Traject: Grevelingen (Stellendam) – Oostende (B)

Blog van 2012 – 08 – 15Crew: Skipper Cees Sam Krikken The evening before we found an excellent berth outside the waiting platoon just before the Grevelingen lock. We got up at seven as we knew that we had quite a long journey in front of us. By 07:30 we were ready to leave as we decided to have breakfast at sea. First we had to negotiate the long entrance seaway towards Grevelingen, but as the wind was fairly good and came from the East we could set sails. A very nice day for sailing: weather was sunny and warm, the wind was moderate and from a good direction. We saw some common porpoises (in Dutch “Bruinvissen”) next our ship and later one seal showed it's head above the water trying to understand what was passing him. Till the entrance of the Schelde river, nothing else to mention happened. The crossing of the waterway went smooth, thanks to our AIS system. You know, that when we are sailing and have the mariphone standby, you can trace the Boekanier on www.marinetraffic.com. Look at the North sea and find the ship “De Boekanier” At 13:00 O'çlock we received a gale warning on the weather forecast: showers with winds of 42 kn. And the wind would shift from East to South-West with force 6 to 7 Bf. We looked at the sky and saw nowhere clouds or other indications of a sudden weather change. We therefore decided to continue to Oostende and not take shelter in Zeebrugge, which was the closest harbour at that time. Nevertheless we took all the precautions necessary. We reefed the mainsail and Genua. After we passed Zeebrugge the weather began to change. Dark rain clouds blackened the Westerly sky, but that was passing us. Some 10 miles before Oostende the weather change which was predicted took place. The storm built quickly huge waves in this shallow waters before the coast of Belgium. Anyway, Sam managed to take all sails down and on the motor we set course for the harbour. Entering that small harbour would not be easy with a wind coming form the side, but in order to make things even more complicated a towing party was waiting the storm just before the harbour entrance. Anyway, after many seawater showers from spay water, we managed to enter the harbour where we found an excellent berth just in front of the lock of the Mercurius harbour. There we spend the night.