Sunday 19 August 2012

Deeper Into the Oosterschelde. 3. Beautiful Boats

It was a slightly hung-over crew that got-up to catch the first opening of the bridge. By 0900, Mekicevica and a few other sailing and motor yachts were negotiating the bridges and heading back to the Oosterschelde.
The wind was really light, at moments dying to nothing. I am glad we made the effort to get up in time to sail with the tide, otherwise it would have been difficult to make any progress at all. Since we had the tide helping us and were in no particular hurry, we just enjoyed the nice weather, the views of the Oosterschelde and the interesting boats around.
Very interesting rig. If I owned this boat I would have fitted her with junk sails.
Original colour.
Short-handed they are not.

Saturday 18 August 2012

Deeper Into the Oosterschelde. 2. Goes

Goes is an old town, dating back to the Xth century. The city walls and the moat were built in the XVth century with the star shape usual at the time. Remains of this structure are still noticeable in the town layout.
Goes centre, showing the remains of the star-shaped moat and the old harbour where Mekicevica spent the night.
In the present day, Goes is more famous as a shopping town with a telecoms tower visible from a great distance, and as home of the pop band Bløf.
Goes: the old wind-mill and the modern telecoms tower.
The canal and the bridges must put off many sailors because in this ideal sailing weather, when Zierikzee must have been heaving, the Goes town-harbour was an oasis of tranquility. Interestingly, there were a few British yachts around.
Mekicevica and First-Mate at the quiet Goes town-harbour.
We decided to treat ourselves to dinner in the posh restaurant facing the harbour. The Oosterschelde mussels were washed down with copious amounts of white wine, resulting in a very tipsy crew returning aboard too late, considering that we need to start early again on Sunday.

Deeper Into the Oosterschelde. 1. The Human Whale

The only caveat of our plan is that in order to start a couple of hour before low water, we will have to get up at 0700, earlier than we're used to on a weekend. The sunny weather helped us poke our noses out of the companionway on time and as planned we were on our way around 0800. As a reward for our effort the Grevelingen lock was blissfully quiet, opposed to the mayhem at our usual 1100.
On the other side, it was plain sailing down the Keteen, on a broad reach on a 2-3 Bf wind, enjoying the sunshine.
We did get to the red-green buoy that marks our turning point at about the turn of the tide. By then there were a few yachts around, but no big ships at all. They prefer to take the shorter route east of the big sandbank, the Galgeplaat. West of this sandbank we had enough space to reach the entrance to the canal leading to Goes in just four tacks, even if we had to put a few rolls in the genoa as the wind freshened-up a bit. The waters were a bit choppy, but Mekicevica has coped with much worse.
To reach the centre of Goes, we have to pass a lock and then motor a 2NM-long canal, the Goese Sas; along the way we have to negotiate three bridges.
In such a nice weather, the locals were using the grassy banks of the canal as a beach, and we had to look-out for people swimming in front of us.
Motoring along the Goese Sas, a nautical slalom between swimmers. The human whale is lurking around the corner.
Just after the first bridge, in Wilhelminadorp, a few lads were playing pranks: they were jumping from a quay making as much of a splash as possible to get us wet. The first few were a mere annoyance.Then we saw HIM flying towards us: the Human Whale. This guy was so big and fat than not only we were completely soaked, the tidal wave he created threatened to capsize Mekicevica. It was nearly as on  this photo.
Alive but shaken by the terrible experience we arrived to the last two bridges, which are operated by the harbour master. The opens the first at the hour, and if any boats really want to the to the old harbour in the town centre he jumps on his bike and goes and opens the other bridge. The latter is just an old-fashioned Dutch bridge, exactly like in the Van Gogh paintings.
The lovely Goes town-harbour.

Friday 17 August 2012

Deeper Into the Oosterschelde. Prologue

The weather man is saying that this weekend we will probably get the warmest days of the year. The SE wind will be light to moderate on Saturday and light on Sunday.
This is a good chance for Mekicevica to venture deeper into the Oosterschelde. One cruising destination we have had in mind for a while is the town of Goes. To get there from our base in Bruinisse we need to leave a couple of hours before low water to sail the Keteen with the last of the ebbing tide and be near the Zeeland bridge at the turn of the tide, so we can than continue to Wilhelminadorp and Goes with the flooding tide. In the last bit we will be beating in a wind-against-tide situation, but in light winds that should not be too much of a problem.
The ideal timing to sail from Bruinisse to Goes is getting to the Zeeland bridge at the turn of the tide. 
To be ready for light winds, I changed the head-sail back to Jenny the big genoa. First-Mate joined in the evening for dinner aboard.

Sunday 12 August 2012

The End of the Krabbenkreek. 2. St.-Philipsland

Sunday morning was sunny, but a cold, moderate wind was blowing from the East, exactly the direction we want to go up the narrow Krabbenkreek. We put a reef in the main and started as early as decently possible on a Sunday. The tide was still flooding against the wind, which threw the characteristic choppy waves right onto Mekicevica's nose. So motoring it will have to be.
We arrived to Sint-Philipsland just before high-water, which meant we could tie-up at the quay. This as not that easy as the place is definitely not designed for small boats and the wind was blowing right into the quay.
Little Mekicevica on the uninspiring harbour of Sint-Philipsland.
The cruising guide describes the village as a place where time seems to have stopped, and that was certainly true on a sunny Sunday morning.
De Hoop, a landmark of Sint-Philipsland. 
The small church.
It has the typical structure of the mid-17th century towns, with a church at the centre, connected to the harbour by the wide Voorstraat. On the church square there is a memorial to the local victims of the 1953 floods.
We didn't hang around too long, otherwise we would have to take a long jump from the quay down to Mekicevoica's deck. The sailing on the return was absolutely delightful, now with the wind and the ebbing tide pushing us nicely. Under reefed main sail we glided effortlessly down the Krabbedkreek, jibed right in front of Sint-Annaland and gradually turned more upwind into the busy Keteen. Here we hoisted the river jib and kept good speed, always on port tack, until the Grevelingen lock. As we had discovered before, the combination of river-jib plus reefed main sail works wonderfully close-hauled on 4Bf wind.

Saturday 11 August 2012

The End of the Krabbenkreek. 1 - Aground Chasing a Seal

The trip from our base in Bruinisse to the end of the Krabbenkreek is rather short, less than 8 NM. So to get  a bit more sailing we start Saturday by doing a trip up the Hals, is a narrow channel on the N of the Grevelingen. The bit we intend to do, up to the public moorings, runs almost exactly S-N, so in the east wind we are getting, we should not have to beat either on the way out or on the return.
Normally this channel is as quiet as you can get on the Grevelingen, but today it seems a lot of people figured that East wind presents a good opportunity to sail here, so it was a bit busy. Even the mooring was packed full. When we were here early this season (see previous blog) we found the place infested by noisy boy-racers making stupid stunts with their cars. It seems that in the meanwhile the boy-racers took to the water. They fitted their over-powered engines to rubber-dinghies to do the same stupid tricks afloat, so they can annoy sailors even more.
We didn't stay long, as it was also getting a bit late for the short hop to the Krabbenkreek. As anticipated, the return was also on a comfortable sailing point. Only at one point we had to decide whether to tack or take a short-cut outside of the marked channel. The chart showed that it got very shallow (even for Mekicevica) immediately outside of the buoys. It was at this moment that we spotted a seal really close to us. This needs watching and taking a picture. I quickly tried to heave-to, botched-it and bong! We are stuck in the sand. Quickly raised the centre-plate, but the wind immediately blew us to even shallower water. Sails down and it seemed I was going to have to get out and push. But the brave Yo-yo Ma saved me from getting wet feet by bravely dragging his own tip and Mekicevica's keels along the sand bottom back to deeper waters. We never got a picture of the seal, who must have had a good laugh at our clumsy antics.
This episode made us arrive later than expected to the Grevelingen lock. We still had favourable tide and wind to ride down the Keteen, but once on the Krabbenkreek we would have both the tide and the freshening wind against us. So we decided to leave the rest of the Krabbenkreek for Sunday and headed for Sint-Annaland yacht harbour.
The best way to enjoy the Krabbenkreek.
The sailing both down the Keteen on a broad reach and close-hauled up the Krabbenkreek was delightful.
Sailing up the Krabbenkreek with a flat-bottom in hot pursuit. These boats are really at home here.
The harbour was really crowded but the friendly harbour-master found a place for Mekicevica right in front of the clubhouse, squeezed between a gin-palace and a huge Dutch barge. At least we were well sheltered from the wind.
Good think we prepared for dinner aboard, because there was no way we could have found a table at the club-house.
In the evening we went to check the fun-fair in the town, but we were not match for the many youngsters around and soon we were asleep in our berth. 

Friday 10 August 2012

The End of the Krabbenkreek - Prologue

Again a weekend with favourable weather forecast: moderate easterlies and sunny. A bit fresh, especially compared to the Adriatic, but hey, you can't have everything.
This time our goal is to get to the very end of the Krabbenkreek. This is a narrow arm of the Oosterschelde that has been turned into a dead-end by the construction of the Schelde-Rijn canal. When Mekicevica attempted to sail up to the end of this creek in May (see previous blog) there was too little wind. This time we are determined to do it, so I prepare the river jib to make the beating up the narrow channel a bit easier. But I feel that in the end we'll have to get some help from Yo-yo Ma, our faithful, tiny outboard.