Sailing Where The Wind Takes You - Oude-Tonge to Ouddorp

Hoping for the best, we got up at 0630. The wind was indeed weak to moderate, but at least in the Oude-Tonge harbour appeared to be SW. The good news is that the terrible, propeller-eating weeds from last week seem to have a short life span (not enough propellers to eat). We motored out of harbour and sailed the short distance to the Krammer lock.

Yo-Yo Ma took taking us out of the Oude Tonge channel under the encouraging gaze of the many birds. 

At this early hour it was not at all busy and it opened just as we approached. Even though this lock uses a clever system to prevent mixing salt water from the W side with the fresh water on the E side, the passing of the lock was surprisingly fast.
It was now clear that the wind was from the SW, blowing right along the Keteen towards us. We could see a lot of shipping. Two cargo ships even got the yachts very confused by coming on to "our side" of the waters to drop anchor on the N edge of the Kramer. I hope their skippers knew that where they were anchoring would be a sandy beach three hours later.
We could see some yachts beating against the wind and dodging the shipping at the same time. To get to the Oosterschelde we would have either to dare doing the same or motor along the starboard for some four miles.
We took the hard decision to abandon (again) our quest for the Oosterschelde and sail to Ouddorp, on the opposite side of the Grevelingen.
In the Grevelingen lock, there was a young girl on a large yacht behind us who found the size of Mekicevica very amusing.
"Can you sleep in that little boat?" she asked.
"Of course." I answered.
She thought I was lying, so went to get her father to ask him if people could sleep in such a little boat.
"Of course not." said the father.
He was amazed when I told that we had just done a two-week vacation on Ijsselmeer with Mekicevica as our home. Noticing the Belgian flag, he asked if we were returning home via the North Sea. I decided to amaze him further with a lie:
"Yes, we will go out at the Roompot lock and sail to Oostende."
We will never know if he believed, because meanwhile the lock was opening.
At this point, we witnessed a new extreme of the rude behaviour so often displayed by skippers of motor yachts.
On this lock, after the gates open, sailing boats still have to wait for a bridge to lift. Motor yachts can ignore the bridge (and the red light) by going under the bridge as soon as the gates open. This is exactly what this skipper did, despite the fact that he had two sailing boats alongside. He just threw out their lines leaving them adrift in the lock. Is that inconsiderate, or what?

It gets busy on the Grevelingen on a sunny Sunday.

The sailing to Ouddorp was very enjoyable, mostly heading NW on a beam reach. As we approached our destination the wind turned more westerly, and we had a bit of beating into the wind.

The change of wind direction also meant that if we had persisted to go to Zierikzee, after going into the SW wind on the Keeten, we would have reached the Oosterschelde and find W wind, again against us, and against the tide.

We finished the afternoon with a drink on the superbly situated terrace of the clubhouse with a view to the Grevelingen, watching other boats beating the same route we had just done.

End of a sailing day at the clubhouse.

Ouddorp was once an important fishing harbour, before the Grevelingen was closed off from the sea. Now it is mostly a destination for sailing cruisers like us. The old town offers a countless number of restaurants for all tastes and budgets.

Ouddorp town hall.

We finished Saturday with dinner "al fresco" in one of these.