Closing the Season with a Trip to Stavenisse

One last weekend before Mekicevica comes out of the water, and the forecast was for sunny weather, although cold and with strongish easterlies. We're going sailing!
On Friday I tried to go ahead to prepare the boat and eventually do some single-handed sailing. However, my motorbike had other plans and wouldn't start - flooded carburettors. Change of plans: we go to Bruinisse together on Monday morning.
That meant we had a late start, and it was past noon when we motored to the Grevelingen lock, heading for Stavenisse. The sun was shining and it was blowing a northeasterly 4 Bf. At first we had a reef in the main and also a partly rolled jib and were doing good progress on a broad reach. Soon after passing the Krabbenkreek the wind came right behind us making the jib useless, so we continued on reefed main only. Even so we were doing good progress and only had to jibe a couple of times before motoring into the channel leading to Stavenisse. As usual, the entrance is really hard to spot and only clear when you are really close, even close to high water as we were.
Staines is always quiet, but at this late time in the season it was almost deserted. After a walk and drinks at the cafe De Kleine we had dinner on board and hit the sack early.

The windmill of Stavenisse, overlooking the harbour.

It was a really cold night followed by a cold, breezy morning. We had to wait for the tide to allow us out of the harbour so we started around 11:30, two hours after low water. The channel was still frighteningly narrow and shallow, but we made it without touching the bottom. Once out we hoisted a reefed main and a small jib and started beating into the easterly  4 Bf, maybe gusting 5 Bf. With the shortened sails the wind was very manageable, but the tide against the wind and the busy shipping made for a bumpy ride.
After about three hours we arrived back to the Grevelingen lock, thoroughly frozen but happy with the last sailing trip of the season.