Essex to the Netherlands
Reader Peter Dewey enjoys a leisurely cruise in his Macwester sloop across the Channel to the Netherlands, taking in Dunkirk, Ostend and Zeebrugge along the way
Leisurely cruise in a Macwester sloop
Having recently acquired our 8.5m (28ft) Macwester sloop, Yammas – Greek for ‘Cheers’ – Hilary and I had determined to get back into cruising, with the aim of getting across the Channel and going north, destination Denmark or similar. This didn’t quite work out, although we did have a lot of fun along the way.
We began in Brightlingsea, Essex, where Yammas was lying. A short shakedown trip to Bradwell Marina (in the lee of a disused nuclear power station) revealed a serious leak, cause unknown. After a lot of attention by the local engineers all seemed well, and we found a very calm day to cross the Thames Estuary to Ramsgate. That was fine, but on arrival at Ramsgate the leak problem was still there.
The local yacht repairers suggested that we avoid the expense of getting lifted out to effect a repair, and instead put Yammas alongside the wall outside the Maritime Museum and wait for the tide to go out – reckoning that they could fix the problem in between tides. We did this, but the leak problem was so severe that in the end we had to get her lifted out anyway, allowing her a week to dry out before the engineers really did fix the leak.
All this took time – and money – and after several weeks in Ramsgate, where we whiled away the time with some cultural tourism (Pugin’s house and church at Ramsgate were notable, as was the Hornby Model Railway museum in the former Hornby/Airfix factory at Margate), we set off across the Channel to Dunkirk.
Why not Calais, which is much nearer? Helas, m’sieur: Calais was closed to yachts, due to maintenance works. The next port along, Gravelines, is a half-tide port, and we didn’t fancy being stuck there due to lack of water. The next one on from that is Dunkirk West, which is for big ships only; so it had to be Dunkirk East, which was a much longer passage than a simple Ramsgate-to-Calais hop.
This was a bit of a problem, in that we didn’t really know how fast Yammas might do the crossing: perhaps 4 knots an hour was my conservative guess, and the voyage would be 44 miles, which is OK for the young, but less attractive to two septuagenarians. Could we stay awake and on the ball for 11 hours? Could we reach and get across the sandbanks which lie off the French coast at the next
high water, in time to catch the east-going ebb tide to speed us along the buoyed inshore channel to Dunkirk East?
In the event, Yammas maintained almost 5 knots on engine on a very calm and sunny day, and I was greatly relieved to pass the halfway mark across the Channel in the shape of the former Sandettie lightship. Once manned by human beings, it is now officially reduced to the status of a crewless buoy – but was still a handsome sight in the sunshine. We caught the tide off the French coast nicely, and got into Dunkirk East in 91∕2 hours.
Fine weather
The town of Dunkirk, almost entirely rebuilt since the Second World War, was unexciting, although there is an excellent maritime museum and some impressive historic ships in the old basins. We stayed there for an extra day to allow some hairy winds to die down. From then on we were blessed with fine weather. We departed at high water in the mornings to get the benefit of the east-going ebb along the coast, motoring or motor-sailing along the well-marked coastal channel. Ostend was next, where we negotiated two lifting bridges to enter the port.
The next stop was Zeebrugge, an enormous harbour, where we got into trouble with the police for not having filled in a Schengen arrival form. Fortunately we were ashore when the police decided to do a spot-check, so it was the harbour master who got it in the neck for not having insisted that we fill in this form on arrival. However, when we told him that we had made our first European landfall at Dunkirk, he brightened up and said in that case he could blame the French for this omission on our part.
From thence it was a short passage to Vlissingen, which was the port of entry for the Netherlands: however, not stopping there, we proceeded up the Walcheren canal to the delightful town of Middelburg. Dutch canals are very different to British ones – wide enough to put the sails up, and the Dutch do this at the slightest opportunity.
The mooring at Middelburg was in a branch canal near the centre of town and was really quiet, with electricity and water on tap. The town itself had been badly bombed in the Second World War, but since then had been carefully rebuilt, and you couldn’t spot the difference between the original and the rebuilt bits.
The next stop was further up the Walcheren canal at Veere, an even prettier town, with a notably enormous church which Napoleon had converted into a five-storey military hospital when he passed that way. (It has not been converted back into a church). After Veere, we entered the wide expanses of water linking the various bits of the canal system. The first of these was the Veerse Meer, which was about a mile wide, and which we began to navigate at dawn: fortunately all waterways, large or small, are very well buoyed and lit.
Keep a sharp lookout
Then we entered our first lock, at the Zandkreekdam: not a great rise of water, but it was awkward to have to find and pass a rope over one of the little bollards set into the lock wall. Some locks have chains or ropes dangling from above to grab hold of, and these are a bit easier to manage than the wall bollards. The really big locks have two basins – one for large commercial craft and one for pleasure yachts and motorboats.
We were then into the even wider Oosterschelde, and after getting through another lock at the Phillipsdam we made for the marina at Sint-Annaland – really posh, with an excellent restaurant, where we indulged ourselves with a very long lunch. Finally, after one more lock at the Volkerakdam, we entered the Hollands Diep, a wide waterway with a lot more industry than we had noticed so far, and many really large motorised barges – some as long as a football pitch – moving at speed. One needs to keep a sharp lookout all round: they can be on you from astern in a quarter of an hour, and they don’t stop or give a hoot (literally).
Journey’s end was the marina at Strijensas on the Hollands Diep waterway. All facilities, helpful staff speaking excellent English (as everywhere in the Netherlands), a rural setting and a good chandlers and restaurant on site. We may cruise to Denmark next time. Who knows?