2015 The Waddensee
2012 The Green and Little Known Side of Spain
2011 Cold Welsh Rain to Warm Basque Rain
2010 The Norwegian Sea to the Irish Sea
2009 Northern Denmark and Norway
2008 Cruise in the South-Western Baltic.
2007 Cruise Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark
2004 Learning in More Dangerous Waters
July 2004 Learning in Tricky Waters 
Other blogs of interest are The Retirement Dream and How to Live Your Dream
Technical Blogs are Nail Biting Experiences #1 Crossing the Bar , The Changing Nature of Sailing and Cruising and Yacht Docking Skills for Northern Europe

The Waddensee is a magical place of shallow tidal waters where land and sky are indistinguishable on a misty morning.

It is vast, stretching from the middle of the Netherlands  to the north of Denmark; yet few know of it and less have seen it , in spite of it being a World Heritage site. This is because it is so difficult to access, and in the wrong conditions can be dangerous.

​We decided to see something of this special place this year; although our boat is not suited to travel the shallow, drying channels that interlace its sandbanks because we cannot sit on the bottom without tipping over (we did that once a few years ago and it is not an experience to be repeated). Now we have done it we can say that it was marvellous to see this world of basking seals on sandbanks watching us sail by; families of birds of every type rearing their young, each in their chosen environment; oysters thick on anywhere they can find to attach themselves; and every pool teeming with aquatic life. However, the navigational challenge in a boat like ours was extreme.

The west coast of Europe from Belgium to the north tip of Denmark is really a collection of sandy deltas formed by the great rivers of the Rhine, Scheldt, Maas, Ems, Jade, Weser and Elbe but after 1,500 years of building dykes, pumping and drainage the edge of the coast has ‘solidified’. Never-the-less, outside that edge, it is still as it always was; a water world of shifting sandbanks.
This world is protected from the worst of North Sea storms by a string of 15 islands upon which the storms can expend their energy. The shelving outer coast builds up waves like a surfing beach and which continually cuts channels & fills them up like a cosmic bulldozer fuelled by the moon as it pushes and pulls twice a day. All that water behind the islands has to run in and out through the narrow gaps between the islands so not only are the currents strong but the channels are changing. This world outside of the islands can be calm and benign on a still summer’s day but change in an hour or so to a very inhospitable place.

So we set out, by necessity to take the outer route to these islands with exotic names , like Terschelling, Schiermonnikoug, Langeoog, Spiekeroog and Wangerooge; then pass between some of them where there were suitable channels to see that inner Waddensee. The overall route can be seen in the Google Earth file; Haarlem to Aarhus 2015.kmz
 The first leg was to leave Den Helder on the Dutch mainland and pass out between Norderhoek and Texel, sailing past Vlieland before going back inside between it and Terschelling. These opening between the islands (called ‘Gats’) have long sinuous channels starting way off shore but are generally well marked with buoys. With the latest charts, cooperative weather (i.e. not strong Westerlies), and arriving at the right time at the right place they do not present a problem. Since we had a beautiful summer’s day, a flat sea and were due to arrive on time, we did not anticipate a problem.
As we were approaching our rendezvous with the Gat, the sky darkened, the wind rose and the waves built; a sudden summer thunderstorm arrived at the worst possible moment. We had no choice but to tough it out and navigate the 12 km. of channel with waves crashing on sandbanks on either side of us, the rain coming down like a fire hose. We made it to the harbour at the back of the island and rafted up to the first boat that we came to. Out came the crew who said, “We have been watching you come in on the AIS, it was quite exciting!” Well, that was not quite how we felt but an hour later the sun was shining as if nothing had happened.

To our surprise, since we had not seen any other ships in the Gat, the harbour was full. The reason quickly became evident for the island is a beautiful resort with endless sandy beaches, a picturesque village and bicycle trails.

So Dutch people in the know, load up their ‘bottom friendly’ boats with a whole menagerie of children, dogs and other pets, and navigate the inner channels. After a night sitting high and dry on a sandbank, the next tide takes them to one of the inner harbours where they sit for a week or so. Each island has a different character, some being thinly inhabited and not developed for visitors while 3 or 4 have been made very family friendly.

In earlier times people eked out a living with subsistence farming, fishing and beach combing. Beach combing was quite a lucrative business in those times for there were many shipwrecks on these outer coasts. On some islands refuges were built for the few sailors that made it to shore so that they would not die of exposure before being found. Vlieland has a statue to commemorate beach combing.

To get agricultural products to market there were large, Frisian sailing barges designed to ply the Waddensee. They were of very shallow draft and used big external paddles that could be lowered to serve as a keel when water depth permitted, and when it did not they sat on the bottom.

In the slack season the skippers indulged in races; a tradition carried on today with the few remaining barges. The unique thing about these races is the terms of qualification. A skipper can only enter if his family made its living in the trade in the previous century and he has done so in the past 30 years; quite an exclusive club. Luckily for us, the barges were assembling for this year’s races and there were 6 or 7 in the harbour that night.

Further along our route at Lauwersoog, there is a very long approach channel of some 22kms because we had to go right into the mainland as the harbour behind Schiermonnikoog is far too shallow for us (pleasure craft are not allowed to use the ferry dock). However, it proved to be a delightful journey observed by so many basking seals.

There is a shrimping fleet based there, that fishes the outside banks, as the inner sea is protected as a National Park. These shrimp boats returning to port with their nets hung up were a special sight.

With more or less difficulty we made our way along the Dutch islands and then along the German ones, all with their particular attributes and challenges. At Norderney we chose the SW approach channel shown on our 2015 charts but could not pick up the buoys; it was only when we faced an horizon of unbroken crashing waves did we realize that the channel no longer existed and the markers had been removed. A quick u-turn avoided disaster. It is those experiences that really add spice to cruising!
The last one, Wangerooge, was the sting in the tail, for there is a very shallow approach and harbour. There appeared to be enough water for us by an hour either side of low water and that was critical because we needed to get away as soon as possible after low tide to catch the current up the Elbe at the other end of the next day’s journey. However, after arriving and checking in with the harbour master we learned that that would be impossible. Due to the configuration of the sandbanks in the approach channel there was a dangerous ‘bar’ formed until 2 hours before high tide. A ‘bar’ is a situation where although there is theoretically enough water, waves form across the shallow area from the incoming tide so that in the troughs there is not enough water. The effect is to pick up a boat and smash it on the bottom with each wave and no boat can stand that for long. As the water gets deeper with the incoming tide the effect disappears. In this case it meant that we had to fight a very strong current from the incoming tide to position ourselves to get out. We then knew why most sailors avoid Wangerooge! So we were stuck with leaving 3 hours late and gunning the engine for the next 7 hours to reach Cuxhaven in the Elbe estuary before the falling tide made the current impossible to combat. We made it by the skin of our teeth, sometimes the Gods are with us, but we will not be visiting Wangerooge again.
The Elbe, Jade and Weser estuaries combine at their western ends to form part of the Waddensee with its typical sandbanks and shifting channels but have busy commercial traffic lanes passing through and up the rivers to cities such as Hamburg, some 100 km inland. Our destination was Cuxhaven, a city on that ‘solidified’ edge, protected by large sea dykes. Although an industrial port, it has exploited its location on the edge of the Waddensee to create a popular holiday resort where excursions onto the dunes in horse drawn carts are popular. You know immediately when you are in Germany because every beach has the characteristic wicker beach chairs that can be rented for the day and are very cosy.

This was where we left the Waddensee to head for the Kiel Canal and the end of our Waddensee adventure. For all the challenges we are glad that we experienced such a special place.

For other Cruising blogs see the Archive links in the sidebar at the top of this page.
Other blogs of interest are The Retirement Dream and How to Live Your Dream

Technical Blogs are Nail Biting Experiences #1 Crossing the Bar , The Changing Nature of Sailing and Cruising and Yacht Docking Skills for Northern Europe

The Northern coast of Spain is where the high central plain changes into dramatic mountain ranges with green alpine valleys reminiscent of the Swiss Alps, before falling to the sea with impressive cliffs.

This coast consists of four autonomous regions Galicia, Asturius, Cantabria and Euskadi (The Basque Country) three of which still have their own languages in everyday use. Many people along this coast only have Spanish as a second language. Although briefly occupied these regions were never subdued by the Romans or the Moors and were the last areas to be subdued by Franco. Only in 2017 was the final agreement for ETA (the Basque terrorist group) to lay down their arms concluded.

So this was to be our cruising ground for 2012, starting from Hondarribia. While preparing the boat to go back in the water we had to stay somewhere and, as usual, we thought that we would plunge into the atmosphere by finding a really rural Basque lodging, which we booked in advance. At first approach our hearts sank.

But when we went around to the front things improved!

With the boat  finally back in the water and having gorged ourselves on the superb local pinchos we set off. The complete log of our outward leg can be seen by following this link to Google Earth, Hondarribia to La Corruna  make sure that you have the ‘temporary places’ box ticked and the files within it ticked when it is open. Clicking on the yellow push pins will open log entries. However, if you do not wish to do that here is the picture.

We explored the the coast and poked our nose into Pasajes harbour but our first stop was San Sebastian, the 'Cannes of Spain', situated on a beautiful  bay with fabulous scenery. The 'beautiful people' come here for the annual film festival. The town itself is picturesque with old streets and fabulous pinchos in the bars. The marina was very small and crowed so we were forced to moor in the bay and take the dinghy ashore but it was well worth the effort.

From the above map it is clear that the continental shelf comes relatively close to the coast with underwater canyons reaching like fingers even closer. As deep water currents push up onto the shelf swells are caused which add to the effects of distant Atlantic storm generated swells. These are only of consequence when sailing broadside to them, which causes excessive rolling, on shelving bottoms, which often occurs on the approach channel to a harbour, and when crossing a bar. When choosing our destinations these last two effects were often dominant.

The next three ports were Getaria, Motrico and Bermeo. Former fishing ports built for donkey traffic and untouched by mass tourism, they are having to re-invent themselves. Since we were there a marina has been built in Motrico as part of this process. We were intrigued by these small Basque towns.

Then it was on to Bilbao; well actually Getxo, as Bilbao is inland, up an industrialised river that is in the process of renewal. There is a huge  harbour with one of the outer walls submerged at high tide; a real trap for a skipper who does not do his homework. In its industrial heyday Bilbao was very wealthy as witnessed by its grand boulevards and magnificent mansions built out of town around the harbour.

Bilbao's genius in it's re-invention was to host the Guggenheim Museum with its fantastical architecture which has triggered growth of the metro system, a cruise liner dock and other modern architecture. Now the city feels dynamic and vibrant; a must see.

We spent a week here and explored some of the back country. It was full of surprises. World class architecture in the most surprising places.

This coastline and countryside was such a feast for the senses that we rather got stuck in Getxo and were reluctant to move on. But there is a darker side to this exuberant Europeanism, for every week there is a newspaper article revealing some new aspect of the Franco era. At this time they are still excavating mass graves to identify victims. Franco killed and enslaved people in a frenzy of retribution for years after the Civil War and it all received very little coverage by the outside world because of the Second World War and subsequent Cold War, (when Franco provided air bases for the Americans). Because there was a a peaceful transition to a monarchy after his death there was no cathartic cleansing of  state institutions. The re-established monarchy had to appease the Francoists and extreme right who still held many positions of power and although an amnesty was declared it excluded many Basques; hence the birth of ETA. The angst drags on.

The 26 April was the 75th Anniversary of the bombing of Guernica by the German Condor Legion and the newspapers published special editions. The German bombers appeared in the skies over Guernica in the late afternoon of April 26, 1937 and immediately transformed the sleepy Spanish market town into an everlasting symbol of the atrocity of war. Unbeknownst to the residents of Guernica, they had been slated by their attackers to become guinea pigs in an experiment designed to determine just what it would take to bomb a city into oblivion.
The town was nearby and we had to visit. Apart from the above mural there is little to see as the town has been rebuilt and Franco did not want anything to witness the event. However, there is an excellent and very moving museum which is well worth seeing.

The down-town marina in Santander has little or no space for visitors so we sailed on by to a marina that is located right next to the airport runway and rather a long way out of town. Santander is the capital of Catalonia and a large elegant town with developed beaches and promenades. Elegant, but it was a big city and it did speak to us. Once again we headed off to the mountains, the Picos de Europa, precipitous and dramatic.

Continuing West from Santander the mountain ranges approach ever closer to the coast producing a rugged coastline with numerous headlands, also the continental shelf with numerous canyons approaches close to the shore. So there is seldom a day without significant swells even if the weather is fine. Our first stop was San  Vicente de la Barquera, one of many ports that requires an act of faith when entering for the first time with a swell.

The next stop was the port of Ribadesella and another 'interesting' entrance on a moderate swell. This time the 'escape' is invisible from the seaward side and the turn to port seems awfully close to the beach when you are not used to it.

The largest city of Asturius is Gijon our next port of call. A town with many charming buildings but extremely vibrant, there seemed to be street events taking place everywhere. The music and revelling went on until the early hours of the morning and since the marina in located right down-town we can testify to that. How people managed to get up and go to work in the morning was a mystery to us. We were here for two weeks as we found a very competent company to fix our auto helm. At the end of the previous season we had had trouble with it holding a course and shortly after leaving Hondarribia it had packed up altogether. Having to be at the helm constantly was a real drag. The wind vane steering works well on open sea passages but is not well adapted to coastal cruising so we determined to get it resolved and had a whole new auto-helm and navigation system added. We took the opportunity to install transmitting AIS. Once on the bridge of a ferry crossing the North Sea we were appalled to realise how difficult it is to see a yacht, even on a reasonable day. So now we rest easy knowing that we show up as a signal on every radar screen and chart plotter.

All along this coast we found that cider was as popular as beer and probably more powerful. It was always aerated by pouring from as high as possible and the skill of the bartenders was often impressive. A glass of cider and some slices of the dry Iberica ham was a very pleasant way to pass an hour.
 On leaving Gijon we first had to round Cabo Penas with a nasty swell rolling us and knocking us back. Here we re-learned  lessons that we had learned many times before; firstly that if you neglect a job or fail to do it correctly it will catch up with you and probably at the worst possible moment; and secondly a job that takes 5 minutes at the dockside can take an hour when you are trying to do it at sea. Just off the point we looked behind us and saw the dinghy floating away! We had only attached the painter (and obviously not well) instead of a second safety line. The struggle to retrieve and reattach the dinghy in that heavy swell with the boat rolling and pitching took half an hour and much discomfort reaching over the side with the boat hook.

Many of the old fishing villages deliberately build their prominent features like church spires, gable ended buildings and lighthouses so that they could serve as markers for leading lines.
We liked Ribadeo, the main town was a stiff climb but they had thoughtfully provided an elevator for lazy people. Several towns in Spain have installed outdoor escalators for steep main streets. This is the only country that we have ever seen this.

The last part of our outward trip was to prove the most challenging as this North West corner of Spain consists of jagged headlands and strong currents. The country behind these headlands is sparsely populated and the roads are not the best so it is not a coastline seen by many from the land side; or from the sea side for that matter since unless the weather is very good it is best to keep well offshore. We had one of those rare weather windows when the weather was perfect and so had the privilege of getting up close.

West of Cabo Ortegal are some of the highest cliffs in Europe down this coast known as the Altas Rias. Because we were in so close we could see the tiny sanctuary of San Andres de Teixido, but not the wild horses that roam these cliffs. This Saint had himself reincarnated as a lizard; a place of pilgrimage but the pilgrims never step on a lizard! There is a strange festival on 8th September each year which is on the weird side of strange. We continued down this coast and came to anchorage in the beautiful Ria de Cedeira.

But there is always a sting in the tail with sailing when everything seems to be going well! When we came to leave we found that our anchor was caught in old fishing tackle on the sea bed and we had not rigged a trip line. We had been told of such situations in many of these old fishing ports. After going back and forth and winching excessively we managed to collapse the anchor platform so had to finally cut the chain.
That was not to be the end of our challenges that day for immediately upon exiting the Ria we found ourselves in thick fog. Our new transmitting AIS and chart plotter stood us in good stead as we crept down the coast, the only danger is from small vessels that do not transmit. Luckily another yacht about half a kilometre away from us was following a parallel course so we could keep in touch by VHF. That yacht had a close encounter when it came across a fisherman sat in a rowing boat and not making any fog signals in the fog. Some people seem to have a death wish. The fog persisted until the entrance to A Coruna. With the fog we were unable to see the famous Roman lighthouse called the Tower of Hercules which dates from the first century AD, although greatly modernised since then.

There was so much to see and do that we hardly knew where to start. Not only were the ships on display but there was the city to explore and aerobatics over our heads every day.

But now there was a major decision point; did we carry on down the Portuguese coast to winter in the Mediterranean or return the way we had come? If we continued we would spend two years in the Mediterranean and then three years back to the Baltic. We had lived a year in the South of France so we were a little familiar with the sailing environment there and we were not enthusiastic about it. If we had been 5 years younger we would probably have gone on but we made the momentous decision to return the way we had come.
The complete log of our return journey can be seen by following this link to Google Earth, A Coruna to Hondarribia  make sure that you have the ‘temporary places’ box ticked and the files within it ticked when it is open. Clicking on the yellow push pins will open log entries.
We determined to try some different ports on the way back but it was not just that that made it a very different journey.

We tried to continue next day but once out of the Ria conditions were bad and we were pitching and rolling badly. Besides only making 2 knots on full throttle we did not have the stomach for a 14 hour slog. So we returned and dropped anchor again.  For 5 days we sat on the anchor while the wind howled and running the engine to charge the batteries from time to time. Just to compound matters the outboard would not start and the wind and distance were too great to try rowing; so the cook really used her ingenuity as supplies dwindled. The wind seemed to have dropped on 4 September so we thought that we would try again. The wind was less but the seas were not. We pushed on to Punta Candellaria but we had a strong wind on the nose and were really being tossed about and only making 2 knots. At that rate we would have taken another 5 hours just to reach Cabo Ortegal. So we turned back and flew in the opposite direction over that ground that we had fought so hard to gain. Once again we anchored with out tail between our legs, for what turned out to be another 3 days. Luckily another yacht took pity on us and ran us ashore in their dinghy (with an outboard) for supplies.
Later when we took the outboard in to be fixed we discovered that the people who had overhauled it in Hondarribia had put two-stoke fuel in the tank instead of gasoline!

Our next excitement was just the opposite, a still, overcast day with a Northerly  2 to 3 metre swell. Two hours out of Luarca the engine started choking and then finally died. We unfurled the foresail but there was hardly any wind. The first step was to change the high pressure filter but the engine only ran for two or three minutes then stopped. It appeared that the water pump belt was slipping and, after our experiences of the previous season, I jumped to the conclusion that the engine was overheating without the alarm going off; so I set about changing the pump belt which is a big job because it is located behind the generator belt. After achieving that with my head down in a rolling boat I felt thoroughly sick and the engine still did not go. The last thing left was to change the low pressure fuel filter, I had a spare but it was another upside down job and the breakers at the bottom of the cliffs seemed to be getting awfully close! We could not afford to waste more time on the gamble that the filter change would work, for if it did not we would be on the rocks. So we called for help on VHF 16; to our horror there was no response! Suddenly things took on a very different aspect. I found that I had the phone number of the Marina in Gijon and got the receptionist to call the rescue services. Immediately they responded on channel 16 and thanks to our transmitting AIS could immediately see our position. The lifeboat was dispatched from Luarca while we spent an anxious hour and a half watching the breakers get closer.

Once the tow line was secured the life boat took off at 10 knots without giving me time to get off the foredeck. These life boats don't seem to realise the power that they have compared to a yacht. In A Coruna we saw a yacht that had been towed and the tow had ripped out the front end of the fibreglass yacht. Once again we were thankful that we had a steel boat, tough as nails! It was a scary ride back to Luarca. Once docked in the inner harbour mechanics came aboard and changed the low pressure filter, blew out the lines and everything was fine. A good job that I did not try to do it myself as my spare filter was the wrong model!

We called in a few new ports on the way back and were enchanted by them all.  Llanes, Elantxobe, Orio and St. Jean de Luz.

Finally St Jean de Luz, a French Basque town, before arriving at Hondarribia and the fantastic pinchos at El Gran Sol

For other Cruising blogs see the Archive links in the sidebar at the top of this page.
Other blogs of interest are The Retirement Dream and How to Live Your Dream

Technical Blogs are Nail Biting Experiences #1 Crossing the Bar , The Changing Nature of Sailing and Cruising and Yacht Docking Skills for Northern Europe

When chatting with new friends in a snug cabin , as cruisers do when they meet in some lonely anchorage, talk turned to that Holy Grail of yachting; a little known and un-crowded cruising ground with fabulous scenery and a fascinating culture. "Oh, it exists," they said,"it is called the Basque Country and it is tucked away in the South-east corner of the Bay of Biscay." We were immediately hooked. We set off to leave the cold rain of Wales for this quasi mythical place.

However, we were not going to make a dash to the destination and miss other interesting places along the way. First was the Cornish coast, that graveyard of sailing ships in the 17th and 18th centuries. Then the Jurassic Coast of Southern England where the science of palaeontology was born; and of course we had to visit our old haunts around the coast of Brittany and the French islands off the West coast that the French keep largely as their own holiday resorts. Finally, our destination would find us at the start of the Northern pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela.

The full route can be seen by following this link to Google Earth, neyland_to_hondarribia_2011blog.kmz  make sure that you have the ‘temporary places’ box ticked when it is open. Clicking on the yellow push pins will open log entries. 

The plan was to take the boat out of winter storage at Neyland, Wales, work on it for a couple of weeks and then set out. Now the only sure thing about sailing is that things will not go as planned. When we got back to start work we found that mould had flourished over the damp winter and everything had to be cleaned and laundered. The second thing was that the man who had made custom stainless steel fittings for collection in the Spring had dropped dead and his workshop contents disposed of. Just to top things off,  health issues started to arise that reduced the work to a crawl. So our two week stay on a neighbouring sheep farm developed into a two month stay. However we learned a great deal about sheep along the way!

 The Bristol Channel is like a large funnel with its open end pointing West to the predominant winds and storms so tidal ranges are great. The upper reaches become vast mud flats at low tide and when the tide comes in it can, quite literally, be like an advancing wall of water. This is the famous 'Bore' and Morecombe Bay is the site of the tragedy of the cockle pickers in 2004 who were cut off by the tide. Although there are many small harbours along the Somerset and Cornish coasts, they dry at low tide unless there is a lock gate, so our options were limited. We kept well to the Western end and crossed to Lundy Island then locked into Padstow before following the rocky and wild coast around Lands End to Newlyn.

Safely past The Manacles we entered historic Falmouth Harbour. This is where long distance sailing ships would call to receive their orders before sailing up the Channel until the age of steam meant that they did not call any more. There were many famous events here; News of the victory at Trafalgar arrived here as did Charles Darwin returning on the Beagle from his famous voyage of discovery. In the Second World War the famous suicidal raid on St. Nazaire left from here.

This Southern coast is an exercise in geology, progressing from the old igneous rocks of Cornwall in the West, through the red  Permian and Triassic  cliffs (where the first fossils and dinosaurs start to appear) to the Jurassic cliffs in the East. As you sail East along this coast the geology unfolds like a movie. This section of coast is the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site where the science of palaeontology started and where the 'Father of British Geology', William Smith found his inspiration.

As the cliffs weather the fossils appear, making this a famous haunt for Victorian gentlemen searching for 'curiosities'. John Fowles set his novel 'the French Lieutenant's Woman' here in Lyme Regis in this era and when you sail into the harbour you may find her wrapped in a shawl standing on the end of the harbour wall (the Cobb) waiting for her lover to return. However, unfortunately it is not Meryl Streep but an employee of the Tourist Board!

Further East we sail by Thomas Hardy country with green meadows sweeping down to the cliff tops and farms nestling in the rolling countryside. It is easy to Imagine that one of these is Bathsheba Everdene's farm in 'Far From the Madding Crowd' and the character walking among the sheep in the cliff-top meadow is Gabriel Oak.

Do not let the beauty of this coast lull you into a false sense of security; this is a dangerous coast if you do not do your homework and get it right because there are dangerous tidal races off all the headlands. At slack water (which may only be 20 minutes) you can pass close to them but if you arrive early or late do not even attempt it. We unexpectedly lost time in crossing Lyme Bay and arrived at Portland Bill an hour late. This meant that we had to pass 3 nautical miles off the point and even then it was pretty choppy. We finally completed our run up the Jurassic Coast in a crowded anchorage in Lulworth Cove. After three attempts to find adequate swinging room we anchored over a kelp bed and spent a sleepless night listening to strange noises from the kelp and worrying that the anchor would drag. In short, this is not the coast to explore at the height of the holiday season.

Crossing the English Channel, or La Manche, is always an interesting experience since it involves crossing two very busy traffic lanes and arriving on a coast that has very strong tidal streams, so arrival times are critical. We have done it in rough weather, in fog and at night but this time the tides were such that we could leave early in the morning and arrive 14 hours later, crossing the traffic lanes in the daylight.
We arrived at the West entrance to Cherbourg Harbour, the second biggest artificial harbour in the world (1,500 hectares), after an uneventful crossing. It is always awe inspiring to enter the outer harbour which was designed for 80 warships to manoeuvre under sail. The outer walls alone are 6km long with forts along the way. It is a bit like a Russian doll with harbours within harbours, getting smaller and smaller. Unsurprisingly it was a key objective in the D-day landings of World War 2. Our destination was the third one in, where the Marina is located.

Near us was a man who had just launched his boat that was going to participate in the race from Senegal, Africa to Guyana, South America. The twist was that this was a single handed rowing race that lasts about 40 days and takes place every 3 years. We had never heard of it, but it is part of the new wave of extreme sports.

After a break in Cherbourg it was time to start on the second leg of our cruise, travelling by way of the Channel Islands along the North coast of Brittany to Brest.

Travelling West it is necessary to round the Northwest point of the Cotentin Peninsular a rocky headland called Cap de la Hague. This high headland is famous for having perhaps the biggest nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the world. Spent fuel comes from all around the world to be reprocessed here and this is where much of the warhead material from nuclear disarmament ended up. So this headland is a hot spot in more ways than one.

However, we only saw glimpses of the plant; what concerned us most was down at sea level. Rounding this headland and heading South between the Mainland and the island of Alderney is very interesting and challenging because the tidal streams in the Alderney Race can reach 6 to 7 knots and when this reverses in each tidal cycle it creates extremely confused seas all around Cap de la Hague to Alderney. Timing and reasonable weather are essential.

So the evening before the passage we sailed to the nearest anchorage to the headland, Omonville, and lay at a mooring to be in the best position to get the time right on the next day. The weather was marginal the next day but we thought it do-able and we set off. At the turning point off the headland the seas were big and confused, due to a strong wind against tide even though we had the timing right, but we thought that it would improve. 

It did not and continued rough all down to the Race to the Little Russell approach to St. Peter Port, Guernsey. We made slow progress such that the tide had turned and it was a battle, even on full throttle, to reach our destination. Even though the boat had been well battened down we had taken so much water over the boat that the bedding was damp. However, we were so tired that we hardly noticed it.

When the monarchy was restored (Charles II) the Bailiwick of Jersey  was rewarded with lands in the New World; hence New Jersey. We have visited most of the islands on previous cruises and this time just wanted to press on with our cruise to Spain.
We planned to make landfall in Brittany at the Lezardrieux River but the strong tidal currents were pushing us East and rather than fight it we decided to take the more adventurous route to the East of the Ile de Brehat. With the 10m tidal ranges in this area the landscape totally changes between high and low tide. When you look back at low tide you wonder how you ever did it!

The islands here are known for their Mediterranean micro-climate and famous for the masses of agapanthes growing wild.
This coast is a cruiser's dream as long as you are prepared to be bold and do your homework. There are myriads of hidden inlets. Exchanging our plans to go up the Lezardieux River we opted for the next one, the Treguier, because of the challenge of getting there! It involves sailing precisely to a leading line through rocks and then through the shallow Passe de la Gaine before entering the Treguier River to arrive at the charming Town of Treguier.
This is rural France at its best and just to cap it all the circus had arrived in town and set up near the port. Many small itinerant circus are still around in France, like the markets that make a weekly circuit of small towns. To stroll the town, with its small shopkeepers and shoppers who still buy their bread daily and exchange gossip as they shop, is to enter a way of life that has largely disappeared from many countries. One can understand why the French so fiercely resist change; they know what they will lose.

The Bay of Morlaix has many small islands and rocks as it narrows to the estuary of the Morlaix River. This was an ideal pirate sanctuary before the days of buoys, markers and accurate charts, for only those with expert local knowledge could get in here. 'Pirates' is perhaps too strong a word, for these were entrepreneurs sailing under a 'Letter of Marque' from the King, known as Corsairs in France. This was permission to attack the King's enemies as long as the King got his percentage of the spoils. This was cheaper than having a large standing Navy. When navies were first established the Corsairs continued and King's ships still operated in a similar way by sharing the spoils. After a disastrous raid on Morlaix by the English a fort was built (Château du Taureau) on one if the islets to block access to the Morlaix Estuary. Many of the great houses in this area were built on the spoils of this trade.

The flaw was that we had to negotiate the perilous entry and find that spot in the dark as we were so late leaving Roscoff. The problem is that there are so many navigation lights and secondary channels that it is easy to get confused and find yourself going up the wrong channel.

 The Western end of Brittany is another of those places with exposed, rocky shores and strong tidal currents that mean that you have to get it right. It is not called the Chenal du Four, the Channel of the Oven, for nothing. There are a string of lighthouses on the coast around here with some great videos of them.  , Phare La Jument,

There were multiple restraints to our next stage; lock out of Morlaix and get through the difficult passage to Roscoff in the daylight; pass through Roscoff Channel when there was sufficient water on an ebb tide so that the current would carry us to Aber W'rach, the last port before the Chenal du Four; leave Aber W'rach such that the tidal current would carry us down the channel, through the pinch point of St. Mathieu before it turned; then have a favourable current to get us through 'the Bottleneck', le Goulet, into Brest. All that with favourable winds and reasonable seas.

It worked out that we would have to anchor in the the Roscoff Channel to get the tides right. The weather was not good enough the next day and we spent 2 days on the anchorage.
Aber W'rach presented an interesting situation for there is a short cut through the rocks that cuts off some distance. So should we take it? We had done it once before from the other direction but the passage is tricky and shallow so the tide must be right. We did not take it as the tidal state would be marginal, the entrance is difficult to find at the best of times and the sun would be in our eyes when we arrived. That is experience and what makes this type of navigation so interesting and rewarding.

We were to pick up our son and granddaughter in Brest so we chose the old harbour rather than the new marina, which is some distance out of town. On arrival one crosses the military harbour with the U-boat pens in the background, and turns around massive harbour walls; it is all a bit intimidating but right in the centre of town.

The climate changes quite dramatically to a milder , more Mediterranean one, on the South side of Brittany which probably explains its popularity with British yachtsmen. Once through the Raz de Sein there is a convenient port, Audierne, before a long stretch of inhospitable coast that extends past the Point of Penmarc'h. Once round that and a whole string of delightful ports are in reach. We have never passed this point without porpoises appearing around the boat; we always take this as a good omen. On this occasion we pushed on to the walled town of Concarneau.

We passed by many interesting ports and islands along this South Brittany coast calling only at L'Orient and Le Crouesty before turning South. This involves passing through the Quiberon Peninsular, an interesting exercise. It would be easy to while away a couple of months around here, and we knew what we were missing because we had been here before, but we still had a way to go and September was upon us.

In la Crouesty one of those occasional unpleasant events occurred that always leaves a bad taste. Four French customs officers descended on the boat at the dock and declared that they wanted to search the boat. It seems an invasion of privacy but that is the price you pay for being a free spirit in a boat. They even wanted to see in the water tank but when they discovered how much work it was they gave up! We were not unhappy to leave and head South to the  string off islands off the West coast of France; undiscovered gems that the French seem to keep for themselves.

The next day we had a great sail to Les Sables d'Olonne without needing the engine until the harbour entrance. Then once again the pump belt slipped and the engine overheated. This was starting to become worrying but once again we got the belt tightened and it seemed to hold. The next day the wind was favourable for the run South to St. Martin on the Ile-de-Re.

Determined to get to the bottom of the problem we sought out a marine engineer the next day. He solved the problem in 10 minutes and we have never had a problem since. The wrong vee belt was installed in Falmouth! The profile of the belt must exactly fit the profile of the pulley; if it does not excessive wear occurs and no matter how much it is tightened it will slip. When I think how the mechanic in Falmouth talked with such authority and kept us waiting while he ordered the correct belt, it just shows that talk is cheap. So we set off for the final stage with much more confidence and anticipation.

The island of Oleron is the last in the chain of islands going South. We decided to go through the very shallow waters at the Eastern side of the Ile de Re, under the bridge, past the commercial port of La Pallice and so to the main port of St. Denis d'Oleron.

Rounding the Northern Point de Chassiron we met a particularly large swell which made the rocks off the point a maelstrom of breaking waves and flying spray. Although we were well off we changed course a little more, particularly when we saw a wrecked fishing boat perched on the rocks. After travelling South down this coast we came to the turning point to take the channel into the Gironde Estuary and our next port of call, Royan. I do not like this entrance for it is quite narrow and  has

The last steps were perhaps the most challenging for there is a long stretch of coast to the first port, Arcachon, 78 nautical miles away which means a 14 or 15 hour leg in Enterprise. But that was not the main concern; the swells on this coast are large and the entrance to Arcachon is shallow, convoluted and cannot be attempted in heavy swells or rough seas. If you cannot enter, the next port is another 70 miles and also cannot be entered in those conditions. So the challenge is to get the sea conditions right and arrive at the right time, in the daylight. We were at the end of September and the days were now getting shorter. The extra crew member would be helpful if we could not enter either port and had to go straight through to Spain. Furthermore, parts of this coast are active firing ranges and one must read the notices and keep out of those zones.

From the aerial photograph, the mass of sandbanks at the entrance show why the tide has to be just right to enter and leave but it does not show the strong tidal currents and the breaking waves from a big swell that can make the entrance impossible. Immediately on entry, the biggest sand dune in Europe, La Dune du Pilat, appears. It has been used for many movie sets to simulate desert scenes. The entry, on a flood tide, takes over an hour even doing 9.5 knots past the lighthouse at Cap Frehal. Once inside, it opens up to a a large shallow inland sea which largely dries at low tide. A marvellous playground, with endless beaches.

This area of France from the Gironde River to the Pyrenees on the Spanish border, is called Les Landes, meaning moors and heath. It is low and was largely swampy until modern agriculture drained large areas and planted maritime pines over 10,000 square kilometres. The French Army trains here and there are naval firing ranges off shore. The naval ranges are seldom used but the firing ranges from the shore out to sea are frequently used and restricted times are posted in the Marinas.

The great underwater cliff that is the edge of the continental shelf is cut with canyons that reach out like fingers into the shelf. As the edge gets closer to the shore these canyons can reach right up to it and feed water surges to the shore that show up as swells. So it is at Cap Breton where the canyon comes right up to the harbour entrance.

All went well, we approached swiftly on a small swell, dodged around the end of the harbour wall, and sailed sedately up beside the main street to a welcoming Marina at the end.

Then it was off to Hondarribia and the Basque country the next day; sailing South on this last leg we had time to reflect on just what The Basque Country is. Rather than a physical area it is the place where the Basque language is spoken and the Basque cultural traditions are followed, so the boundaries are rather fluid. The Northern boundary is somewhere around Bayonne in France, the Western one west of Bilbao, the Eastern is a couple of pyrenean passes from the coast around  Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, where the French pilgrimage route to Saint- Jacques-de-Compostelle starts. Finally, the Southern border is roughly on a line South of Victoria-Gasteiz but the following map is more restrictive.

For other Cruising blogs see the Archive links in the sidebar at the top of this page.
Other blogs of interest are The Retirement Dream and How to Live Your Dream

Technical Blogs are Nail Biting Experiences #1 Crossing the Bar , The Changing Nature of Sailing and Cruising and Yacht Docking Skills for Northern Europe

Enterprise over wintered in the water at Stavanger awaiting her second new mast  after our 2009 season. (see Northern Denmark & Norway)  We were looking forward to a cruising season with a bit less excitement. However, the first event came from an unexpected source; the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland. All flights to Norway were cancelled due to the ash clouds so we started our season by touring Hadrian’s Wall and the Scottish Highlands while we waited for a flight from Aberdeen. Finally arriving in Stavanger we found that we still did not have a mast and trepidation really set in.

However, by May 9th we cast off to begin our cruise. The full route can be seen by following this link to Google Earth, The Norwegian Sea to the Irish Sea,  make sure that you have the ‘temporary places’ box ticked when it is open. Clicking on the yellow push pins will open log entries.

Only afterwards did I notice the antennae and tri-light hanging down! Later we determined by marks on the tri-light that we had cleared the mast by 2cm. The strong wind had created a tidal surge that I had not allowed for and could not calculate. We tied up that night at Utstein Kloster that we had visited the previous autumn but this time it was cold and windswept. Here we discovered that we had a dead cell in our deep cycle battery; these things always happen at inconvenient moments. Then after setting off next morning it started to snow quite hard, the first and, I hope, the last time that we sailed in a snow storm. We consoled ourselves by saying that it could only get better after that, and it did.

 Bergen has the reputation as the European city with the most days of rain but the Gods must have repented for it was a lovely day to sail into the harbour, with the sun highlighting the old, picturesque houses climbing up the mountainside from the wharf.

This is the home of Eduard Grieg and there are daily lunchtime concerts throughout the summer at the composer’s home with its modern museum and concert hall. This city is another one that was in the Hanseatic League, like the ones that we had visited in the Baltic, and which grew rich on the trade monopoly.

Arriving on Monday morning we were immediately struck by the lack of trees; this must be a very bleak place in the winter, however, there is a wild beauty to these islands that spoke to us. 

We have often noticed that people who live in harsh conditions are usually warm and welcoming; Shetlanders were no exception.
The Viking roots there are very strong with the language full of Old Norse terms; it is a very distinctive culture. There may not be many trees but there are huge numbers of sea birds. Taking the local bus to the Southern tip of the main island to visit Sumburgh Head , we marvelled at how close we could get to nesting Fulmars,Guillemots,Kittiwakes, Puffins and Shags. We had previously only seen these birds in small numbers but here it was overwhelming.

 As a bonus there was the Jarlshof Prehistoric & Norse Settlement to see before we set sail for Fair Isle

Dominating the island is Sheep Rock, sheer cliffs on all sides with a sloping, flat top, which from a distance looked like a lush green meadow. Discussion turned to Sheep Rock when a resident came to the dock to talk to the visitors and he said that he was the last person to graze sheep on it. In late Spring someone would scale the cliff and rig up a pulley and cable system to haul the sheep to the top, then when the sheep were all hoisted up they would be left all summer after which they were all hoisted down again; a very labour intensive process that is no longer reckoned to be worthwhile. 

 One hundred and twenty kilometres South are the Orkney Islands; quite different, low, fertile and sandy, with strong tidal streams coursing between the islands so it is important to get the timing right.  They are much more closely related to the Scottish mainland, but still apart, and formerly speaking their own Orcadian language. Five thousand years ago people of the Neolithic culture landed here and settled. Everywhere there is evidence of ancient civilisations (including a complete Neolithic village ) overlain by Viking settlements giving a vague feeling of being in a time warp. Some of the cottages with their heavy stone slab roofs had a distinctly Neolithic air about them. We took a local bus to the Ring of Brodgar, a stone circle like Stonehenge but less well known. It is immense with 13 burial mounds near the circle. The walk towards it made us aware of many sites of Neolithic settlement and mysterious alignments.Previously we had visited Stonehenge but found this site in a sparsely settled landscape far more haunting.

Virtually nothing is known about this people, the meaning of their structures, how they could move stone slabs weighing several tons, anything about their social system and psyche. They are still an unresolved mystery greater than the pyramids.We walked over this countryside and experienced feelings of awe and insignificance standing in the Ring of Brodgar and seeing in the distance other standing stones, each representing huge effort for no apparent reason that archaeologists have been able to fathom.
 

 From Orkney we had to decide whether to to go down the West coast of Scotland by way of Cape Wrath or down the East side by way of John O’ Groats. We finally opted for the later as we wanted to transit the Caledonean Canal. Leaving Orkney after days of torrential rain  we passed the former Eastern entrance to Scapa Flow, the huge sheltered harbour that was a major naval base in the First and Second World Wars. ‘Former’ because, after a German uboat, U-47, slipped in in 1940 and sank the battleship Royal Oak and then escaped, Winston Churchill ordered the Eastern entrances dammed up. So we could only look into Holmen Sound and the ‘Churchill Barriers’, for it was too big a diversion to find the Southern entrance. A pity because it is an interesting place. It was here that in 1919 the interned German Naval Fleet of 52 ships was scuttled by their crews simultaneously.

The treacherous Pentland Firth was crossed without incident because we got are timing right and the weather was fair. All down the East coast of the Highlands the gorse was ablaze with yellow and we had frequent visits by porpoises. Altogether a delightful sail.

One of the surprises was how shallow the approach to Inverness was, the Moray Firth, which meant that the tide really rushed in and out; this was something that we had not allowed for in our timing so we struggled past Fort George and up to the Marina at Inverness.
Our plan was to cross Scotland  by the Caledonian Canal and then explore the Western Isles, fired I must confess by romantic dreams of Flora MacDonald ferrying Bonnie Prince Charlie ‘over the sea to Skye’. So  before leaving Inverness we thought that we should visit that icon of Scottish history, the battlefield of Culloden (1746). The Great Glen crosses Scotland like a great rift valley from Inverness in the East to Fort William in the West and was for a long time the battle line for the English against the Scots. Hence Fort George, Fort Augustus and Fort William. It is at the Eastern end, near Fort George that the battlefield is located.

Thus one evening, when a light rain was falling and a mist was rising off this boggy moorland we visited Culloden.In retrospect a most suitable atmosphere for this mournful place. We were the only visitors at that time of day when the adjacent visitors centre was closed (we returned another day to view the interactive visitor centre). 

 The Caledonian Canal connects a string of waterways by 29 locks, the River Ness, Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich and Loch Lochy. In fact,only 33km of its 97km is in man-made canals. The first, Loch Ness was disappointing with its tacky tourist resorts exploiting The Loch Ness Monster or ‘Nessie’. However, after ascending the flight of locks at Fort Augustus it became beautifully remote and unspoiled such that we extended our passage by spending extra nights at moorings.

 The passage finally skirts Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland, before descending by an impressive set of locks called ‘Neptune's Staircase’ to Loch Linnhe and the sea. 

Tobermory is a pleasant tourist town and the logical jumping off point for the Western Isles. Our plan was to round Ardnamurchan and pass North of Skye through the Kyle of Lochalsh before crossing to Portree on the Isle of Lewis. However, it was not to be, as we had so often learned when sailing.

  However, Scotland has a way of compensating.  When we were passing Ardnamurchan  again , in a temporary clearing of the weather, we were suddenly surrounded by porpoises, there must have been more than 100 for about a kilometre around the boat; some leaping in groups of 3 or 4, others singly but all in a feeding frenzy. It lasted about 10 minutes and then they were all gone. We were left breathless, realising that we had witnessed something that very few  people have seen and that we would never see it again.

From Oban we went South, threading through rocky islands with strong currents and eddies that made it exciting. We wanted to visit the Clyde estuary and Glasgow  but in order to do this without a huge detour around the Mull of Kintyre it was necessary to transit the Crinan Canal. In the distant past we had lived in an old convoy assembly station at Kilcreggan on the Clyde and had never gone back to see it.

  Waiting in the basin to enter the canal we found ourselves next to one of the last remaining ‘puffers’ in Scotland.
Now ‘puffers’ are a much loved icon in this country, they are small steam driven coasters that were the lifeline to the hundreds of coastal islands. They carried everything imaginable  and could beach themselves to unload at low tide on the sand.

  They became iconic when a series of stories about a puffer called ‘The Vital Spark’ and its irascible skipper ‘Para Handy’ ran for 20 years in the Glasgow Evening News from 1905.The last one in commercial service finished in 1993 killed by the roll-on roll-off  vessels that did not need unloading. Later we went  up Loch Fyne to Inverary where there is a puffer called The Vital Spark complete with an effigy of Para Handy.It is ironic  that people pay big money for the privilege of shovelling coal on a trip on a puffer. Old stokers must turn in their graves.

 Now the Crinan Canal is a totally different kettle of fish to the Caledonian Canal since it is largely unchanged from when it was built  200 years ago, the 25 locks are all manually operated by the user so the passage is quite a feat of muscle power.

 Leaving the Crinan Canal we were in an area of lochs and islands that are accessible to Glasgow and the Clyde with its history as a great manufacturing and shipbuilding centre of the industrial age. In those days  this whole area was seething with activity, paddle steamers  took the city people for excursions to the seaside and puffers plied their trade. Today there are relics of this age all over the area, decaying Victorian piers with their wrought iron curlicues and rusting hulks of once proud vessels. The shipyards are gone and Glasgow has many derelict factories but the area is re-inventing itself into a cultural centre with many new buildings in the down town and rehabilitation of the Clyde estuary. There is much nostalgia for the Golden Age of the Clyde and enthusiastic restoration efforts are under way to save features before they are lost.

 The course lay around the Isle of Arran and down the East coast of the peninsular called the Mull of Kintyre which points like a finger to Northern Ireland, or Ulster. Over the last 50 to 60 years, great swaths of the Scottish countryside have been transformed from moors, bogs and infertile hillsides into coniferous forests. This was very evident as we sailed down the East side of the peninsular. Of course it makes good economic sense for nobody wants to live the life of a crofter scratching a living from infertile soil, but there is not much romance in looking at a coniferous plantation.  Near the southern end is Campbeltown, the last harbour on this sparsely populated part of Scotland. Here the brutal Atlantic gales sweep right across the end of the peninsular and the countryside struck us as rather bleak with steep rocky crags.

The Harbour Master was right in the mould, telling us of all the stuff that we could do around Glenarm and the Antrim Coast.

 But there was an even bigger surprise, abutting the village were the grounds of a large country house, Glenarm Castle. The castle itself is very grand with turrets and porticoes but not open to the public except for one or two days per year.

 The same goes for the meadows and grounds except for a large walled garden that has been extensively restored to its former glory, now rivalling the great European gardens. Although really too late in the season for most gardens this one still appeared in full bloom, an anomaly caused by the micro climate and sheltering walls. We were quite taken aback by this discovery, spending several hours there and returning for a second visit. Glenarm Castle is the home of Viscount and Viscountess Dunluce and their family. The castle has been in the McDonnell family ( the Lords of Antrim) since it was first built in 1636. The McDonnells have been in Glenarm for nearly 600 years and the Estate has been in the family for 400 years. Later when we had read the history of Ireland and learned  of the Plantations we started to understand how these great houses, scattered throughout Ireland fitted into the troubled history of the country.

From Carrickfergus we sailed South to the fishing port of Ardglass, near the border with Eire, passing the mountains of Mourne where they ‘sweep down to the sea’. It was a relief to refresh our souls with the beauty of the scenery but later we were to explore the countryside and found that echoes of the Troubles were nearby in towns like Newry, Armagh and Portadown.
Then it was on to Howth in Dublin Bay as our cruise drew towards its end.  

 Suddenly the atmosphere felt quite different; gone was the underlying tension, people positively sought you out to chat, and they always seemed to have time to do it. Dublin was a hotbed of culture and we made the most of it with visits to three theatres,The Gate, The Abbey and Smock Alley,this latter one dating back to 1662; the Dublin Writers Museum and to the Book of Kells at Trinity College. The history of the ‘Easter Rising’ interested us and we saw key sites such as the General Post Office and other sites  while covering other places like the Oscar Wilde Memorial. Everywhere there were side walk cafes, especially along the banks of the Liffey, and we were like kids in a candy shop.

 We could not resist the urge to dig deeper since we had read Edward Rutherford’s ‘Ireland Awakening’ and that history was all around us. Consequently we set off by car to cross Ireland and get a feeling for the country.

 The West Coast is mountainous, bleak and treeless with poor soils. Travelling North we appreciated the wild beauty but it must have been a hard life, a few potatoes and digging peat . The extent of peat digging can be seen from aerial photographs; the whole countryside is scarred.

 One item really got to us. This landowner was growing pineapples for his table in a heated glass-house while he evicted his starving tenants! During this great famine food was being exported to England.

 The history of Ireland is a long tragic history of man’s inhumanity to man, it is a wonder that modern Irishmen can smile at all.

So as soon as the weather eased up we left for Wexford. Well not right into Wexford Harbour for it is a shallow, shifting channel and we did not want to get caught in there by bad weather. 

 That is how we ended up for the winter next to the ruins of the dock that was going to be the transatlantic terminal for Brunel’s great ship ’ The Great Eastern’ but that is another story.

 For other Cruising blogs see the Archive links in the sidebar at the top of this page.
Other blogs of interest are The Retirement Dream and How to Live Your Dream

 Technical Blogs are Nail Biting Experiences #1 Crossing the Bar , The Changing Nature of Sailing and Cruising and Yacht Docking Skills for Northern Europe

The mainland of Denmark, the Jylland peninsula, has a split personality. The west coast is windswept sand dunes and shallow coastal sand banks that take the full fury of North Sea storms in the winter but are incredibly beautiful on a summer’s day with vast numbers of sea birds; whereas the central and eastern area is a green pastoral land.

Across the north of Jylland is an inland passage to the North Sea called Limfjord. We thought that for our 2009 cruise we would take this, apparently tranquil, passage to the North Sea and then across to Scotland. The season was to work out quite differently.

The full details of what actually happened can be seen by following this link to Google Earth,  Northern Denmark & Norway   make sure that you have the ‘Temporary Places’ check box ticked when it is open. Clicking on the yellow push pins will open the log book entries.
The first leg was from Århus up the east coast to Hals and then through Limfjord to the east coast port of Thyborøn.

 After completing the winter maintenance we set sail around the east coast by way of Ebeltoft & Grenå, entering the Limfjord at Hals.

At first the passage was as we expected but as we progressed westwards the passage became shallower and a strong west wind was always blowing. Now shallow waters and strong winds always mean big waves, so as the channel widened out the waves grew bigger turning our tranquil passage into quite a challenge, shipping lots of water over the deck for  there was a storm in the North Sea. It was pretty countryside but we hardly had time to observe it!

At Thyborøn we agonised most of the next day about launching into our 3 day passage to Scotland as the storm, though subsiding was a long way from having completely passed. We had a strong crew of 6 persons, 3 of whom had planes booked back to Canada in a few days and the weather was forecast to gradually improve. So I made the classic mistake of making a decision based on deadlines rather than weather and then rationalised it. So at 17:30 we set off in high spirits for Scotland.

The seas were big, not more than expected, but 4 hours later 3 crew members were down with seasickness. The seas were too big to use the auto-helm so we settled into hand steering which was much more demanding of the remaining crew. As the night came on the wind built from the west so we had to change course to Northwest to keep sailing and found that the waves knocked us further off course. By morning we were well north of our desired track, so tacked to get back southwards, but on that tack we were being driven east. It was a long night during which the cabin table broke loose and had to be tied down. The first mate was thrown into the chart table and got a black eye. By early morning one of the crew had recovered sufficiently to take a watch and by noon the wind had backed sufficiently to tack again. Finally we were making good progress in the direction that we wanted to go but the seas were still big and lumpy. From this point we knew that the weather would only improve and we started to calculate our arrival time in Scotland. Then during the midnight watch of the second night a mainstay brass turn-buckle broke. After the initial crash there was an eerie silence. We were dragging the mast, sails and rigging over the side with stanchions and lifelines torn away. The mast was pounding the hull like a battering ram but it was far too dangerous in the dark to go on deck to cut it free. We could afford to wait for daylight because we had a steel hull. All the debris over the side acted like a sea anchor but it also tended to put us broadside to the waves, so we started the engine to keep us bow on. That lasted about 20 minutes before the rigging fouled the prop so that was the end of that.

In response to our relayed distress call an oceanographic research vessel, the G.O. Sars, found us at 02:30. To see her approaching with searchlights sweeping the sea was a memorable moment. She stood weather guard on us until the coastguard cutter arrived at 10:30 and took us in tow. It was a rough 14 hr tow in those seas at 6 knots.

In the morning we had time to reflect, celebrate and look around the charming town of Egersund. We had made the newspapers and people came to look at us.  A deep sea trawler fleet is based here, the so called ‘factory ships’ that are at sea for months and go to the farthest corners of the North Atlantic so there is a long tradition of sea faring  history here.

The next 3 months were what we called the Norwegian interlude. We were determined to turn it into a positive experience and, looking back on it, it was great. After fixing up the insurance and putting the repairs into the good hands of Eigerøy Båt og Motor AS, we moved into a holiday cabin on nearby Eigerøy and walked and cycled in the area.

We also explored the modern, bustling city of Stavanger where we experienced our first ‘flash mob’. Through social media the word goes out to meet in a certain location in a couple of hours and we happened to be in the spot when hundreds of people suddenly arrived, a ghetto blaster got going with action songs, like ‘YMCA’, and everyone joined in. After an hour it is all over as if nothing had happened. It was apparently quite the rage that year.

On another occasion we travelled up Lysefjorden then up switchbacks and a spiral tunnel to the ice fields.

This area is home to Europe’s southernmost population of wild reindeer. Several ancient trails dating back to the Stone Age pass through this area. Then we went down to the coastal road with its extensive tunnels, cliff hanging roads and picturesque fishing ports.

In this harsh environment it is not difficult to picture the isolation in former times when transportation and sustenance depended on the sea. When the sea was rough you stayed put and went hungry if you could not trap wild animals.

The 17th May is Norway’s National Day. The whole community gets involved in the parades and national costumes abound which, we were told, are past down in families for generations; it was an exciting experience for us in Egersund. National pride in their modern, progressive state, which a hundred years ago was a country of fishermen and subsistence farming, was evident everywhere.

Finally after 3 months of this interlude the boat was better than new, as we had taken the opportunity to make major overhauls, but we still had to travel as a motor boat to Stavanger, a 60 nm open sea journey, to have the new mast and sails installed. So began the next stage of our sailing season.

A keeled yacht without its mast and sails is unbalanced and tends to act like a pendulum, rolling a lot in cross seas. So we were a little apprehensive about the passage to Stavanger. As it turned out the rolling was not too bad and it was the torrential rain that bothered us more. After the new mast and sails were installed they had to be modified so we took the boat on the short trip to a sail maker in Sandnes. This turned out to be a very interesting trip as we were invited to a house party with some of his friends at Oltedal where we experienced great Norwegian hospitality and an insight into the way of life. Since the hostess managed a large salmon farm in a nearby fjord we were given a personal tour of the farm. The high technology involved in the operation was a real surprise.

We sailed around the area testing the new mast and sails before we were ready to move on. One of our excursions was to ancient monastery, Utstein Kloster, where we heard that there was a choral concert being given. The island of Utstein seemed very remote to hold a concert but we later found out that there was a bridge so it was not as inaccessible as we thought. We tied up at the dock, had cocktails at the hotel, and then walked a couple of kilometres to the monastery to listen to an elegant concert. It was all a bit surreal.

We decided that it was now so late in the season that we should go back to Denmark for the winter, stopping at Egersund for some adjustments to be done in the boat yard. So on the 2nd August we started back the way that we had come, but this time we would go back down the Norwegian coast before crossing to Hirtshals in Denmark. Once again it was not to be.
On the 20 August, offshore and approaching the southernmost point of Norway, the new mast suddenly broke in two places, one a metre above the deck and the other at the cross trees. This time however it was at 11:35 on a good sea, with little or no collateral damage. We felt like old hands at this situation and immediately secured the rigging from fouling the prop. Then we motored into the nearest port, Flekkefjord, dragging the debris. Being a Saturday afternoon, we were quite a sensation when we arrived in the centre of town.

In typical Norwegian style, the local yacht club immediately put together a working party to sort out the mess and salvage the sails and what is more invited us to their homes for meals and showers. We were really touched by this spontaneous kindness.

This time the liability mess was much more complicated, we only knew that it certainly was not ours, and we determined to not hang around while it was sorted out. So we decided to explore the Norwegian coast eastwards, as a motor boat. This meant that we would take as many inner passages as possible and by so doing we discovered some glorious hidden places but the navigation was tricky in these ‘skerries’. If you can imagine a pepper pot sprinkling rocks in the water, some of which show above the surface but most are just below; then those are ‘skerries’ and there or lots of them along this coast. Our first step was Forsund, a picturesque town behind skerries. However, we quickly learned our first lesson about navigating in the skerries. Never try to take a short cut!  

We realised that we had missed branching off the main channel but since the secondary channel was parallel to the main one and in plain view for a while, rather than going back we thought that we would cut across to get back on track. Big mistake!

We found ourselves in a maze of semi-submerged and submerged rocks and had to retrace our path, greatly humbled.

Because we did not have a mast we were able to take an inside passage to Mandal that used a recently opened canal which had been built to save motor boats from having to navigate the notorious Cape Lindesnes.

The leg to Kristiansand passes through the Hellesund passage which contains a very special place. It is an enclosed basin that is entered through a cleft in the rock which is only slightly wider than the width of the boat, you would not know it was there without a chart and even then you can sail right by. It is quite eerie to sail the boat into this narrow cleft and see markings on the walls made by sailors years ago.

We had hoped to stop here for lunch but the mooring rings were all taken and it was too deep to anchor, so we pushed on along this fascinating route to Kristiansand.

We had hoped that by the time we reached this town the fight over who was liable to replace our mast would have been resolved and if it was the mast supplier then we would have sailed on to Oslo. But nothing had been resolved so we decided to sail back to Stavanger while the weather was good and leave the boat there for the winter. Naively assuming that the matter would be resolved in the near future and the work could be done in time for the next season.

So a fabulous year of adventure, exploring and fascinating cruising ended on a bit of a sour note.

For other Cruising blogs see the Archive links in the sidebar at the top of this page.
Other blogs of interest are The Retirement Dream and How to Live Your Dream

Technical Blogs are Nail Biting Experiences #1 Crossing the Bar , The Changing Nature of Sailing and Cruising and Yacht Docking Skills for Northern Europe

After our #sail cruise up the West Coast of Sweden and to the North-East of the Baltic  Baltic Sweden and Finland we decided that we would cruise the South-western Baltic, i.e. Southern Denmark, Germany and the South coast of Sweden. Although this is the most populated part of the Baltic, there are still many quiet and beautiful places for a #dreamchaser. Of course every area has a rich and diverse history. For the complete route, go to  Google Earth (and remember to tick the boxes in 'Temporary Places') When you scroll over a yellow push pin the log book entry will come up.
The South-Western Baltic

We started down the Lillebaelt, the name given to the passage between the mainland of Jylland and Funen the westernmost of the two main islands of Denmark. Each side of this waterway is punctuated with inlets sheltering small towns nestling in a green and pleasant land. Looking at the map you may think that this a sheltered waterway but the reality is that it funnels the wind and can be quite breezy. Good #sailing, if it is blowing in the direction that you wish to go!

Turning east we followed the coasts of the two big islands, Funen and Zejland, picking our way around many tiny islands and finding small villages and some bigger towns. Midsummer’s Day found us in Nyord where the festival was celebrated with a bonfire on a floating raft in the harbour (quite close to us!). To enjoy a midsummer’s night gently rocking in the cockpit, listening to the music by the glowing embers of the bonfire is a #liveaboard experience we will remember for the rest of our lives.

At the end of this passage we circumnavigated the island of Møn with its shallow, shifting channels to the West and the impressive white cliffs to the East. From here we went along the North German coast from Rostock (Warnemȕnde) to the Polish border. This has been the German Riviera for many years. The Prussian kings made the island of Rȕgen their summer resort and the main town of Bergen still shows the grand elegant building of a German Golden Age.

At Rügen one can turn inland to an area called the Hiddensee a little known area of interconnected lakes and rivers running to the Polish border. Here you come across the ancient Hanseatic town of Stralsund, sadly badly damaged in World War 2 but raised again and very interesting. A little further on is the more sinister Peenemünde where V1 and V2 rockets were developed and manufactured; now a museum. All the places along this coast have been greatly restored since reunification of Germany and the German Riviera is back.

Leaving Germany we went north to the island of Bornholm, passing on our way Hitler’s huge 10,000 apartment holiday resort , at Prora, for the Party faithful. Bornholm is an outlier of Denmark and is a flagship of a greener ‘smart-grid’ world. This scheme is part of ‘Eco Grid EU’ that involves switching all cars on the island to electric and using their batteries each night as grid storage. Innovation is not limited to industry for there are numerous artists and galleries throughout.

The southern coast of Sweden between Simrishamn and Karlskrona is a quiet coast with lots to explore. The sparsely populated island of Hanö had sculptures strategically placed around it creating multiple surprises as we hiked around it. Karlskrona has been the headquarters of the Swedish Navy for centuries and as such is packed with interesting maritime history. Approaching it one passes the area of numerous foreign submarine intrusions made famous by Kurt Wallander in his novel ‘The Troubled Man’. Kungsholm Fortress with its walled harbour is a ‘must see’.

_We came back to circle the Danish islands of Falster and Lolland on our way back to the German coast. Lolland is famous for its ‘Hydrogen Community’. This is a wind generated power system that stores electricity by manufacturing hydrogen by electrolysis and then converting it back to electricity when the wind is not blowing by the use of fuel cells. We Travelled East this time into the Kieler Bucht, the headquarters of the German Navy, with famous place names everywhere. Entering the bay we passed the impressive U-Boat Memorial to 35,000 sailors lost at sea with an example of their iron coffins at the base.

From here we went north up the coast of Schleswig Holstein, territory that has gone back and forth between Denmark and the German Principalities for centuries. We closed the loop at Middlefart and so back to Århus that we had left 4 months earlier.

Cruising the Baltic always leaves you with the feeling that so many interesting places were passed by and your head is so full of new facts and experiences. You need a #retirement winter to reflect and relive it all.

For other Cruising blogs see the Archive links in the sidebar at the top of this page.
Other blogs of interest are The Retirement Dream and How to Live Your Dream

Technical Blogs are Nail Biting Experiences #1 Crossing the Bar , The Changing Nature of Sailing and Cruising and Yacht Docking Skills for Northern Europe

Then back down the coast and across the centre of Sweden via Lake Vänern and the Göta Canal to the east coast to make our next rendezvous on the canal. Into the Baltic and up the east coast through the archipelago to Stockholm where the Tall Ships Regatta was just arriving.

For other Cruising blogs see the Archive links in the sidebar at the top of this page.
Other blogs of interest are The Retirement Dream and How to Live Your Dream

Technical Blogs are Nail Biting Experiences #1 Crossing the Bar , The Changing Nature of Sailing and Cruising and Yacht Docking Skills for Northern Europe

After our first learning experience on Enterprise we left her sat in a cradle in Haarlem with a leaky stern gland and went to crew for a friend on a cruise from Wales to the Southern coast of Ireland; what you might call 'a busman's holiday'. On our return, for the next five weeks we worked like demons at wire brushing, painting and cleaning every nook and cranny while we waited for the repairs to be done. During that time we made acquaintance with joggers and dog walkers on the tow path, house boat dwellers and even the man on the garbage clean-up barge. There was a group of boat owners who came to the dock several times a week just to sit on each boat in turn and drink beer just to escape from their wives. We began to understand the life of the river; even though it was hard work it was enjoyable but, it was hot and without being in the water Enterprise got so warm that we ended up camping in the cockpit.

The problem with the stern gland was immediately obvious; it was made of mild steel and had become pitted over time so had to be replaced with a stainless steel one. That was easier said than done. Whereas a stern gland gasket can be replaced by simply uncoupling the prop shaft from the engine and sliding it backwards, replacing the prop shaft required lifting the engine out of the way, removing the propeller and  withdrawing it into the ship.

So we were back to living around engine parts again while we waited to get a new prop shaft and coupling machined in Rotterdam. The bearing needed to be replaced also, just to be on the safe side, and all these jobs were time consuming.

Finally we were ready to sail. The plan was to lock out of the canal system at IJmuiden and cross the North Sea to Lowestoft in the UK. From there we would sail South to Ramsgate before crossing over to France at Calais and follow the French coast to Morlaix in Brittany. My brother had a farmhouse there and we could use it during the winter if we got 'cabin fever'.
It was not to work out that way,
            'The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Sailors Gang aft agley,
             An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
             For promis’d joy!',
                                                                  to paraphrase Robert Burns' poem 'To a Mouse'.
To catch the tide at IJmuiden we left in in the late afternoon when all our new acquaintances, who had watched us working, were around to wave goodbye. This was the next level of challenge; but it came a lot sooner than we anticipated. 200 metres off the dock the old Volvo engine, that had been coaxed back to life, seized up. The smiles and waves of the house boat owners turned to alarm as we drifted down onto their beautiful picture windows. We got the anchor down before we hit and then sat there in ignominy waiting for a tow back to the dock. All that effort and sense of  achievement came crashing down in an instant.

The decision was easy: a new reliable engine was needed. We opted for a 3 cylinder Yamaha but that meant that the engine mounting bed had to be altered to align with the prop shaft. This was a messy business involving grinding and welding and during that work we had to vacate the ship and camp in a shed on the dock. Luckily we had a marine engineer who really moved things along and next day the engine was removed and the new bed started.

Even with lots of protection the cutting process made the boat filthy and broke June's heart when we had worked so hard to clean it. With all the disruption it was obvious that we should install new bilge hoses, that were threaded through the engine compartment, new sea cocks and engine electrics.

A new propeller was required with size and pitch to match the new engine characteristics so we were into another lift out and relaunch. Finally, with final engine trials over, we were ready once again to start, just 9 days after our last fiasco. Such a quick turn around was phenomenal and a great tribute to Gerard Klomp. The pain was mitigated by the great hospitality that we experienced in the Netherlands.

This time we left quietly with heartfelt farewells and locked out into the North Sea at IJmuiden stopping briefly at the marina until the tide was right. The complete log of our impending  journey can be seen at the following link. You have to have Google Earth installed and remember to tick the boxes in 'Temporary Places' when it opens. Zooming in gives great detail and when you scroll over a yellow push pin the log book entry will come up. enterprise_cruise_2004_-_2.kmz
If you do not wish to bother with that here is a picture of the first leg. Incidently, it shows the multiple sandbanks in this shallow sea, many of which are exposed at low tide.

For the trip across to Lowestoft our friend Ron had joined us. The previous two days had been stormy but that had passed and the forecast was good, Force 3 but on the nose. It was dark when we left so we did not see the rather fearsome waves ahead. In our ignorance we had not realised that after a storm in this sea it takes a while for the waves to die down in these shallow waters. We also had not thought about the locker latches not being up to the job, until the lockers opened and spilled everything onto the cabin floor. It was an awful mess of broken crockery and spilled food. Once off the shelving coast the sea calmed down, June ordered us out of the cabin and spent the best part of the crossing cleaning up the mess. Ron, for the first and only time in his life experienced sea sickness and I ended up with a few nasty bruises. We never made that mistake again; the locker latches were replaced at the first opportunity and part of our pre-sailing check list was to secure the contents and put a bungee cord across them. As we gained experience, our pre-sailing check list got longer and longer.

The next day Ron left us and we wondered if he would ever want to sail on Enterprise again, (but he did many times). We had agreed to meet up with our son Howard and his two daughters to sail with them on the next leg South but the engine problems had made us days late and they had a deadline for getting back to Canada, so their sail was curtailed. We met up the next day and set sail as soon as the tide was right. By doing this we committed an error that every cruising sailor makes and we were to make many times; ignoring the elements because of the necessity to fit an itinerary that land based visitors have set up, usually for good reasons that are unconnected to the weather. The wind was heading us for most of the journey, although not exceeding Force 5, but wind against tide makes for steep, short seas and an uncomfortable ride. The girls were inexperienced sailors and consequently spent the whole trip down below feeling miserable. We should have waited another day for easier conditions and as a consequence may have put them off of sailing for the rest of their lives. However, the next day we sailed up the river to Ipswich and hopefully redeemed ourselves a little.

 This is a rather clever system to keep a ship on track. These rivers are tidal and at low tide the marina is behind a wide mudflat. Therefore ships must lock in to the marina but to even get to the lock there is a long, straight dredged channel from the deeper water and it is important to stay in the middle of this channel. That is where the system comes in. The Inogen Leading Light is situated on the Starboard Side of the Lock Entrance. When a vessel is on the correct line of approach in the Entrance Channel a vertical Black line is seen in the centre of an orange screen. Any deviation from the correct bearing will cause the black vertical line to change to arrows. You just veer in the direction of the arrows to come back to the correct bearing.

The Goodwin Sands have an almost gothic reputation and for good reason. Since the first documented shipwreck on Goodwin Sands in 1298, more than 2,000 ships are believed to have been wrecked here. Dozens of wrecks still lie underneath the sands and, because they become 'quick' on a rising tide, sometimes long buried shipwrecks reappear. Submarine SM U-48 is an interesting example; caught on the surface recharging batteries during World War 1, it was shelled by several ships and then chased into the Goodwin Sands, where the crew surrendered. An ignominious end for a U-boat that had sunk 34 vessels and captured two. The vessel reappeared in 1921 and then again in 1973 when the following photograph was taken over the northern part of the Goodwin Sands. Also, a twin-engined Dornier 17 bomber was discovered on Goodwin Sands seventy years after it was shot down during the height of the Battle of Britain. It is thought to be part of a large enemy formation intercepted by RAF Defiant fighter aircraft at midday on August 26, 1940 as they attempted to attack airfields in Essex. The pilot attempted a wheels-up landing on the Goodwin Sands, touching down but with the aircraft sinking inverted. The aircraft was in remarkable condition considering spending so many years under water. Other than marine concretion it is largely intact, the main undercarriage tyres remain inflated and the propellers clearly show the damage inflicted during their final landing. It has recently been salvaged and will be placed in a museum.

The Sands  are about 16 km long and 6 km wide at their widest, but due to the tides and currents, the shoals are constantly shifting.  The Sands are completely submerged between 8 to 15 meters beneath the surface at high tide, but as the tide falls, the sandbanks break the surface and expose about a tenth of their total area. During these times, the sand is firm enough to walk upon.  In the Great Storm of 1703 at least 13 men-of-war and 40 merchant vessels were wrecked, with the loss of 2,168 lives. Among them was the Stirling Castle with the loss of 279 people; its timbers resurfaced in 1979, 256 years after it sank.

We started with two and a half hours of hard flog past the West Goodwin's marker until we reached a point at which we felt that it would be safe to turn East because we could see the South Goodwin's lightship to port. (This lightship was in a James Bond thriller "Moonraker"). However, when we turned eastwards we were broadside to the  wind and waves and rolling badly. From starboard gunwale under to port gunwale under with every wave and making slow progress into the bargain. After half an hour of this we decided that we could not take any more and turned tail for Dover, but it was still an hour and a quarter rolling ride back. Luckily, the Dover coastguard who had been watching our progress on the radar took pity on us and let us into the shelter of the ferry entrance, a rare privilege for a yacht. So our plans were changed and perhaps just as well for my body seemed to say that it had had enough and after a hospital visit I was in bed for a while.

Our new plans had us passing through the straights of Dover and along the South coast of England to Brighton, from where we would make the passage to Cherbourg. Then we would go  around Cap de La Hague, through the Alderney Race to Guernsey, finally across to Brittany and to Morlaix. It was 9 September when we left Dover and we were very conscious that we were much later than intended and going into a period of equinoctial gales.

The leg from Brighton to Cherbourg requires careful planning as the tidal currents in the Channel are strong and become very strong the closer you get to France. The strategy is normally to aim for the final destination and not worry about being swept up and down until getting closer to your destination, at that point you want the tidal stream to sweep you in the direction that you want to go. It is all a matter of arriving at the right place at the right time. If you get it wrong, you cannot possibly fight the current and have to wait out a tidal cycle holding your position with the engine until the current turns in your favour.
After a wait of a day in Brighton there was a weather window and we set sail at 05:15 on 25 Sept 2004. What we did not know was that this was one of those rare times when the weather forecast was wrong. 6 hours out and the wind became Force 5 and 10 hours out Force 6 with building seas. After that it built more and we could not keep the log but rather focus on survival one wave at a time. Our speed had dropped right off so of course we missed the rendezvous with the tidal current and had to try to hold our position off the Barfleur peninsula for 6 hours in those conditions. We had no auto-helm so somebody had to stay at the wheel all the time. Theoretically the other one should have slept but we were so frightened of falling asleep at the wheel that we both stayed in the cockpit, one trying to keep the other awake. We could see the flash of the Barfleur lighthouse  and knew that it should be off the port bow but frequently it suddenly appeared off the starboard quarter so we knew that the other had fallen asleep at the wheel. It was a night that we will never forget.

Also, very close to where we were, another event happened that changed the course of British history. On the 25 November 1120 a ship known as 'The White Ship' hit a rock off Barfleur and all but one on board were drowned. The problem was that one of those drowned was the heir to the throne of England and that triggered a devastating civil war. These waters carried the westerly flank of the great invasion fleet of D-Day, 6th June 1944. Understanding the currents and weather in this area makes one realise just how difficult that invasion was.

Eventually we made it into Cherbourg's inner harbour but were so tired and disoriented that we found ourselves in the restricted area near the naval dockyard with a rib approaching us at high speed full of sailors armed to the teeth; an alarming experience. They escorted us out of that area once they had determined that we had no malicious intent but the response seemed disproportionate, however we were later to learn why. Eventually we tied up in the marina and the relief was overwhelming. A few minutes later another yacht came in and tied up near us. The three young men aboard jumped ashore and kissed the ground! We discovered that they had sailed from Portland in the UK and been caught in the same weather, at least that validated that it was not our fault that we got caught too. Then the next morning the Barfleur lifeboat came in with a yacht lashed to the side. It turned out that the yacht had left Brighton 8 hours after us intending to catch the next tidal cycle but after being caught like us they had called the lifeboat. So we felt pretty pleased with ourselves since the crews on those other two yachts were probably 40 years younger than us.
A couple of days later we discovered the reason for the robust response to straying into restricted waters when we were asked to participate in a protest flotilla trying to stop two vessels from docking in Cherbourg. They were carrying plutonium from decommissioned missiles under the Nuclear Disarmament Agreement between the USA and the USSR to be reprocessed in France.

We had promised to spent a couple of weeks with friends in Tuscany, Italy ( we had expected to be at our final destination by then), but we had lost so much time that we were only in Cherbourg. So we left the ship there, rented a car and drove to Italy. We did not get back until 21 October which pushed us into full winter conditions for sailing to our destination. However, our leg to St. Peter Port Guernsey, through the Alderney Race, was straightforward. Again it is a matter of getting the currents right. The water divides at Cap de la Hague with some continuing West and some doing a left turn down the Alderney Race where currents can reach 12 knots at times so you not want to have wind against tide. The turning point is always rough but it does not last long until you are through it.  In rougher water one holds onto the edge of the spray hood and I guess that the arc that supports the edge had had enough and collapsed on this passage. It turned out to be a rather flimsy aluminum affair so once we reached Guernsey we had new stainless steel arcs made to support the spray hood. So that delayed us a couple of additional days before we continued on 5 November to the Brittany coast.

you feel that you are the only person waking up at that time and then you hear another engine start in the distance; you slip the lines and inch away into the darkness but as you approach the open water other pin pricks of light appear on other boats converging and you breath a sigh of relaxation since you know that you got the calculations right (or everyone else got them wrong too!). An hour or so later and you are all alone as the sky to the east gradually lightens. It is an almost spiritual experience as the first rays of sunlight come over the horizon and the water surface is turned to a brilliant reddish gold. It only lasts a few minutes but in those moments everything seems reborn and worthwhile.

The most fascinating thing about the waters that we were about to sail across is their currents and strength of those currents. The above picture-link is an animated depiction of them. As the video plays out you will notice how the water draining out of the Bay of St. Malo meets the incoming tide and a circular tidal current pattern is set up. The only place in the world where this occurs, as far as I know. With all this water being driven in and out of a confined area, St. Malo is the place in Europe with the highest tidal range at Springs, nearly 12 m (or 40 ft). Looking at these currents you can see how important it is to get it right even if that means setting the alarm for 4:30am!
The trip across to the Brittany coast was straightforward and the weather good. There are two rocky plateaux but they are well marked so the only challenge is to make sure that you are positioned not to be swept onto them by the currents. On the other hand, the same cannot be said for the Brittany coast which is extremely rocky and indented with coves and estuaries, often protected by outlying rocks. This is what makes it so attractive and a navigational challenge. The approach to our destination, Port Blanc, was a good example for it cannot be seen at all from the sea. The skipper gets the ship in the right position, then sails for the rocks on the right bearing and as you get close (provided that he has not lost his nerve and done a U turn) the entrance gap opens up and he arrives in a beautiful cove ringed by a former fishing village.
All went according to plan and we had just moored up to a visitors buoy and put the coffee pot on when a motor boat arrived alongside and somebody claiming to be the Harbour Master told us brusquely that the Port was closed and we had to leave immediately. After some discussion we left, but not without some trepidation for there was only an hour of daylight left and there was no access to the next port of Perros-Guirec because the lock gates were closed. We moved along the rocky shore and picked a spot where we thought that we would be sheltered and not go aground at low tide, then dropped the anchor as darkness fell. We always have a sleepless night at a new anchorage worrying if the anchor will hold or slowly drag and we will find ourselves on the rocks in the morning.

Our experience at Port Blanc was extremely unusual as ships are never forced to go back out to sea. In discussions with other sailors later their consensus seemed to be that there was some clandestine event scheduled for that night, probably smuggling, and our unusual presence so late in the year disrupted that. We have wondered ever since.

After this unpleasant experience we were anxious to get to our destination of Morlaix. This would be our final navigational challenge for the year. It is famous as being a refuge for the Corsairs, sort of legalised pirates. They chose the spot because in the days before modern navigation it was just about impossible for strangers to find their way in and that is what makes it so fascinating today. The City of Morlaix is located at the head of a river that dries out at low tide and which flows into a long shallow estuary which in turn, exits to the sea through a narrow rocky entrance. Outside the entrance is a maze of rocks reaching way out to sea. We had been there before on another yacht  but it always requires extreme caution. There is a detailed description of the Morlaix approach in our Blog for 2011 'Cold Welsh rain to Warm Basque Rain'.

The lock gate at Morlaix only opens 1 hour before High water to one hour after High water in daylight hours so it is usually  impossible to arrive at the estuary and travel straight through to Morlaix. Our solution was to find an anchorage spot as close to the oyster beds as we dared and wait overnight to go up on the rising tide. That way if you go aground you just wait for the tide to lift you off. This spot is idyllic in the early morning with the quiet only broken by the chiming of a distant church bell across the misty waters. We have anchored here a couple of times since and it has always been a magical moment in the morning. This time we crept along in the morning mist and up the Morlaix River  to arrive in time for the first lock opening. What a relief as the gates closed behind us and we had completed our very challenging cruising season. All the money in the world could not have bought the experiences that we had had.

The full route can be seen by following this link to Google Earth, enterprise_cruise_2004_-_1.kmz make sure that you have the ‘temporary places’ box ticked when it is open. Clicking on the yellow push pins will open log entries.  However, if you do not wish to do that here is the picture.

  We found Enterprise on the internet in 2003, went to see her later that year, burned our bridges and went to take up residence aboard in 2004. This is the story of our first trip, learning as we went around the waterways of North Holland ( see Enterprise's Story). Many pictures are links.

When we arrived to move on board, just one Dutch winter had blown the cover partly off and covered everything with green slime. If we had not burned our bridges we may have given up right there. But having no choice, we worked like dogs for the next 2 months, living aboard in difficult conditions such as when the engine  sat in the middle of the cabin floor while a moonlighting Volvo mechanic stripped it down and rebuilt it over the course of a week. However, all this history is the subject of another blog (that is yet to be written).

By 24 May 2004 we were ready to cast off; it felt more like a sky diver's first jump for we were launching into the most difficult stretch of waterway in the Netherlands in a boat that we had never driven before. The Spaarne River has been canalised and flows through the centre of the picturesque city of Haarlem, therefore it is twisting, with 10 opening bridges squeezed into a short distance and was busy with commercial barges at that time

It could be an hour or 5 minutes. It is no good calling up on VHF as pleasure boats rarely get a reply. So we approached our first bridge and hovered and circled as the current and wind forced us into the bank. Then a commercial barge came up and 5 minutes later the bridge went up and we followed it through. Similarly for the next bridge but then came the start of the twisting narrow bit.

This jewel of a city, situated just 20km west of Amsterdam, has always been overshadowed by its big neighbour since 1245. Even when the Dutch founded Nieuw Amsterdam (New York) they created Haarlem (Harlem) as a suburb! Nowadays, with Amsterdam being afflicted by 'over tourism', this has turned out to be a blessing as tourists in the know stay here and commute to Amsterdam. Then they are seduced by the charm of Haarlem and don't bother with Amsterdam.

We stuck close to the big commercial barge 'Equivalent' and passed through the next three bridges without incident but the sting was in the tail because the next one was a railway bridge closely paired with a main road bridge with only space between them for one commercial barge to wait. Now railway bridges only open infrequently according to the train schedule. So 'Equivalent' waited and we hovered, finally it backed up and moored to piles but there was no where for us to moor which meant that we circled around in front of the picturesque windmill, Molen de Adriaan, going aground several times.

 Eventually, over two hours after arriving we got through but we were always nervous about going through Haarlem after that. One last bridge had to be passed (another has since been built) before reaching our destination for the night and this was where one paid the tolls for all the preceding bridges. As we approached, the bridge keeper let down a wooden shoe on a fishing line, we put our fee in and sailed on through. Unfortunately, this colourful practice has since been discontinued.

The waterways of the Netherlands are complicated with their network of canals (some little more than drainage ditches and some capable of handling ocean liners) and multiple water levels connected by locks. A little history lesson is necessary to understand this cruise in North Holland.
When the Romans arrived this land was lakes and peat bogs protected from the North Sea by a band of sandy dunes. A branch of the Rhine River fed the water into a large lake called Lacus Flevo which in turned drained into the North Sea by the River IJ at IJmuiden (IJ Mouth). Other rivers flowed into it, notably the Amstel and the Spaarne.

 By 850 AD the sandbars to the North were starting to erode letting in the North Sea tides and storm surges causing catastrophic floods in 838 AD. The people scrambled to build dikes and dams to protect themselves. One was a dam across the River Amstel and after that the place was called Amsterdam. A side effect of the breach in the sand dunes was that sea going vessels could now reach Amsterdam and its prosperity increased.
With rising sea levels in the Middle Ages the sandbars were further swept away and the lake became an arm of the North Sea called the Zuider Zee. Now North Holland was totally exposed to the North Sea storms. Catastrophic storms in 1404, 1412, 1530, 1570 and 1717 drowned over 10,000 people, swept away villages and permanently drowned coastal towns. After each storm the dikes were rebuilt higher, only to be breached in the next storm.

 So it was diked, starting in 1840, and finally drained by 1852. Today it is Schiphol (Ship Hole) Airport  which is 4 m below sea level.
Digging began in 1865 to connect Amsterdam to the North Sea by way of  the IJ Bay and cutting through the dunes at the old location of IJmuiden. Dikes were buit on either side and the land outside reclaimed. Today there is no trace of the old IJ Bay, just a massive canal capable of taking cruise vessels right up to Amsterdam. This involved large locks at either end and locks on either side to manage water levels since Amsterdam is 2m below sea level.

Finally, in 1916 a huge tidal surge caused widespread flooding prompting the Government to activate an old scheme of closing the Zuider Zee with a dam, a massive undertaking involving a dam 32 km long with huge sluices and locks. Work began in 1920 and was completed in 1932. Gradually the impounded water  became fresh. Another catastrophic flood occurred in 1953  but thanks to the enclosing of the Zuider Zee the worst damage was caused in the southern part of the country, prompting another huge engineering project called the Delta Works. There were plans to completely drain what was now called the IJsselmeer and to this end a second dike was constructed accross the middle and completed in 1976. The southern part was then called the Markermeer. The water of North Holland was now totally engineered into one vast hydraulic system.

The next day saw us tackling our first lock in Enterprise in order to drop down from the river Spaarne to the North Sea Canal on our way to Amsterdam. Like most things it sounds simple but is not. The object is to bring the ship to a halt precisely where you want it against the lock wall and get lines around the bollards to secures it. However, stopping a ship is not like a car for there are no brakes, only reverse gear. So bringing our 7.5 tonnes of ship to a stop a few feet from the ship in front was a challenge. Too much reverse and the bow kicked out from the wall out of reach of the bollard. Before you know where you are you can be crosswise in the  lock, viewed with alarm and derision by everyone. When you are descending it is easier because the water is at the top of the  top of the lock and the bollards easily reached without the need to lassoo them long distance. We managed our first lock without embarrassment, even though there were two commercial barges and 4 yachts packed in; embarrassment was for later!

Sailing down the North Sea canal was our first experience of meeting really big nieghbours close up. Later experiences were even closer but at this stage we were still intimidated.

One meets all sorts of interesting vessels on the Dutch waterways and this trip was no exception.

The approach to Amsterdam is disappointing for none of the pictuesque buildings can be seen. This is because the land in front of the old waterfront was reclaimed and a massive railway station built together with a traffic circulation area. That was obviously a time before tourism considerations. We had been told that the best Marina to go to was Sixhaven, right accross from the station and next to a free ferry. Well when we arrived it looked like everyone else had had the same idea! We were like sardines in a can, rafted eight deep.

What more can be said about Amsterdam that has not been said many times before. Suffice it to say we stayed 6 nights here.  We finally got out of there after much juggling of yachts like a chess game and headed for Oranjesluizen to lock up into the Markermeer. This is the lock at the eastern end of the North Sea Canal and where we made a complete mess of it  and were greatly embarrassed.

 When the Zuider Zee was dammed up it was the begining of the end for the maritime history of ports  like Hoorn and Enkhuizen that grew from fishing villages in the 700's to international maritime hubs in the Dutch Golden Age (around 1600 - 1700) only to decline back to fishing ports when their harbours silted up. However, what glorious cities remained!  We first called at Hoorn, (after which Cape Horn was named by Willem Schouten in 1616), which was the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company with exclusive rights to the spice trade for a while. A native son of Hoorn founded the modern city of Batavia (now Jakarta) in 1619.

Then we locked through the Markerwaarddijk from the Markermeer to the IJsselmeer to visit Enkhuizen. This town mirrors Hoorn and has an almost identical history. The harbour is dominated by the town gate, The Drommedaris just like Hoorns' tower. However, this town hosts the Museum of the Zuiderzee which we found fascinating with its reconstructed village created from buildings and artifacts brought from all around the area.

From Enkhuizen we crossed the IJsselmeer to Stavoren in Friesland to be greeted by the Lady of Stavoren. The North  side of the IJsselmeer is very different country, low pasture land that has been frequently flooded over the years which has however produced ideal agricultural conditions. This is much less populated country and may have more Friesian cows than people! We would return to Stavoren in a later cruise as it is on the 'Mast Up' route through the Netherlands. Next day we sailed for the 'Isle' of Urk and discovered a nasty little secret of the IJsselmeer. Because the water is fresh and when there is no wind and the temperature is just right you can have a sudden bloom of billions of tiny black flies. After leaving Stavoren that is what we experienced; they stuck to everything for they seemed to die where they landed, The sails were black, the decks were black and our clothes were black with flies. In a couple of hours the plague had passed but we spent most of our time in Urk washing down the sails ,decks and ourselves.

For a thousand years Urk was an island but in 1940 with the completion of the Noordoostpolder it joined  the mainland. The inhabitants still think of themselves as 'islanders' and maintain their distinct cultural history.

The reclamation of the Zuider Zee was interupted by the Second World War but afterwards work continued on the East  and South polders and was completed in 1957 and 1958. The three polders then became the new Dutch province of Flevoland. Our next destination was Lelystad the new capital of this province. As a young man in in 1951 I can remember taking a ferry from Kampen to Hoorn sailing over all this land; strange, it makes me feel ancient.

Approaching Lelystad we saw a full size replica of the 'Batavia', Abel Tasman's ship. This Dutch navigator   discovered  New Zealand, Tasmania and circumnavigated Australia 100 years before Captain Cook.

By this time we felt that we had tested Enterprise enough and learned to handle her. There was some concern about the reverse gear  for it seemed to be slow to engage and that was our brake. So we decided to return to the boatyard in Haarlem where we could have it looked at and anyway we had committed to crew for a friend on a cruise fom the UK to Southern Eire in a few days time. We had learned a lot and all went smoothly until we reached the Catharijnebrug in Haarlem.

As had happened to us before, we tried to follow a loaded barge through but the light turned red and the bridge started to close but this time when we tried to engage reverse nothing happened! It looked like we were going to crash into this listed national monument. We tried to do a Uturn in the narrow space but hit a pile with a heavy, glancing blow and managed to stop at a second pile. What could have been a disaster ended up with paint damage and a lost boat hook. The most damage was to the confidence of the crew which had just recovered from the fiasco in the Oranjesluizen.
Finally tied up at the boatyard we breathed out, made supper and started packing for the next day's departure to the UK. Then a piercing alarm went off. We had no idea what it was because we did not know that we had such an alarm. Frantic searching revealed that the ship was sinking with water nearly up ro the floorboards. Hand cranking the bilge pump could lower it but within an hour it was back again. With the energy of desperation we ran around and arranged for her to be lifted out of the water in the evening. It turned out that the stern gland rubber gasket that prevents water coming in through the propeller shaft  bearing had failed. A major repair job involving removal of the engine and prop shaft but that will be the subject of another blog. So ended our first cruise in Enterprise.

For other Cruising blogs see the Archive links in the sidebar at the top of this page.
Other blogs of interest are The Retirement Dream and How to Live Your Dream

Technical Blogs are Nail Biting Experiences #1 Crossing the Bar , The Changing Nature of Sailing and Cruising and Yacht Docking Skills for Northern Europe