Oostende bound

After arriving down at the boat Thursday evening by 21h00, we quickly got ourselves sorted, and to bed at a reasonable time. For once, I slept soundly, but was rudely disturbed by my alarm call at 03h00. We took our time getting ready, stopped on the fuel pontoon for a quick top up (we had 3/4 of a tank left but forecast suggested very light winds), and locked out at 03h50. CliveG was also leaving from Harwich, but we couldn't see him on Halfpenny pier, so he'd obviously left earlier.There was no wind at all, so we motored out towards open water. Despite needing nav lights, it was definitely approaching dawn, so navigation was really quite easy, with the buoys being visible, yet the lights still showing. We reached Landguard spit, when the VHF spluttered into life with a call from Clive. They were just off Cork Sands, so around 4nm ahead of us. We carried on motoring, as the wind carried on being absent. By Rough Towers, we had caught up with Clive, and shot past him. Despite being windless, the sun wasn't overly keen on showing its face, with the odd burst here and there between clouds, but regardless, it was quite warm, so a pleasant time was being had. It only took us until 07h30 to reach Long Sand Head, at which point I calculated the course to the next waypoint, some 30nm distant at West Zuid buoy, marking the start of the second TSS and intowards Belgium.This leg involved crossing the main North Sea TSS, after about 20nm, and so we set off, ready to keep an eye out. With the visibility OK limited by a haze, but OK enough to be able to see at least 3nm, not too much to worry about. We found ourselves several miles into the leg, and in our own little world... no sign of anything else at all... the sun was starting to show itself occasionaly, and it really was quite pleasant, even though the complete lack of wind meant that we had to continue motoring....Before long we entered the TSS.... with the engine running, I decided to use the radar, as no concerns over battery power!, and it showed a couple of targets, one of which we had to alter course for, and then as we entered the other side, with north going traffic, another alteration for a ship... bad luck really considering that we only saw 4 ships in total!Passing West Zuid, we altered course to cross the smaller TSS at right angles, and saw no traffic at all, and set course for Oostende, some 18nm distant. After 2nm, I realised that I had chosen the waypoint at Nieuwpoort rather than Oostende (a big hoorah for bothering to plot on the chart), and so with really no great pain caused (other than a very minor detour, and even then not much) we headed towards Oostende. It was an uneventful run in, with the wind still being completely absent, so safe to go straight across all the sandbanks, until we reached about 2nm off the entrance, where we saw a small coaster heading along parallel with the shore. We decided that we would be clear of him if we kept our speed up, so I gave Morgana a bit more throttle, picking her speed through the water up to about 8.8kts, and we looked to be safely infront of her, until she made a sharp course alteration to head straight towards us... I immediately turned hard 90 degrees, as she was now only 1/2nm off, and she then continued her turn, and also executed a 90 degree alteration.... it was a large dredger, clearing the Oostende entrance..... darn!As we closed in the last 1/4nm towards the piers, the lights changed, to green white green, which is permission needed.... so we waited... in total nearly 30 mins until we then had the delay kind of rewarded by being asked to follow a lovely square rigged tall ship into the entrance as she ghosted in under full sail.... fabulous!Within a few minutes we entered Montgomery dock to find it quite full. We saw a spot, and headed towards it, where upon the Harbour master hailed us, and directed us towards a spot right under the RNSYC building.... the buoy for the stern looked very close to the pontoon, but we grabbed it, and put the bow on the pontoon.... it wasn't until 2 or 3 minutes later that I realised that we should be at 90 degrees to where we were!!!!!! whoops... red face!So we walked the bow around..... easily done... and tied up, engine off... arrived!The evening was spent relaxing, and then a bit of tourist stuff on Saturday until about 17h00, when OliveOyl and Popeye arrived... we all went out for a really nice meal out, excellent Moules at 'a Bord' and then all returned to the boat for a very entertaining evening. We sat in the cockpit (with the cockpit tent up!) until about 01h30, debating the wind and departure schedules, at which point we all crashed out.... an excellent way to start the holiday!

Miles logged 88nm
Miles this trip 88nm
Miles this season 371nm
Miles since this blog started 2,165nm