The End

Wednesday 24^th August 2011 – Haringvliet

We left Oud Beijerland during the morning in very poor visibility to take the last of the tide through the Spui down to the Haringvliet, where we headed towards the dam wall and found a mooring buoy near the beach on the Hellevoetsluis side, however, for the night we moved over to a buoy on the opposite side (Stellendam side), where we were more sheltered from the wind.

Distance motored: 14 nm

Sunset over the Haringvliet Dam Wall

Thursday 25^th August 2011 – a lazy day

It was a rather wet morning, so we just read books and relaxed in the late afternoon we moved back across the lake to the buoy off the beach, where James rowed ashore and I thought I would swim, until I got off the boat and found that I could stand so I waded ashore and walked to the end of the beach and waded out into deep water until I could swim the kilometre back to the boat. 

Friday 26^th August 2011 – River Steenbergsche 

At 10 am we left our mooring at the dam end of the Haringvliet and motored the 16 miles east to the bridge at the other end of the lake which only opens on the hour, we went through the bridge on the 13.00 opening and crossed to the Volkerak Lock, and locked through to the Volkerak And then we went up into the Steenbergsche River to a favourite anchoring spot just before the turning to De Heen. 

View up the river the way I swam to the chalets.

James took the dinghy up to De Heen for a walk and I swam for 45 minutes, past the entrance to De Heen to see two  newfloating holiday chalets that had appeared, since we were here last year!

Distance motored: 26 nm

Twilight over the river

Saturday 27^th & Sunday 28^th August 2011 – Exercise and boat cleaning.

Before breakfast on Saturday, we took the dinghy to De Heen for an hours walk; since we walk at such different speeds, James went one way and I the other way with my Nordic walking poles, and I also found the shop and purchased croissants for breakfast. 

Alongside the bank at De Heen

Later in the day we brought Paddington IV into De Heen; as one can more alongside the river bank which is very low and James was able to clean and polish the port hull between the showers.  We did the same thing on Sunday to do the starboard hull, however, our walk that afternoon was curtailed by some heavy rain, so later in the afternoon I went off swimming again when we were back at our anchorage. 

Is this a female sparrow hawk?

On Sunday morning we were excited to watch a female sparrow hawk [I think] sitting for quite a long time on a branch in front of the boat.  

Monday 29^th August 2011 – Veerse Meer

We left our anchorage at 9 am and an hour later we were through the Philipsdam lock, which we had to ourselves!  Then we motored the 30 minutes on to Bruinisse, where we moored to staging near the lock and walked to the supermarket to replenish our stores, we had hoped to find the café by the harbour open for lunch, but discovered it is closed on Monday and Tuesday’s.  So we had to make do with the local Albert Heijn supermarket.

The harbour at Bruinisse is in chaos with lots of noise as they are dropping stone down the sides prior to making a yacht harbour before the Grevelingenmeer; I assume that the fishing fleet is now so small that they do not need all the space.

We had lunch aboard before leaving Bruinisse for the trip down the Zijpe to the Oosterschelde which was quite rough with south west winds of 5 – 7; we were able to sail briefly one of the legs before turning for the Zandkreek lock into the Veerse Meer. 

De Omloop

 We motored up the Veerse Meer to De Omloop, where there is free staging and we were pleasantly surprised to find some space alongside, even more became available the next day.  I suppose this shows what poor weather we have been having!

Motored / sailed 20 nm (the log lost its calibration and went very slow, so it should have been at least 25 nm)

Tuesday 30^th August 2011 – Market Day in Veere

Veere Market: a cheese stall

We spent the morning packing up the boat in readiness for two days of passage making to get us home.  I was in charge of the aft cabin and James the cockpit locker and putting the dinghy away.

Once the work was done we then cycled the 6 or so miles along the Veerse Meer to Veere where it was market day and it was certainly busy with lots of local produce on sale.  We made up for not being able to have Kibbeling (small bits of battered fish) and fries at Bruinisse by having them for lunch here where there were at least 3 stalls selling them.

Wednesday 31^st August 2011 – Blankenberg, Belgium

Veere Lock & church in the background

We left De Omloop at 07.30 for the journey down the Walcheren Canal, which we entered via the lock at Veere, not surprisingly at that early hour; we had the lock to ourselves.  In Middleburg we took the opportunity to top up our diesel tank, the cheapest fuel we have bought in Holland or Germany at E1.27 per litre.  The canal from Veere to Flushing took us 3 hours to traverse the 7 or so miles with 7 bridges and 2 locks to contend with, this was probably one of our quickest journeys down this canal.  James was also able to re-calibrate the log!  In the lock at Flushing we dropped 3 metres before being spewed out to sea for the 22 miles down the coast to Blankenberg in Belgium which took us 3 ¾ hours against the tide.  Arriving in Blankenberg, I was amazed to see just how high the tide was, almost to the top of their marina wall, I gather we are on some of the largest tides of the year.

Blankenberg: Visitors pontoon

Once in Blankenberg we had a walk around some of the shopping areas and then along the promenade.  In the evening we went to our now customary end of trip restaurant “Oberbayern”, where traditionally James and I always have Chateaubriand, it was as good as ever.

Berth at the Royal Scarphout Yacht club in Blankenberg: E 21.00 p.n

Motored 33 nm

Thursday 1^st September 2011 – Home to Royal Harwich YC at Woolverstone

Dawn over the North Sea off Blankenberg

An early start just before dawn (04.45 BST) saw us leaving Blankenberg with an easterly force 4 wind, so we were able to motor sail.  The sea was a little lumpy at the beginning and at the end, due to the shallow waters off the Belgium and English coasts, but as crossings of the North Sea go – it was really quite a reasonable one undertaken in nice sunny weather although the wind was cold, thank goodness for our deck saloon with inside steering, it really is so civilised!

Sunrise

We were back in our berth at Woolverstone at 17.15, a journey time of 12.5 hours and it was lovely to be met by friends, who arrived with sticky buns for tea and others who popped in for drinks.  James satisfied his longing for English fish and chips with supper at The Butt & Oyster at Pin Mill – what a nice way to finish our summer 2011 cruise.

Motored / sailed 90 nm

Cruise details: 4,282 nm logged. 

132 nights away: 86 in Norway, 15 in Denmark, 31 in Germany, Holland and Belgium

Over £3,000 of diesel used and £1000 in berthing fees!

The boat proved yet again how comfortable she is for long distance cruising and whilst there were minor engineering niggles which always annoyed James, as he spends so much time each winter working on her, they were in the context of the amount of miles we covered very minor.  

We felt that we never really had a summer, being so far north in Norway even when the sun shone there was always a cold wind.  On talking to many people in the different countries we visited and to friends on our return, it would seem as though the whole of Northern Europe has had a poor summer, so perhaps it means we will need to book some winter sun for the New Year!

In conclusion, Norway was challenging, particularly some of the navigation.  It was a thrill to cross into the Arctic Circle and to climb to the snout of a glacier, I failed to reach the top of a couple of mountain walks, but felt I had pushed myself far enough and was happy with what I achieved.  We did take a number of interesting and exciting excursions but they came a high cost, over twelve hundred pounds, more than we have spent any where else on similar length trips.  Norway lived up to its reputation of being expensive and we avoided eating out, we took all the booze we needed with us along with tinned and long life main meals, so that we only bought fresh fruit, vegetables and diary products excluding milk which I took in powdered form.  Both James and I agree that we would not wish to go back in our own boat, I personally think a fortnight's cruise is the way to see Norway, unless you are into mountain climbing!  It was not a very relaxing trip as there were a lot of miles to be covered, so we never had long in one place unless we were storm bound.  However, we did manage to have a few relaxing days back in Holland but because of family problems we had to curtail the trip by 12 days, which did mean that we had to rush the return journey more than we planned.

I hope that this diary of our summer has been of interest to my readers and that perhaps it will be useful to others considering doing a similar trip, which is why I tried to add in details of marina costs and miles sailed (etc) or perhaps I should say motored as I think we probably motored 95% of the time.  Norway in particular has very fickle winds and as we tended only to sail if the wind is in the right direction and there is enough of it to keep us moving at between 6 - 7 knots, particularly when we have long passages to accomplish, it did mean we used a lot of fuel, but the one good thing about Norway was that diesel cost were less than any of the other countries!