Jun. 1, 2007 - Ipswich to Vlissingen - The Full Account

Wendy drove me up to Ipswich Tuesday morning, stopping off at Tescos outside Ipswich to stock up on supplies for the trip. She had also prepared a beef caserole for Wednesday night, plus loads of cakes, so all in all, well stocked for the crossing. After getting all the gear on board, we took Emjaytoo round to the fuelling pontoon to top up her tank. Wendy then returned home leaving me to make final preparations, but perhaps more importantly to oversee Peters Opal in their last minute panic to sort out a number of problems that they had conveniently forgotten to do. In fairness to Andy the commissioning chappie, he had been on holiday and only returned to work that morning. He actually did a brilliant job to sort it all out. We will still need a length of toerail sent out to Kortgene for the marina to fit, but everything else got sorted.

Trevor & Kerry arrived about 6.00pm as arranged, but Peter had called up to report a breakdown. In the event he arrived just before 7.00pm. We all sat down to a hastily thrown together Spaghetti Bolognese (mince, a jar of sauce & some pasta).

After final preparations, we slipped the moorings just after 9.00pm and headed towards the lock. It was a bit different this time as they had removed the pontoon, so we had to secure to vertical wires. Out through the lock and down the Orwell in the fading light. It was a clear night with the moon and stars giving off quite a lot of light. We encountered a couple of smaller ships between Felixstowe & Harwich, but nevertheless exited out into the North Sea via the recommended yacht track without incident.

As we headed off down towards the Traffic Seperation Zone we unfurled some Genoa, but stayed under power. I figured there wasn't enough wind to better the 6.5 knots we getting from the engine and in any event I wasn't up to raising the main in the dark, figured we would wait until it was light.

We implemented a half hearted 2 hours on - 2 hours off, watch system working in pairs. When I came up around 5.30am we were half way across the south bound zone. The rest was was all very tame. Peter did the honours down below with the bacon rolls and coffee around 8.00am and thereafter we all stayed awake and on deck.

By this time the wind had started to increase and was very much moving onto the bow, we were still chugging along under engine at 6.5 knots, so I thought - "forget the sails, lets just keep going". After all we were there to deliver a boat - not have a good sail!

As lunchtime arrived the wind picked up and again Peter did the honours down below preparing lunch. In the afternoon the wind steadily built to 25, sometimes 27 knots and it was a very bouncy ride. Again all the time the wind was well forwards of the beam and often almost on the nose. So on we pushed with the engine.

As we started to push up the Belgian coast, we started to encounter the foul tide and by the time we entered the Westerschelde, we were battling 2 - 3 knots. We finally approached the lock at Vlissingen at about 5.00 pm and after circling for about 10 mins whilst sorting out the fenders, the lock keeper realised we wanted to enter, so opened up the gates without any request from us. Through the lock and up to the little marina. We had several attempts to get into the little berths between piles and finally were tied up snug and sound at 6.30pm.

Trevor had bought some Greek Beers - Mythos and these went down a treat. After washing down Emjaytoo and then ourselves we tucked into Wendy's beef caserole, consumed more beer, demolished two bottles of wine and hit the berths.

Thursday morning and a visit to the marina office to pay the €11.20 per night fee for the next 10 nights and to ask about immigration. The lady in the office said we only needed to submit the Schengan Crew List and we could give it to her, so that was simple enough.

After clearing and securing the boat, we walked down to the ferry and crossed over to Breskens where Wendy was waiting with the car. Down to Calais, through the tunnel, dropped Kerry off at Ashford Station for him to catch a train up to London and then took Peter and Trevor back up to Ipswich where they had left their cars. Wendy & I finally got home at 8.00pm

All in all it was a fun experience, we all got on well together and I did my first North Sea Crossing. I have to say I was pretty apprehensive beforehand, but in the event it was really very straight forward. It was a long passage - over 21 hours is hard going, but we got Emjaytoo to Holland.

Next stage, in a weeks time is for Wendy & I to move her from Vlissingen to The Veerse Meer.

Jun. 3, 2007 - North sea virginity!