For the last couple of days, we'd been watching the weather forecast with some trepidation. It was looking awfully like we were going to get stuck in Oostende again with bad weather. Roger (Sailorman) had left early to get away before the wind came through, Jim (Full Circle) had decided to head down the coast and shorten his crossing, and we sat tight, along with Sirenia.

The forecast however, wasn't very accurate. Monday had suggested pretty foul weather, with winds F6/F7 so we had planned to go to Brugge (again!), but when we arose, the forecast North F7 was actually a South F2..... so we looked at the charts, decided that wind was still coming, but that we had a few hours before it arrived, and made a plan to head off down the coast towards Dunkerque, along with the good ship Sirenia...

Given that we had been expecting very strong winds, there was some irony in the fact that we had to motor the whole way, with the wind never getting above 3kts, and bang on the nose. There was a bit of a rolling sea about, a sign of the much heavier weather being experienced back in the UK. Jim had called to report 35kts in Ramsgate, so we steadily plodded on. The run down to Dunkerque is easy, and well buoyed, so pretty painless. The only challenge experienced really was that several of the buoys marking the very shallow sandbanks were in different locations to the ones shown on the charts... a need to do some corrections is noted!

It was only a short run to Dunkerque, and we tied up safely in YCMN by 13h30. The plan is now to spend a couple of nights here, have a look around, and then head back towards the UK on Wednesday. This evening, we invited the Crew of Sirenia aboard for a meal. Jessica arrived bearing a rather splendid Salad, and a fabulous tray full of home made Pizza. We supplied a Bolognaise sauce and Pasta, and then educated them in the fine art of Skank, a rather simple dice game, that the kids love, and resulted in much laughter and a super evening.... early night, we're all exhausted!