Tuesday 10 June 2014

Tholen to Bruinisse

Mekicevica was left to spend the week in Tholen, under the care of the harbour-master, a friendly lady who even pulled Mekicevica to a sheltered spot when it became available.
The weather was lousy all week, but I managed two visits to Mekicevica for cleaning and maintenance.

Then on Friday the sun came-out and the weather-man was promising summer conditions for the three-day weekend. I left the car in Bruinisse and cycled to Tholen, plus a bit to check the new Oosterdam marina. In the evening First-Mate joined for a short sight-seeing tour of Tholen and dinner in Mekicevica's cockpit.
Historical buildings in Tholen.
Saturday: Beating Down the Tholense Gat to Goes
The weather-man cheated us: Saturday was hot but cloudy and with squalls around that threatened heavy showers and strong gusts of wind. We'll have to look-out for them.
We sailed to the lock and were lucky to fit-in immediately. On going-out a little mobo next to us couldn't start the 40hp motor, so our Yo-yo Ma with his 2.5 hp towed them out of the lock. In the meanwhile the wind picked-up a bit to a 3 Bf but also turned westerly, which means we had to tack up the Tholense Gat. On the North side we tacked at the red markers, but tacking on the green markers on the South side would be a waste, as there is a lot of water out of the navigation channel, especially at high-water. So we plotted a latitude at which the shallow waters start and used the GPS to find-out when to tack. It worked perfectly.
Approaching Wemeldinge the wind died-down again to nearly nothing, so we rapidly motored across the busy shipping lane and resume the game of cat-and-mouse with the wind again. This brought us to the lock of the Goesche Saas, from where we motored along the narrow channel past Wilhelminadorp to Goes.
Motoring up the Saas, with the telecoms tower that is the landmark of Goes right ahead. 
With the wait for the lock and the two bridges we were too late to find the harbour master in the town harbour, so we settled for the small and busy yacht club De Werf.
After a short walk through town we had dinner outside on a cafe at the Markt. Under cover, because it started to rain.

Sunday: Oosterschelde Sailing at Its Best
Sunday morning: more rain and hardly any wind! Where is the summer weather we were promised? The forecast says it will improve, so out we go for the 11am opening of the bridge, the last one of the morning, together with what felt like the whole population of Goes on boats plus a few visitors like us.
The timing was perfect to reach the Oosterschelde at high water, which also meant that the lock was open. This is to flush all the dirt of Goes and the Saas into the mussels and lobster farms of the Oosterschelde.
Meanwhile the sun came out and out of the lock there was some wind. But not a lot of it and from the wrong direction, which meant we had to make slow, lazy tacks. Luckily we had the tide to push us along. This would change after the vicinity of the Zeeland bridge where we would have to turn up-stream. So we decided to make a stop in Kats to wait for flood-tide. The harbour master found us a place where to wait and didn't even charge us. Really nice guy!
When we resumed out tour around 1630, the sea-wind had picked-up to a NW 3 Bf, so that after two tacks immediately out of Kats we were on a beam to broad reach towards the Keteen.
What a wonderful sailing this was: the gentle wind was with the tide making the water really flat, few boats around, the mellow late-afternoon sunshine, and Mekicevica going along at her hull speed and helped by the tide. Bliss!
We made such good progress that instead of reaching Stavenisse at half-tide, we were in front of the entrance to Stavenisse shortly after low water. We do know that Mekicevica can get in through the narrow channel at low water, but only with centre-plate up, a few bumps on the bottom and a lot of damage to the nerves of the crew. So we decided to carry on, reaching along the Keteen and than downwind up the Krabbenkreek to St.-Annaland. We got there around 2000 when the harbour master was just about to go home. After settling Mekicevica for the night we headed for the club-house to celebrate a great day with a beer and then cooked dinner aboard.

During the night there was one of the most spectacular thunderstorm s I have ever seen. I watched it only briefly and slept though most of the rest, although in the morning I could perfectly recollect all the noises I heard during the night. I think I am developing the instinct of a skipper who knows his boat and is able to sleep through all the noises from his boat that he can identify as harmless, but immediately wakes up at the slightest sound that is either unknown or tells him that something is wrong.

Monday: Waiting For the Storm... That Never Came
Monday we just had to do the short hop to Bruinisse. We decided to wait for high water which would be at 1320. When I went to ask the harbour master if we could stay that late, he was all flustered clicking through weather forecast websites with terrible warnings of heavy showers with lots of rain, possibly hale, and very strong gusts of wind heading directly for us. He recommended we stayed put and rushed to find us a sheltered place.
So we sat waiting for the storm. The rain radar of the Dutch meteorological institute did show heavy showers approaching from the south, but these seemed to fizz-out when they reached the Westerschelde and reach-us in the form of a few, warm drops of rain. So while we sat in the sunshine, the people who had not checked the weather forecast or talked to the harbour master were returning from a morning of sailing.
Lazying in the sunshine in St.-Annaland, while the storm clouds gather.
As this pattern repeated we were tempted to risk it. But we kept thinking that we might have the bad luck that the next shower would be the one that wouldn't fizz-out and hit us with the forecast 55 knot winds. It didn't help us the news from last week when a small boat had been sunk in front of Zeebrugge exactly by such gusts of wind during a squall.
Eventually we had to accept that we would not be able to leave St.Annaland that day and First-Mate packed her bags to take the bus to Tholen so she could get to work Tuesday morning.
A silly way to spend what should have been the last day of a very successful cruise.

Epilogue: Solo to Bruinisse
After accompanying First-Mate to the bus stop, I spent the evening and night alone aboard. By the way the Big Storm did eventually arrive... at 3am.
I got up at 6am so I could leave St.-Annaland with the last of the ebb, reach the Keteen at the turn of the tide, and sail to the Grevelingen lock with the flood tide. Moreover the wind was a 2 bf from the SE and veered to SW just as I changed course. Even the morning rain soon stopped and gave way to a morning of brilliant sunshine. Mekicevica running goose winged, sunshine, flat water, no yacht in sight and only the occasional ship passing the other way. When I reached the lock (on which I was the only boat going in) I felt I had spent two hours in paradise.

Tech Notes for Sailing Nerds Only
Mekicevica is now back in her berth in Bruinisse with the feeling of having been on a long voyage. The list of repairs is a mile long. On the top of the list is the replacement of the head-sail sheet cars. One of them broke and is now stuck in the position I use for the "river-jib". This is a jib cut with a high clew, a bit like a storm-jib only larger. So far I had dismissed this sail as too small and used it only for windy conditions or when short tacking was needed. It allows us to point higher into the wind than the 160% genoa and it is easier to tack. Because of the broken head-sail sheet car I was stuck with it in light airs. To my surprise, it performed wonderfully, especially with wind abaft of the beam. When the clew of the genoa would have been under the wind-shadow of the main-sail causing the whole sail to collapse, the small jib does not have this problem. To be used to its full potential, the genoa needs to be poled-out.

Monday 2 June 2014

Bruinisse to Tholen


The Southeast corner of the Oosterschelde has always been on our list of places we would like to explore. Yeserke, Wemeldinge, Oosterdam and Tholen are beckoning. Now we have a four-day weekend with tides and wind-forecasts just right for the trip.
In the following you can read the detailed blog of the cruise. Or just watch the video summary:

On Wednesday I left the car in Tholen and cycled back to Bruinisse to prepare Mekicevica for the cruise. First-Mate joined late in the afternoon for dinner aboard, which was also the baptism of fire of Mekicevica's new "galley".
Mekicevica's new "galley" can make a brew, a cuppa soup, cook pasta and even one-pot meals.
The weather on Thursday morning was a bit uninspiring, but with faith in the forecast of better things to come we motored-out to the Grevelingen lock.
Once out in the Oosterschelde Mekicevica fell in the groove: broad reach in gentle wind, favourable tide and the sun breaking through. Bliss!
Too soon we reached our destination for the night: Kats. We had never visited this harbour, although we use it all the time for bearings, as the huge cranes that were once used in the construction of the Oosterschelde barrier are in Kats and visible from miles away.
Kaats yacht harbour with the landmark cranes.
At Kats we found the visitors pontoon almost completely taken by a young family living their dream: new, modern, huge sailing yacht, good-looking mom on the deck videoing good-looking husband and lovely child on the tender. The perfect picture of happiness, in a conventional sort of way.
After a little jog we started the serious business of looking for dinner. There are no shops nearby and the only restaurant was fully booked. After a lot of begging and grovelling, the nice Chinese lady who owns the place found us a table and we could gorge the produce of the waters we had been sailing on: oysters and lobster.
 Kaatse Kaai
This is food at the Kaatse Kaai.
Friday morning, bright sunshine, favourable winds and tide. This is going too well. We'd better make a diversion otherwise we'll arrive in Tholen toot early. So we decided to pop into the Veerse Meer.
The short hop to the Zandkreek was pleasant, with sightings of seals.
The two most civilised creatures we found on the Zandkreek.
But the queue for the lock was gross. Rows upon rows on MoBo skippers who come here to do on the weekend exactly the same they do on their working day: queue on their overpowered vehicles and behave aggressively. Do you ever relax, people?
We sailed a bit down Veerse Meer, had a break on one of the public moorings and started the beat back to Kortegene. The Veerse Meer is narrow and crowded. When beating it is hard not to get into racing mood. Moreover, I was surprised to find that Mekicevica was one of the fastest boats around, probably due to First-Mate's brilliant work at tacking and trimming the jib.
Horse-riders on the banks of Veerse Meer,
We woke up on Saturday to nice weather but no wind. Getting back to the lock was a delicate work of using the little puffs of wind we could get. But as we had hoped, once out in the expanse of the Oosterschelde there was a good wind.
The passage to Yeserke was just heaven: beam reach, full sails, and Mekicevica doing her modest hull-speed with a couple of knots added by the tide. I wish the Oosteschelde had no end; so sad that in just over two hours we reached Yeserke.
What do you have for dinner in Yeserke? Mussels, of course!
Yeserke fishing fleet, the mussels' boats.
From the weather forecast we knew that on Sunday we might have too little wind. So we were prepared for the game of drifting with occasional sailing on little puffs of wind. Fortunately, an un-forecasted sea breeze kicked up and we were able to sail towards the Oosterdam lock. Going through was a lengthy affair, just because the lock has too little capacity for the traffic at the end of a long weekend. Anyway, most people around were locals and behaving in an admirably civilised way. Boats were doing complicated manoeuvres just to avoid jumping the queue.
Soon Mekicevica was tied up at the visitors dock in Tholen, waiting for next weekend and hopefully fair winds for the return home to Bruinisse.