Aug. 13, 2008 - All Change

The original plan was for Wendy, Kim & Stewart to have a long weekend, going out Friday morning and returning on Monday, stopping off at Goes on the way back to pick up Jimbo who was going to attend a Reggae concert at Eindhoven following his trip to a Heavy Metal concert in Germany.

However, due to various hiccups in Jimbo's plans, he decided after a few days in Amsterdam, that he would skip the Reggae concert, so we picked him up in Goes on the Friday and he came on up to Emjaytoo for his first visit.

We spent Friday afternoon in the marina, after getting provisions at the super market in Goes, which was in line with our original plan to go to Zierikzee on the Saturday.

However, on the Saturday morning, as we departed the marina, Kim thought the engine sounded "odd" and then Wendy noticed there was no water coming out of the exhaust/cooling water outlet. The engine was switched off immediately, before it had a chance to overheat and Kim discovered that, when he had done the engine checks, he had not put the inner cover back on the raw water filter and thus the system would not pump any water for cooling.

The problem was quickly overcome, although, as it was pretty windy, 12-14 knots, we did end up being blown onto another boat and had to be helped to fend off by the owner. Although the engine was restarted without any adverse effects, Kim was concerned that the impeller (used to pump the water round) may have been damaged by running dry. As we headed down towards the Zandkreek Sluis the wind steadily increased, pushing 20 knots. Given that it was Jimbo's first trip out and Kim's apprehension regarding the engine, we decided a trip through the Zeeland Brug and up to Zierikzee was not such a good idea. So we turned round and headed up towards Veere (and back into the comfort zone).

The weather was generally overcast and blustery and, as is often the case when heading up to Veere, mostly well forward of the beam, so plenty of motoring.

As you can see James has his own approach to sailing.

Although, we did manage to get him up into the cockpit for some proper sailing.

When we got to Goudplaat, we found that there was plenty of space, so even though it was quite early in the afternoon, we decided to stay til Sunday morning.

Kim & the boys went off exploring the shoreline leaving Wendy to enjoy half an hour of peace & quiet.

Not quite sure exactly what Jimbo has been exploring here! 

The planned bar-b-que was replaced with a meal cooked in the oven and eaten down below due to the bad weather. We were then "entertained" if that is the right word, by a Belgian yacht who went aground on the other side of the channel from where we were moored.

They didn't seem to have much idea of what to do and sat there for a long time with all their sails up, seemingly "sailing" their boat deeper into the mud. Eventually they got the sails down and managed to attract the attention of a passing mobo, who then tried to tow them off the mud without any success. Bear in mind that the Veerse Meer is non-tidal, so there is no tide to float you off. They then started to make some very shabby attempts at a "PAN-PAN" call (or as they called it "BANG BANG") to which they got no response - which was a bit disconcerting, since there is an inshore Life Boat based at Veere, less than a mile away. It was actually unusual for us to have our VHF switched on and thus able to listen to what was going on, especially as we were moored up. In the end we phoned the Harbour Master on our mobile 'phone to advise him of the situation. Then the Veere Life Boat came on the radio. By this time the Belgians were having a second attempt at being towed off, and weren't listening to their radio. We then ended up giving the Life Boat details of the type and name of the vessel, the location and the nature of their problem.

Thereafter the Life Boat appeared on the scene very quickly, as the latest set of ameteur rescuers gave up and departed. They then attached a line to the top of the yacht's mast (via the main halyard) and heeled it right over and dragged it off the mud.

The next morning we decided that rather than have a leisurely return to the marina and head back to Dunkerque on the Monday as originally planned, we would get straight off home on the Sunday. Which is what we did. We had a cracking sail back to the marina - all the way under genoa only, doing up to 6 knots most of the way - the wind was still blowing upto 20 knots!

So, although our weekend ended up somewhat differently to what had originally been planned, we still managed to pick James up, he got to spend a couple of days on the boat, we spent Saturday night at Goudplaat and had a great sail on Sunday.

So all in all, a pretty good weekend.

As a post script, it is now Wednesday evening and the weather continues to be atrocious. We are heading back to Holland on the 23rd August for a weeks cruise up to the Grevelingenmeer. That is only 10 days away, so hopefully this weather system will blow over and we will get some decent weather. Otherwise, we will be off to Greece in September to try and get some sun!