The Beauty of October Sailing

This Friday, we had a deep Atlantic depression whizzing past over the North Sea. It was the second this season, and it is not even mid-October yet. This one really rushed by and the strong winds (reached 9 Bf on the Westerschelde) were over in two hours. The weather man promised fair weather from Saturday late morning, so we go sailing. No ambitious plans this time, we'll just stay on the Grevelingen.
Saturday did start wet and miserable. With the strong rains, all the small leaks on Mekicevica that I had been trying to ignore since the previous, wet Summer showed up again. And then a few new ones appeared.
Just as we were finally ready for a late start, the sun started breaking through and we were treated to a beautiful busy sky, as you can get only in the Low Countries in early spring or early autumn.

Beautiful Autumn skies.

We spent most of the afternoon beating against the NW wind, which was moderate but gusty and very cold.
By the time we reached the NW end of the Grevelingen we were frozen, so we headed for the nearest harbour: Brouwershaven again!
In the lee of the islands the wind was weaker, the waves turned into small ripples and the only noises were the happy splashing noises of Mekicevica and the birds. Beautiful!

Approaching Brouwershaven.

The old harbour and the town were rather quiet, so this time we managed to avoid the Jacob Cats restaurant and had a really nice dinner at the Zwarte Schaep, a whole 10m from where Mekicevica was moored.

Sunday was even sunnier, and because we were sailing down-wind we didn't feel its chill. On these occasions we wish the Grevelingen was longer, as we got to Bruinisee too early. Even with a small detour around the Mosselenbank during which we were briefly going up-wing again and felt the cold wind.
There is definitely much to enjoy in Autumn sailing, as long as you remember to wrap-up warm.