but for the Grace

It’s Monday and we prepare to enter the canals at Vlissingen on the other side of the Oosterschielder. I’ve been obsessing about running out of fuel since we left Oostende. Anne is not and needless to say she is right! We fill on the fuel pontoon and only manage about 30 litres and that is after 15 hours of steaming! We are burning about 2 litres per hour so with a 90 litre tank I need to chill a bit! That means we have come all this way from Dover on just £36 of fuel!

At 1140 we leave Breskens and motor to the red channel marker VH2 on a bearing of 330, then change on a bearing of 000 towards the north cardinal buoy marking the edge of the Hooke Platten sandbank. Once there we turn on a bearing of 090 down towards the yellow ARV3 buoy which marks the safe crossing point for small craft into Vlissingen. 

At the yellow turn marker

On entering the harbour, I called up the lock on channel 18. We were given permission to enter the small boat lock. This is a very deep lock!

Enter the lock at Vlissingen 

On the other side we entered a large basin with a huge super yacht boatyard. We approached our first bridge and called the bridge keep on channel 22. He told us that it opens every two hours, the next time would be 1242. It was 1235 and we were in luck! Suddenly I was dodging 5 other waiting yachts who suddenly appeared!  

Once in the Kanaal door Walcheren we had 4 other bridges to pass through before Middelburg. The only drama was that a bridge almost closed on us! This gave us a bit of a fright so for the next 3 bridges I stuck to the stern of the boat ahead like glue. 

Need to move sharpish! The bridge is closing!

After 4 miles we turn to port and into Middelburg and moor at the visitors pontoon outside the harbour master’s office. We were give box berth 14 – our first box mooring! Fortunately we have help, lots of people mainly out of self interest to protect their own boats! 

Waiting outside to enter the Marina at Middelburg 

Wow! We are safely moored up in the middle of a Dutch town!

Grace safely tucked in!

Sunday 9th July. It is my birthday! We are heading towards Breskens in Holland today. It is about 27 nautical miles away and is a place to stay before entering the Dutch canals at Vlisingen. 

It is 1100, we are already to go but the lock keeper tells us that we cannot go through the lock until 1230 now – we have not got a slot!

Suddenly there is a sharp knock on the cabin roof, it is two policemen – we’ve been caught! If only we had made the lock out!

Wait but no! They wanted just to hand back a stamped copy of our Schengen area entry form! They wish us a safe trip and I mange not to confess to red diesel!

Our luck has changed, it is the harbour master on channel 14 to say we can go at 1130 if we get a move on! We do and have slipped our lines and are in the fairway in a couple of minutes. 

There are 5 other yachts already there and we spend 10 minutes dodging each other. Somehow we bump our way to the front, even elbowing a Frenchman away who thought he had got the top slot!

Our route takes us east along the coast at the O3 &O4 Oostende channel markers. We track the south side of the Wenduine Bank on a bearing of 060, just keeping in the deep water. We have to motor, the wind is dead ahead and we need to get past the busy entrance to Zeebrugge. At the DC1 North Cardinal buoy we steer 035 to the SZ East Cardinal and cross the approach to Zeebrugge to the green deep water channel marker S7. We change on to a bearing of 090 and at last we can sail. We have a wonderfully easy beat, Grace is beautifully balanced sailing at 3 to 4 knots in a steady F3. We have timed our trip to benefit from a favourable tidal stream and our speed over the ground is about 5 to 6 knots. 

At Blankenberge, a large official looking boat comes to take a look at us but soon loses interest!  We are now on the Dutch border when 6 small Zodiac ribs appear astern – just when I thought my cunning Subtifuge of flying the EU flag had worked……..but safe again as we pass the W3 green buoy they peel away.

 We are definitely in Holland and I unfurl my Red Ensign again. We decide to leave the EU flag flying as it has brought us luck!

We are loping along the inside edge of the shipping lane to Vlisingen, it really is very busy with lots of big ships more than we had seen crossing the English Channel! 

I can confirm that when Reeds Almanac says an object is ‘conspic’ that it really is! The Niewe Sluis lighthouse is an easy mark to find and we know that Breskens is not far. We are greeted by some lovely traditional sailing boats as we reach the Songa Buoy and our turn into the Breskens Channel. Our course is 180 and we motor in, taking care to avoid both the ferry port to the west and the ferries themselves which fly in and out at 30 minute intervals! 

Breskens is a modern marina with a long visitor pontoon behind a wave breaker. We use the intercom as they do not monitor vhf to get a berth. By 1750 Grace is safely on L11.

As a birthday celebration and to mark the end of our red diesel saga we book a table at the yacht club and have a great fish and chip supper followed by a Dame Blanche in honour of the large motor yacht we berthed next to at Oostende. 

It is Saturday 8th July. Like every other UK boat we (okay I) have become obsessed with the derv situation and we are still in hiding behind the toilet block in Oostende, our fuel tanks brimming with illicit red derv and customs men are scouring the marina or so it seems to me! I am convinced that everyone who walks past on the pontoon is going to dip my tanks and fine me hundreds Euro! 

We decide to bug out for the day and go to Brugge, it is somewhere I have always felt would be interesting to go to. I have convinced myself that it is known as the “Venice the north” but I’m told that I made that up and anyway it should be applied to Ghent and not Brugge!

However for people interested in bricks, and who isn’t? It is a symphony, no opera in clay! It’s cathedral has the tallest brick tower in the Low Countries. There are two cathedral but to save any confusion this one is easily identifiable by its very tall Tower!

We walk over to the station from Grace. It is only a couple of minutes walk from where we are hiding! There are 3 trains per hour and the trip only takes 15 minutes. Actually getting on to the train was a bit of a struggle as we had to fight a tsunami of people with buckets and spades, windbreaks and picnics heading for the beach. 

Once in Brugge, we just follow everyone else! They must be going to somewhere interesting…. we guess. The town is heaving with people. It is very picturesque but out of every alleyway pile streams of people, all following umbrella wielding guides. Again we get swept along with the flow, avoiding mad cyclists tearing through the crowds at breakneck speed or dodging horse driven city tours. 

We go to try to see the only Da Vinci sculpture outside of Italy, but after being directed to three different places to buy tickets we give up and go to buy some chocolate which was rather more successful! I go into a rather snazzy Choco boutique, the assistant is very help and samples 4 chocolates for me. I then buy 6 and beat a hasty retreat out of the door. She is not impressed that I am not a big spender! 

Now Oostende is a revelation if you love beaches and I do! We walk to the seafront and there is a beautifully wide promenade that stretches for miles and miles. It’s beach is wide with lovely fine sand. It is lined with white beach huts, shops selling buckets and spades, in fact everything you need for a fun day playing on the sand!

We walk for miles, treating ourselves to fresh crispy chips and mayonnaise….yum before staggering home to Grace for a cup of tea and bed…its only 2130 but we are worn out!

It is 0955 on Friday 7th July, the Dunkerque harbour control has given us permission to leave the Grand Large Marina and enter the main channel, he wishes a pleasant trip and a good watch.  

I have organised a couple of people from the neighbouring boat to shove the bows off. The wind is almost head on and I know if I can get the bows round sharpish then I will avoid crunching our gelcoat on the concrete wave breaker about 6 m in front!
Made it! And we hug the eastern breakwater as we head out to sea. 

We are now on 065 towards the E1 buoy, there are a couple of yachts ahead, the wind is light and we have the genoa up and the motor on.

The channel snakes round and we follow the buoys. There are a number of big shoals such as Smal Banc and Trapegeer here, but they won’t really cause us a problem as we have got a 4m rising tide. 

By 1055we are crossing into Belgium  and I raise the courtesy flag! 

The wind picks up to F3 westerly, it is not strong but we have almost 2 knots of tidal flow with us and are making and easy 4.5 knots. The weather is perfect and we are enjoying a great sail! 

We are now on a broad reach sailing  up the side of the Niewpoort Bank. The wind is shifting slightly so we decide to cross the bank at it’s narrowest point, taking the opportunity to dodge away from a patrol boat sailing towards us in the Westdiep! 

On a bearing of 000 we head towards the Oostendebank West Cardinal Buoy, the strong tidal stream is pulling us to the east.

At 1440 we change onto a bearing of 120 and head towards Oostende, we had originally thought of going to Blankenberge but is is still 20 miles off, the wind is dropping and the tidal stream will soon start to move against us. The Blankenberge harbour master has sent out an alert. The entrance is shoaling and as we will have to approach it at low tide we decide to give it a miss!

It is now 1520 and we start our approach into Oostende, we are heading towards the O4 red and O3 green channel markers. At this point, a blue customs cutter which had been traveling away from us turns towards us but we are going so slowly that it gives up and heads in! Phew! No red diesel check so far! Perhaps they are waiting for us on shore?

Once in the channel I radio port control on vhf channel 09. We have consulted our Reeds and have decided we will go to the Mercator Marina, it’s bigger and sheltered behind some locks. We have had a few days of being bashed about and it would be nice to be still and calm.

On entry into the harbour, we follow a long white wooden breakwater to starboard, at the of which is an opening into a small marina to starboard and at the end of the dock a lock into Mercator. I radio the Marina on channel 14 and they tell us to enter on green. 

Suddenly we are in and holding into the ropes, looking around I realise that we are going right in the middle of Oostende, just opposite the railway station! The lock keeper hands down our berth details on a bulldog clip attached to a rope. We wait until one road bridge opens, move forward and the next opens and we are in. We find our berth, tucked away behind the toilet block but it is easy to get into and by 1653 and after sailing 21 miles Grace is nicely moored up.

We go to the marina office to pay and get our connections to water and shore power. The harbour master is pleased to see us and bemoans that a flotilla of English yachts from Ramsgate have cancelled there visit due to the red diesel persecution. He says it is just one customs officer in Zeebrugge who is on a personal crusade. However just in case he has tucked us out of the way! Now all our crew list and entry forms are complete we go for a beer!

Oh and a bowl of fresh moules on deck as we watch the world go by!

It is now Friday the 7th July and we have been in Dunkerque for 3 days, but we needed to have our fridge repaired and then the weather on Thursday was forecast to be stormy with vicious squalls and thunderstorms…….which it was!

Some views of Dunkerque……

There was in fact plenty to see and do in Dunkerque (its name is rather unoriginally derived from; the church or Kirk in the dunes). It was sold by the British to one of Louis in about 1660. He built a very impressive port and defended it really well. The outlines of the original walls and moats you can still see among the docks and harbours of today’s port. Louis then promptly opened it up to privateers who then prayed on British and Dutch shipping. This is where Jean Bart comes in, he was a swashbuckling privateer and later joined the French navy to become a successful if rather podgy admiral defeating both British and Dutch fleets at the Battle of Texel. Streets, schools and the lifeboat are named after him! 

Our location on the far end of the pontoon means that we do not get too many boats raft up against us and I don’t get twitched about being crushed by bigger and heavier yachts. However it is 1/3 miles walk to the toilet but we are right in the middle of watching the preparations for the the sailing ‘tour de France’ with people blowing in big marker buoys and preparing race and press boats. It is quite nice to watch all this activity while I sit on deck and drink coffee and eat croissants! 

Race preparations on the beach

Pierre ‘le fridge’ turns up, it is 6pm and he is on the ball and keen. He seems to be a bit of a Mr Fixit when it comes to boats, that morning on our way to the museum we eventually tracked him down to a boat on another part of the Marina. He has a very impressive website and I imagined him to be a big boatyard and not a man on a boat! Anyway he was helpful and assured us that he would fix the problem that day! When he arrived I knew straightaway that he had no intention of trying to fix the old fridge but would simply rip the old one out and replace it. He took one look at the fridge and with a very sad face told me (Monsieur) that it was not possible to repair it unless it was sent away and then it was the holidays and I might not get it back to September! With that he and his mate promptly ripped the bits out of the old fridge and stuffed the new on in. At least now when it goes wrong again I can replace it myself. However it is working well and we can have ice of the G&T! 

The museum was really interesting and gave a great history of the port, if you pick your days correctly to can go around the Sandgettie lightship and a schooner moored in the dock outside and then up the old lighthouse on the dock. Needless to say we did not pick the right day! 

Operation Dynamo is covered in a separate exhibit, but all around the town there are monuments and notice boards about the ‘Miracle of Dunkirk’ and to the ‘Little Chips’ (their spelling not mine!) that rescued 338,000 allied soldiers of the beaches and breakwaters. The walls of the cathedral are covered with the scars of the fighting that took place.

One of the ‘little chips’

Again hoping to see the Operation Dynamo museum, I discover that it is still the wrong day and is closed for refurbishment! Anyway we go to the beach and paddle in the warm water. You can see why it must have been a good place to rescue people from as it is wide and gently sloping but very exposed which must have made waiting for rescue terrifying.

Dunkerque beach looking towards the Eastern Breakwater 

The red diesel problem! I can only buy red diesel for my boat in the UK and although I have paid the duty it is illegal to use it in the rest of Europe. Everywhere except Belgium recognises that if you have been to the UK you will have red derv in your tanks and ignores it! Needless to say my tanks are full of red derv, I had to fill up to cross the channel, it would have been irresponsible not to and anyway the traces of the red dye stay in your tanks for months! The man in the yacht next to us has just come through Belgium and regails us with tales of British boats being stopped at sea by customs and then being sent to Neiupoort or Oostende to be fined despite having the correct paperwork. We are sanguine about this! If they do stop and fine us then we will have to pay up, we have no option. We have to cross Belgium waters and our next destination,  Berens in Holland is another 54 miles away from Dunkerque and is too long a hop for us to make in one go. And anyway we want to go to Bruges and I want to ride on the coastal tram! Anne has given me strict instructions that I must be civil if we are stopped as she will not rescue me from a Belgium prison, I must be polite to them but take their details and complain officially later! Perhaps, as we will be sailing on Friday and Sunday they will be less keen! However I am not yet quite prepared to take this lying down and I have applied a bit of mild guile, I have bought a Europe flag to fly as my ensign to replace the very easy to spot Red Ensign. That might confuse things for a while!!

My cunning plan! Grace in disguise!

It is 0600 on Tuesday morning, we are both awake and nervous with anticipation about our first Channel crossing. The passage plan we completed last night is clear in my mind, I must have read it and reread it a dozen times! We forget to have breakfast in our hurry to get on with it! In Dover, the weather is lovely but I ignore the foghorn that is sounding in my rush to get Grace ready for sea. The fuel pontoon is our first stop and fill up with 70 litres of red derv and make sure I pay the full duty option. (More about this later!)

On leaving the fuel pontoon (of course the world and his wife arrive in the form of a large work boat for the new Marina and impatiently buzzes about as I am trying to extract myself backwards out of a tight spot and into the main fairway!) I radio port control on channel 74 and ask for permission to leave towards the east, he routes me across the southern breakwater and out of the eastern entrance, this is normally reserved for ferries and he tells a P&O to wait while I clear out to the north at the grand speed 4.5 knots.

Leaving Dover through the eastern entrance.

We are following a recommended route on the chart, fortunately we had programmed the waypoints in to our Raymarine C series chart plotter……after spending a happy half an hour on Monday evening trying to figure how to do it! 

Fog over the White Cliffs

My log says we left Dover at 0730 on a bearing of 080 towards our first waypoint, which is south of the South Goodwin cardinal and it is at this point that the fog which up to now has been more cloud than anything, descends into thick fog, giving a visibility of less than 200 metres. I assemble our foghorn and fish out the two white ‘ship scarer’ flares from deep in the port locker! It is amazing how far I can reach when I really want to! The strong tidal stream, of about 3.1 knots pushes us to the north of the South Goodwin buoy. We are pleased to see it emerge from the gloom to starboard.

The South Goodwin

As we monitor Dover Coastguard on channel 16 and 11, we are reassured by their weather forecast that says the fog is patchy, although just now it seems to lack the patchy bit! We are then distracted by a PAN PAN call from a fishing boat that has lost power. Dover Coastguard coordinates various boats to attend including the lifeboat, although half way through the rescue he confuses everyone by saying he is Aberdeen Coastguard!

We decide that we won’t cross the shipping lane if there is fog, we will hang around until it clears or make for Ramsgate. Just as we approach our crossing point there is a burst of sunshine ahead and the fog clears towards France…..a good omen and we really do have a fair wind for France!

Entering the TSS

It is 0900 and we have reached our crossing point. It is a strictly enforced Traffic Separation Scheme TSS and we must cross at right angles to the traffic and hold our bearing of 135 to make the shortest possible crossing. We have made great progress! A small freighter is coming up on us, but he turns to port and crosses with us, keeping station with us until we are well into the ‘up’ lane. Thisgives us a lot of reassurance that we are doing the right thing!

A friendly freighter crossing with us!

The time is now 0935 and we cross the border into France. We can see the Sangettie lightship in the distance. Progress is really good, the visibility is improving all the time and we are having a beautiful sail, under power but with mainsail fully out and flying along at about 7 knots SOG! 

Through the TSS and plotting our course to Dunkerque 

It is 1020 and we are now through the shipping lanes, it has taken just 80 minutes! Now we just have to find Dunkerque! The Dyck buoy passes by to port and we head towards the DCA safe water mark. We are now well passed Calais…..although we seem to be in the middle of a large anchorage of very big ships which is a bit disconcerting. At 1055 we switch the engine off for the first time today and we are properly sailing. By 1230 we enter the well marked and wide Dunkerque channel, following the green buoys and avoiding the temptation of Gravellines or Dunkerque West until we reach DW 29. The coastline is a bit uninspiring, it mainly seems to be nuclear power stations or big factories. Dunkerque itself is easy to see because of the two large lighthouses, one very tall, white and inshore and one on the western breakwater with three fins coming from it! We are monitoring the harbour control on Channel 73 and he advises everyone to stay clear as three large tugs and a tanker appear out from the breakwater. I  askpermission to enter and am instructed to head for the Grand Large Marina. Sailing past until I can clearly see into the harbour then hugging the eastern breakwater (taking note of the yacht stranded on the mud near fixed cardinal mark, its owner sat in the tilting cockpit looking ruefully towards the sea!).The visitors pontoon to very long and I slip into the last slot right at the very end of it. I will worry about how I am going to exit it later! 

Safely on the visitor’ pontoon 

It is 1430 and we are secure with the engine off. We have just sailed 39 miles in 7 hours at a very credible 5.7 knots!

No too difficult this Channel crossing!

It’s now Monday and our first non work day! We are taking it as a rest day to recover from our big trip up from Eastbourne to Dover and prepare for our Channel crossing. However this proved a bit light on the ‘rest’ element as my iPhone and aching back confirms! 9 miles walked and 73 flights of stairs!

In Dover, if you have the misfortune to stay there, the only real thing to see is the Castle – they will try and tempt you with the roman painted house and the ferry terminal but the castle really is the main event! You can see it on the hill towering over the town and Marina at high tide….we were a bit disconcerted when we woke on Monday morning to find the castle which had been there on Sunday night had disappeared! 

I am being a bit harsh on Dover as it is the only real place to start your cross channel swim from and the coastguard seems really helpful (I gained this view from listening to the vhf rather than actual experience!) and the French forbid it!

The Castle which has been steadily improved since the Bronze Age really is quite impressive, Julius Caesar did his bit, then William the Conquerer as early as 1066 made improvements but Henry ii made it into today’s Castle with various enhancements through napoleonic times, WW1 and WW2 and the Cold War. It’s Dumpy level tunnel is still covered by the official secrets act!

Our first stop was the WW2 naval control room where Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the beaches at Dunkerque was planned and implemented……quite appropriate I thought as we were planning our own reverse Operation Dynamo the very next day!

The tour itself was a bit weird with the bloke from the pub in Eastenders shouting at you to move on to the next exhibit!

 

Peverills Tower was part of the many improvements, this is from about 1160. They really made strenuous effort to keep up with the latest fashions in defense….

Trebuchets

Carronades and mortars

Ack ack gun

But the real piece de resistance is Queen Elizabeth’s Pocket Pistol, although it was not made for her but her father, Henry viii and it is certainly not pocket sized!

Henry ii really splashed out on the Castle, he wanted to impress visiting pilgrims who were on their way to Canterbury to see the shrine of Thomas the Becket…..the troublesome priest that Henry had dispatched! 

The Great Tower is very impressive and affords a great view all around, including to the last remaining radar tower from the Battle of Britain and one of Dover’s two roman lighthouses!

Other bits of the defensive features I really liked was the Napoleonic era rampart built in the moat that allowed defenders to fire cannons and guns at attackers as they tried to cross the moat!

 

And possibly my all time favourite the Sally Port (and I hope the origin of ‘to sallyforth’!). These were built in medieval times to allow people to sneak in and out of the castle undetected and upgraded to include remote entry airlocks in about 1830.

Sunday 2nd July. Eastbourne to Dover at about 48 miles was always going to be our longest trip, there really is nothing in between and nowhere to go for a yacht that cannot take the ground and if we could not get into Dover then we would have to go on Ramsgate or Calais!

Our passage plan was to leave Eastbourne and at the safe water mark head towards Hastings on a bearing of 090 for 10m. At 050 47′.2N and 000 35′.8E

 

The second leg was to Dungeness nuclear power station on a bearing of 064 for 16 miles. The wind which had been blowing from the south east died completely and we had to motor sail. You can see the low blocks of the miles and make a surprisingly  interesting land mark as there are two lighthouses on the point. Also Dungeness was the point in sailing ship days where you could pick up a channel pilot to take you into the Thames.

 

The last leg to Dover was on a bearing of 046 for 18 miles. About 5 miles in the wind picked and we were able to stop the motor and sail. By 1600 the tidal steam had changed in our favour and we we able to average an SOG (speed over the ground) for 4.7 knots from a boat speed of only 3.5 knots. A very satisfactory result!

There was quite a bit of sailing traffic on the way to Dover but all going the other way. A two masted schooner in the shipping lane and a nice looking yacht.

At two miles out from Dover we contacted Port Control for instructions about entry, Dover is supposed to be the UK’s busiest port and with all the ferries flying in and out it was easy to see why! We monitored the harbour vhf on ch 74 which was quite entertaining- especially with the controllers growing frustration with the yacht Noreen! In fact he sent out a patrol boat to find it and tell them off! 

It was with some trepidation that I radioed them up but was pleased to be thanked for doing the right thing and told to call them up again when I was a cables distance from the the western entrance. This seems to be the one to use for cruise ships and yachts. The eastern entrance is for ferries and lost yachts called Noreen!

We got thrown about a bit going through the western entrance but had been instructed by the Marina to go straight to the Granville dock and on to berth E35, which we accomplished with remarkable style and ease! Mooring up perfectly without crunching the pontoon or the neighbouring yacht! We were safely in at 1900 after a great 11 hour sail.

It’s Friday morning, the house is shut up and we are sat at the station waiting for a train to London and then on to Eastbourne and Grace. After all the time and preparation it is difficult to believe that we are really going!

Two new Enduroline domestic batteries have been fitted, the cases are a bit bigger than the original Banners so the installation is not as elegant as the originals. We also have a new starting battery too! Good job there is plenty of space in the battery compartment! I was a bit unhappy with the security of the installation- I really would not want 80 kg of lead and sulphuric acid flying about the cabin in a Force 6 beat! I went a bit wild with the Gorilla Tape and wedge them in plastic boxes.

The batteries are sealed and apparently don’t need venting when charging . I’m a bit uncomfortable with that as it was the vents that saved us from boiling sulphuric acid spaying around the saloon in the middle of the night. However we now the battery charger is on a separate circuit so we can switch it on when we want it! Hopefully now we won’t have the same problem again!

The good news is that we have got rid of the Useless 240v inverter and that we got 7 years out of a set of batteries which bodes well for the future.