On Saturday morning, we started only 45 min before the 1100 rush-hour but the Grevelingen lock was very quiet. After passing the lock we sailed the short bit of the Kramer to the next lock, where we went in without waiting with only two other boats. On one of them, crewed by a German couple, the man went below leaving the aft line cleated and emerged a couple of minutes later to find that the water level in the lock had dropped a good meter and his boat was hanging from the cleat with the fibreglass making frightening cracking noises. Of course he was unable to untie the line under such load, and after a few seconds of panic he gladly accepted my suggestion of cutting the line.
We hoisted sails immediately out of the lock and sailed on a deep reach in the light nor'westerly. A perfect occasion to try out the whisker pole. Mistakenly, I tried to pole-out the 160% genoa on the same side as the main and was disappointed that the expensive pole was not helping to keep the genoa full. It only later, after re-reading the literature that I realised my stupid mistake: you are supposed to pole the head-sail well forward to windward, i.e. on the opposite side of the main. Oh well, you never stop learning...
As usual the Volkerak was tremendously busy with shipping but most of the time there is plenty of water to keep out of the shipping lane. So we were able to enjoy the first relaxed sailing in light winds in many weeks. The only thing missing was the sun, who only made a brief appearance from behind the grey clouds.
The only down-side of relaxed sailing is that you don't move very fast, so it took us seven hours to reach our destination, the pretty village of Ooltgensplaat. We had not been there since the wet summer of 2011 and we had forgotten what a quiet place it is. There isn't even a decent place to have a beer on Saturday evening, so we had to content ourselves with whatever red wine survived from last evening.
On Sunday, my usual weather forecast in the morning turned a nasty surprise: instead of NO wind as was predicted and the whole point of sailing here, it turns out we will have W or NW wind. Still light, moreover. We will have to beat all the way in close to no wind. It is going to be a long day...
We thoroughly enjoyed most of it. Out of Ooltgensplaat we hoisted sails and were able to use a lull in the shipping traffic to cross to the wider, south side of the shipping lane. then came a slow, lazy beat in the hazy sunshine. Absolute bliss!
When it was time to cross the shipping lane again it was too busy and the wind was too weak, so we motor-sailed across and resumed the beating on the other side.
By now it was getting late. In an ideal world, we would have just sopped at the new Galathese harbour or at Oude-Tongue and continue next day. Unfortunately, in the real world there are jobs to go to on Monday morning so we had no choice but to start Yo-yo Ma, our faithful outboard, and put-put the rest of the way. Even so, and with the fastest passing of the Kramer lock ever, we only made it back to Bruinisse well after 7pm, after more than nine hours.
All in all, another great sailing weekend, even if having to motor sort of blemishes the romantic spirit of it.
