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.

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.