Bad day: Stupid lock guard, rain and Ronja hits the bottom of the canal
53° 13′ 37.4988” N 5° 49′ 1.452” E
July 19, 2012
Black day. Everything seems to be against us. We start with an argument with the gate guard at Willem Lorésluis. He lets the bridge dump down right in front of us. He thinks we are too slow to move towards bridge and lock. We blame him, that he only advertises his messages in Dutch. Angry talking over VHF.
And so it goes throughout the day. We hit the lock guards’ lunch break, we hit their after work shift, and we spend two to three hours alone in waiting. Meanwhile the rain pours down and the wind is whipping, even here inside the country.
Thrilling is that our echo-sounder constantly shows 10-20-30 centimeters of water under the keel. And regularly 0 centimeters. Often – five times a day – we hit the bottom of the canal and are briefly stuck. Dutch channels are not designed for ships with a draught of 1.75 meters.
At 19 o’clock, we do not want to go further. We moor to a field with a small bulwark and rings. Sleeping deeply. One cow muh’s twice. A few geese squawk. The rest is silence. An enchanting calm and dream-filled night.
Log book: Sailed: 9.00. Destination: Leuwarden (approximately). Arrival: 19.00 in Wergea, south of Leuwarden.
Canal boating in constant rain
53° 19′ 2.676” N 6° 9′ 58.3236” E
July 18, 2012
It takes a few hours to get through ten small bridges in Groningen. Actually ok. You approach the bridge, and then it opens. As a rule. A few times we have to call via VHF.
Unfortunately, both rain and wind are really beginning again and makes our trip somewhat sour. Occasionally, the storm is so strong that we make a stop at the shore until the worst wind is over. The anemometer shows wind speeds of 11, 12, 13 and 14 meters per second. Especially when we underway have to stick our noses into the Waddenzee for a few miles it feels dramatic.
At 16 o’clock we seek port. Large port but without life. Lunegat. The rain increases further.
Log book: Sailed 9.00. Destination: Leuwarden (approximately). Arrival 16:00 in Jachthaven Lunegat.
A stop over in Groningen. Super Town
53° 12′ 43.29” N 6° 34′ 13.4616” E
July 17, 2012
Jogging shoes on. We stay in Groningen an extra day and starts with a jog around Groningen’s central island, about 4 km.
The day we spend at a food market, a maritime museum and a great art museum. At the museum, “Groningen Museum”, we are especially excited about a Chinese installation artist Yin Xinzhen who make a single work of art at the same museum by Wei Wei seem unimaginative and boring.
The museum building itself is a mix of scandal and ingenious (see pictures).
We contacted Koos Stall (talented Dutch designer) and his wife, Magriet, to invite them to dinner at Ronja. But they were on summer holidays in their apartment in Berlin. They live only six kilometer from Groningen. Instead, we eat dinner at Ni hau, a Chinese restaurant with great food. Annoying however that monitors while we are eating show promotional videos for the whole Ni hau Group.
Groningen is a great city. Young, vibrant, energetic, alternative. Aarhus multiplied with two. A Danish girl studying at Groningen University, confirms with enthusiasm, that it is a more than commonly lovely city.
Groningen is a wonderfully varied city
53° 12′ 43.29” N 6° 34′ 13.4616” E
July 16, 2012
The lock in Delfzijl lowers us a meter, maybe one and a half. In front of us lies Ems Canal. 26 km straight, dug channel through agricultural land. The logistics are formidable. We pass eight bridges with virtually no latency. The bridges just goes up, when we approach.
In Groningen we turn into Oesterhaven, a marina right ind the middle of the city. For the first time with a formidable port master, that is ready with a megaphone to guide us into a proper berth.
Groningen is a wonderfully varied city. Old and new. Large and international. Young and alternative. 20,000 college students put a mark on the townscape. One senses that Holland even more than Denmark has been oriented towards international trade and travel. A maritime nation, that has channeled all sorts of peoples back to Holland and managed (?) to integrate them. Well, we see of course only the surface.
We get an impression of the city, and decides to have an extra day in Groningen. It is a bit like our old berth in Christianshavn canal, Copenhagen. Harbour-cruisers sail past and we hear guides explain, what the tourists see.
The weather is solid. Rain, rain, rain, rain.
Log-book: Sailed at 10:00. Destination Groningen. Arrival 13:00. Weather: So much wind, that we think: Lucky we are not out on the open sea today. Southwest 11 and up meters / second.
Still we do not understand the tide completely
53° 19′ 48.864” N 6° 55′ 51.1176” E
July 15, 2012
Up at six o’clock. Immediately we start. We follow Jörg’s advice. Beautiful morning. Even with small pieces of blue and glimpses of the sun. But the wind is again contrary, and waves are higher than we know from home.
We are – mildly speaking – uneasy in the sea. We have to pull op the main sail to stabilise the boat’s movements. Per would like to go on deck and hoist the sail, but Kirsten insists that it’s her job. She believes, that the chances are greater, that Per can save her from the water, if she falls, than for her to save Per.
Jörg’s schedule does not hold at all. It takes us six hours to reach Borkum, not four. In addition it takes a few hours to round this island, and we completely misses the tidal push in the Ems river, which should have given us an extra four knots on our way to dutch city Delfzijl.
Ems River is depressingly sad. Huge power plants dominates the entrance. And with no other boats on the water all seems desolate and bleak. Add to this the constantly gray weather.
On a “plaat”, as the Dutch call the surfaces exposed when the tide recedes, we see a seal. Further along the same plaat are a bunch of tourists boarding a ship after having been on a Wadden Sea tour.
Tide is a strange phenomenon. Now we have sailed in it for a week, and we still do not understand it completely, despite practical experience and tons of tidal informations.
But it is no longer quite the mystery, that it was before, we set keel into it for the first time.
Our first observation is, that you can avoid it at a great lenght. If you consciously opt the areas being reclaimed and ensures, that the depth even at low tide is ok, then only remains the question of getting more or less push out of the tide. The one and a half knots with or against, that we have known at home in Danish Svendborgsund may well in these waters be four knobs counter or co-current flow. It can turn into an advantage, and it can turn into a disadvantage.
Our second observation is that certainty about the current status of high tide or low tide can make it possible for you to pass areas where you otherwise would think: “Damn it! Here is not deep enough.” Proper planning gives you opportunities. Jörg gave us a copy of the program “wxtide47” that graphically tells you, where you at a given location are in the tidal cycle.
Our third observation is, that both the Germans and the Dutch have developed amazing engineering skills in creating tidal ports where pontoons rolls up the barrows, telephone pole-like pillars, and you can sleep sweetly, while water moves both two, three, four or more meters up and down below you.
Our fourth observation is more of an assertion: It does not matter if you get stuck on the ground, because if the tide is with you, eventually it will set you free again.
Delfzijl is a pure, unadulterated industrial city. But the city’s marina, Neptunus, is prima. We sleep well after 12 hours in the high waves.
Log-book: Sailed 6.00. Destination: Delfzijl in the Netherlands. Arrival 18:00. Weather: Wind from the west 10 meters per second. Almost contrary to our sailing direction. Big waves. Hammering up and down. Tiring sailing.
An interesting German spa- and wellness town
53° 42′ 8.3736” N 7° 9′ 56.6208” E
July 14, 2013
We are in Norderney. We are jogging seven kilometers in the town to get a sense of where we’ve arrived.
A spa town. Huge. Almost an industry. Hundreds of hotels and boarding houses, parks, cafes and a waterfront, which is powerful like the North Sea in Denmark. Very neat, very stylish, very beautiful and very subdued. This is apparently how the Germans have cure-vacation.
Back on the boat we do some cleaning. Later we cycle to town to shop. Falling into conversation with the owner of the neighboring boat, Jörg from Cologne, which has his Nauticat 33 lying in Ijselmeer and who knows the tidal waters and the Frisian Islands in and out.
The tips pours out of him. About tides, how to sail in the Wadden Sea, good advice on different cities, and advice on how to put up the boat up for the winter near Amsterdam.
He gives us some charts, a tide application for our computer and an auto map of the entire Netherlands. Good stuff.
“You have to leave at six o’clock in the morning,” he counsels us, looking at the tide-tabels. Damn! We were intending to sleep late tomorrow.
The wind howls. The rain splashes. We take an extra day at Helgoland
54° 10′ 33.3510” N 7° 53′ 38.1156” E
July 12, 2012
The wind howls. The rain splashes. The wind direction is counter to the direction we intend to go. We decide to spend the day on Helgoland.
In a gap between two rain-bursts we head to wander around the island. Interesting trip. Along the way, posters explain about the island’s history. Dramatic fighting between England and Germany on the ownership of the island. We also see gulls, guillemots and a lot of other birds, who lie windswept on shelves in the rocks.
Everything is, understood, in the German manner. Paths, paved with fences on both sides and especially landscaped vantage points. Not like in Anholt in Denmark with complete freedom to move anywhere you please.
But it’s still OK. Informative. Beautifull. Wind-blown. Very different.
Helgoland is actually fun. Very different
54° 10′ 33.4408” N 7° 53′ 48.1156” E
July 11, 2012
We sail in the Wadden Sea. Strange to think that six hours later, the water we’re looking at will be gone. We stick to the marked channel. 15 miles later we are out of the Elbe. We are in the North Sea, the part called the German Bight.
The waves have become larger and larger, as the river has turned into sea. Again, we head directly into the wind, and the tidal advantage, we secured ourselves from Cuxhaven to the North Sea, can not catch up with the force of the wind. After three hours of sailing, our speed of motor is down between two and three knots. We knock up and down in the waves and hardly feel, that we move forward. Annoying as there are still 60 nautical miles to the target of the day.
We decide to make new plans. We consider Bremerhaven (28 miles) and Wilhelmshaven (30 miles), but we choose instead Helgoland (16 nautical miles), because winds and currents are more favorable for Helgoland.
The waves are still high. Kirsten says they are three meters high. I believe they are a lot less. But it feels rough. The genoa sail has got a rope. The mainsail is not up at all. The motor works for the progress. Rain washes down most of the time. The wind keeps as promised: 9-13 meters per second, but it just feels more violent, when the waves at the same time are pretty huge.
We call Helgolands old military port at 15 o’clock. Tired, hungry and a little amazed to be right here, where we would previously have wrinkled our noses of this duty-free and tourist-invaded island.
After a late lunch we take a walk on the island. It’s actually fun. Very different. A world of its own.
There is a little Anholt (danish island) over it: Large natural areas. Viewpoints and beaches. But there is also something Las Vegas over it. Lots of cafes, restaurants, hotels and liquor stores ( “Shiffausrustüng” they are called close to the port).
You can get married on the island for € 898, including a tour of the old bunkers and three nights at a hotel. On the island there are maybe 100 stores. Two thirds trade with perfume and hard liquor.
Historically, Helgoland has been a center of corsairs and pirates. Today piracy assumes new forms. Everything costs money: Toilet, shower, electricity. Throw immediately a coin, thank you.
All cars are micro-small and runs on electricity. Bicycles are prohibited. Scooters allowed. Urban city is divided into “Unterland” at harbour-level and “Oberland” up on the rock. An elevator lifts the lazy from one part of town to the other. € 1.20 for a single journey with elevator.
One rain shower follows the next. The night is filled with thunder, lightning, strong winds and rain. It is rough on the North Sea.
Log-book: Sailed: 8.00. Destination: Borkum or Delfzijl. Arrival at Helgoland 15:00. Weather: Southwest 9-13 m / s. Rain.
We sail gently out into the Elbe estuary, now we really are on our way out into the world
53° 52′ 13.5264” N 8° 42′ 48.3372” E
July 10, 2012
The lock is open and waiting for us. Seven or eight boats are already in place. This lock is apparently free. You only pay one end of the Kiel channel.
Now we are really on our way! The fairytale opens with the lock gates, and we sail gently out into the Elbe estuary on our way out into the world.
The power is noticeable. Although we have the wind contrary, we log up to 9.4 knots. Ronja never sailed that fast before.
The water does not conspicuously differ from what we know from home. And yet. The traffic of large commercial ships are impressive, and together with the strong current, we get the feeling, that have come out into something big and different. The water is brown like clay. The light in the air takes color from that.
Skipper is happy. Finally we have a large sea in front of us.
The entrance to Cuxhaven is special. We were warned, that there could be a current of four knots across the entrance. That was right. Strange to feel your own ship moved by forces that much larger than yourself. We are taken sideways, but with extra revolutions from the engine we manage to get into the port.
We go for the City marina, get a bridge operator open the bridge, and find ourselves an excellent berth in the middle of the city.
We walk the city. Buy charts, tide tables and food. It rains. But we do see most of the city, and it certainly has charm. A seafaring town with lots of activities related to shipping, fishing and a manifestly huge industry transporting German tourists to the duty-free mecca of Helgoland. Or out to see seals in the Wadden Sea.
A blessed night. In the middle of the city. But quiet. Tomorrow we will leave early with the high tide.
Logbook: Sailed 8.00. Destination: Cuxhaven. Arrival: 11.30.
