marina in Portland harbour,
which was constructed for the last Olympic Games, but as we felt quite fit we
decided to plug on for seventy three miles to Dartmouth. Not a bad plan, but,
due to the change, we had not fully accounted for the tide at Portland Bill and
had two hours with three knots against us! Thank goodness for a calm day and a
powerful engine. Nine p.m. saw us moored at Dart marina back in home waters at
last.
We were glad we had made the long passage because on the
next day (4th July), the predicted low came roaring through and we
could smugly watch the wind and rain.
The rest is history. On Sunday 6th July we sailed
to Plymouth on a lumpy sunny blustery day and locked into Sutton Harbour marina
where we were joined by our brother in law Patrick, who sailed with us back to
our mooring at Mylor on a day that started windless and sunny and ended with a
reefed main and genoa with twenty seven knots of wind to welcome us into the Fal.
