Vlissingen

Well, what a trip....The forecast had promised light to non existant winds, and thats what we got...We set alarms for 01h30, and arose to a glassy sea, and a warm night.... it took us little time to prepare for sea as we done most tasks the night before, so by 02h00, we slipped out of the lock to perfect calm...As we exited the Stour, we passed the BBC celebration of the pirate radio station, an old light ship broadcasting for a month... all lit up like a christmas tree!As with previous trips, leaving the Harwich area in the dark is a challenge, with the nav marks quite difficult to pick out against all the background light... but a lot easier when you've made it past Landguard cardinal...We set course for Cork Sands Yacht Beacon, and as has happened regularly, had actually passed it before we saw it.... in my opinion, this mark is downright dangerous... it marks a very shallow area, and is virtually impossible to see in the dark.... if it weren't for the plotter, this would be far to risky to undertake....Round Cork Sands and off towards Rough Towers... two Cardinals, a westerly and an Easterly, both of which could be seen from a long way off, and then to port slightly towards Long Sand Head... we would normally have headed much further North than this, but with the new traffic systems and TSS's round Sunk, this seemed a more sensible route...We'd had the tide with us, and with zero wind (literally reading zero on the gauges), we'd motored... and so, we were well ahead of plan already... i'd passage planned at 6kts, and we'd averaged over 8 so far... so arrived at Long Sand Head 6nm ahead of plan.... all good!Following LSH, it was towards the TSS, some 12nm distant.... and still we motored... the wind had finally arrived... all 4kts of it... and to rub salt into the wounds, dead on the nose!As we approached the TSS, I sighed at the usual procession of traffic... in fact it was worse than usual... as we popped into the system, I'd altered course slightly to cross at right angles, and counted 11 ships that needed watching.....It was however, truly remarkable... we threaded our way straight through them without altering course or speed!The North bound lane wasn't so busy, as the tide was still against them, but still we saw two, and had to duck one....Nevertheless, we were still miles ahead of plan, and as we left the TSS we put more north back into the course to head towards Vlissingen, and the tide turned to support us again... perfect!... so the 30nm to the entrance channel shot by at an average of 8.5kts....I'd previously decided to try a new way into Vlissingen... marked on the charts was a narrow, but buoyed channel, alongside the inshore one from the north... looked perfect... avoided the big ships, but didn't involve a large detour... the pilots didn't mention it....As we approached it, I started to realise why!The first mark was barely visible... it was a red can, but in the shape of a pillar... it eventually made itself visible, but the next was a mile away, and could hardly be seen... it took the use of binoculars, and careful attention to the sounder to find our way in.... there were eventually 5 such marks, all about a mile apart.... into the main Vlissingen channel, and things became a lot easier... just dodge the big ships, and make our way down to the lock....We eventually reached the lock... a bit of a plug, as taking the benefit of the north flow assisting our North sea passage, meant taking the pain of the ebb... which isn't to be trifled with in the Westerschelde....We called up the lock, and were let in, along with 5 other boats... we were last in, and tied up port too.... the lock kepper held the gates open, and we wondered why..... 10mins later, a darned great big trawler turned up.... so we had to shift over to starboard side too, alongside the other boats.... we then had to all shuffle forwards to give him enough room to get in behind us.... now this is easier said than done... the Vlissingen lock doesn't have pontoons, but bollards set into the walls... they are about 30' apart, so you can't just drop one and grab the next... you have to push your boat along the wall by hand, slipping the lines, and then lasso the next bollard, and drop the previous one... so for a few minutes, the lock was full of white fiberglass hermit crabs, scurrying their way along the walls...Eventually we made into the inner harbour area, at the fabulous time of 16h30.... a full 7.5hrs quicker than last time we made the trip in Maggie, and while heading towards the marina, realised that the bridges were still lifting or swinging.... we hadn't factored this in, given the last time arrived it was the middle of the night... so a quick onboard conference, and we decided to head towards Middelburg instead.... 5 bridges later, and we had reached the marina in Middelburg... the harbourmaster was just going, so he chucked us onto the holding pontoon.... fabulous..... 19h00, and a full day ahead of plan... better than last year, where the weather made us 3 days behind!!!!

Miles logged 97nmMiles this trip 97nm
Miles this season 727nm
Miles since this blog started 2,521nm