Monday 9 April
This was going to be the big one, the single longest day of the trip. We had to get from Borkum to Den Helder, as there were no points of refuge in between. It started rather early, the alarm went off at 4:45, we had concluded that as we had been able to get in to Borkum in the dark, we would be able to get out again in the dark.
It didn't start well. When we were up we looked outside and there was fog, sufficient that we could not see the lights at the harbour entrance. Common sense prevailed, and we postponed our departure. I set the alarm on my phone for every 20 minutes to get up and see if the visibility had improved. We all lay back in our beds, dressed and ready to go, but grabbing a few more minutes rest while we waited. After a couple of hours, we concluded that it had lifted and we set off. Part of the frustration of waiting was caused be the knowledge that the tide that we had fought on our way in, was running with us this time, and we had missed its push for the hours that we had had to delay.
We followed one of the support boats for the wind farms out of the harbour, but they had soon powered away into the distance, so we were left to out own devices. The tide pushed us along at a good speed and we were able to avoid the ships coming and going from Emden and Bremerhaven.
The first part of the journey was uneventful, and knowing it was going to be a long day, we split into watches to allow some of the crew to run the boat while others rested. One watch was enlivened by a bird landing on deck and staying with us for a while. We saw the odd other yacht, a square rigged ship and various commercial shipping in the lanes further offshore. Then we we saw two pairs of military aircraft that did a couple of passes overhead. As ever these were incredibly noisy.
As the day wore one we were able to turn the corner at the north west tip of the Netherlands, and start to head south. We did and redid our calculations and came to the conclusion that although it was already going to be a very long day, the extra distance to Ijmuiden was only an extra couple of hours, and if we changed our destination, we could gain a day. So this was what we decided to do.
This meant that we would finish later, but we pressed on. Night fell and then things started getting interesting. We came across Dutch law enforcement vessel at anchor close to some fishing boats, and thinking that we were getting a bit close they shone a very bright light at us. We diverted away.
We were then confused by some lights we saw. One was clearly a ship, but from this there were flashing red lights that moved very fast. As we got closer we could see that the lights also went higher into the air, so they probably were not boats. Eventually we realised that this was a warship, doing night flying exercises with its helicopters. There were 2, doing circuits and bumps, landing on the ship and then taking off again. Really quite spectacular, but the nautical almanacs do not include the details of helicopter lights.
We were just starting to get used to this show when we hit the buoy indicating a lobster pot. It was a pitch black night so we had no chance to see it. It wrapped itself (as we discovered) across our keel and brought the boat nearly to a standstill. Tom was hanging on to it for dear life to prevent more of the lines going under the boat and near to the propeller. We managed to stop the boat, stow the sails and were then able to bring it forward so that it could go safely under the boat. We were very relieved to see it emerge from the other side and disappear into the distance.
We pressed on and made it into the large marina at Ijmuiden by about 1:30 am. It had been a long day and most of us took a few minutes to unwind and chill out before we went to sleep.
Distance covered today - 130 nautical miles
It didn't start well. When we were up we looked outside and there was fog, sufficient that we could not see the lights at the harbour entrance. Common sense prevailed, and we postponed our departure. I set the alarm on my phone for every 20 minutes to get up and see if the visibility had improved. We all lay back in our beds, dressed and ready to go, but grabbing a few more minutes rest while we waited. After a couple of hours, we concluded that it had lifted and we set off. Part of the frustration of waiting was caused be the knowledge that the tide that we had fought on our way in, was running with us this time, and we had missed its push for the hours that we had had to delay.
We followed one of the support boats for the wind farms out of the harbour, but they had soon powered away into the distance, so we were left to out own devices. The tide pushed us along at a good speed and we were able to avoid the ships coming and going from Emden and Bremerhaven.
The first part of the journey was uneventful, and knowing it was going to be a long day, we split into watches to allow some of the crew to run the boat while others rested. One watch was enlivened by a bird landing on deck and staying with us for a while. We saw the odd other yacht, a square rigged ship and various commercial shipping in the lanes further offshore. Then we we saw two pairs of military aircraft that did a couple of passes overhead. As ever these were incredibly noisy.
As the day wore one we were able to turn the corner at the north west tip of the Netherlands, and start to head south. We did and redid our calculations and came to the conclusion that although it was already going to be a very long day, the extra distance to Ijmuiden was only an extra couple of hours, and if we changed our destination, we could gain a day. So this was what we decided to do.
This meant that we would finish later, but we pressed on. Night fell and then things started getting interesting. We came across Dutch law enforcement vessel at anchor close to some fishing boats, and thinking that we were getting a bit close they shone a very bright light at us. We diverted away.
We were then confused by some lights we saw. One was clearly a ship, but from this there were flashing red lights that moved very fast. As we got closer we could see that the lights also went higher into the air, so they probably were not boats. Eventually we realised that this was a warship, doing night flying exercises with its helicopters. There were 2, doing circuits and bumps, landing on the ship and then taking off again. Really quite spectacular, but the nautical almanacs do not include the details of helicopter lights.
We were just starting to get used to this show when we hit the buoy indicating a lobster pot. It was a pitch black night so we had no chance to see it. It wrapped itself (as we discovered) across our keel and brought the boat nearly to a standstill. Tom was hanging on to it for dear life to prevent more of the lines going under the boat and near to the propeller. We managed to stop the boat, stow the sails and were then able to bring it forward so that it could go safely under the boat. We were very relieved to see it emerge from the other side and disappear into the distance.
We pressed on and made it into the large marina at Ijmuiden by about 1:30 am. It had been a long day and most of us took a few minutes to unwind and chill out before we went to sleep.
Distance covered today - 130 nautical miles
Total distance covered -
Steve (and Tricia)
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