At 2pm, when we had sufficient water to float, we bade our farewells, slipped our mooring lines and headed out to the estuary under leaden skies. A cool 10 knot wind swept across the steely grey waters from the north, bringing the tang of salty air to my nostrils.
A pack of racing yachts were haring across the estuary, spinnakers bulging, and spun around a yellow marker buoy before beating back up into the wind. A couple of the craft had managed to capsize and their crew were standing on the now horizontal keels, straining at ropes to right their boats. Without wetsuits they would have been chilled to the bone.
Two Dutch boats passed us within waving distance, heading up the estuary, their striped red/white/blue ensigns streaming out horizontally behind them. They returned our waves with gusto; a friendly bunch the Dutch.
Gunfleet Sands Windfarm
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Once out in the King's Channel the tide was assisting us on our north-easterly course, but the wind was in opposition and had increased to 15-29 knots. Wind over tide is never a good combination, and today the sea was decidedly lumpy, indeed very lumpy. I did not feel like food or drink at all. A few large ships traversed our path, and packs of fishing vessels scoured the sea for their daily quotas. There was no sunset, just a gradual darkening of the cold, slate coloured skies, and we sank into invisibility with just our tiny lights to indicate our existence out in this cold, watery realm.
As the wind was against tide we weren't surprised it was unpleasantly choppy up the King's Channel but, with, the tide due to start flooding as we arrived at the Long Sand Head there was a hope that the seas would abate as we headed in a more easterly direction and got into deeper water, and ease down overnight. Unfortunately, it remained horribly bouncy right the way across to Vlissingen.
16th June
Rex was on watch around 2:30am and disappeared to the heads to answer a call of nature. On his return he discovered, to his dismay, that the boat was tracing figures of eight across the North Sea. The autohelm had broken. It was too rough and dark to do much about it there and then except to curse, gather the bits and store them in the wheelhouse, and steer the boat manually.
We skirted several wind farms, all brightly lit like seaside proms. The biggest threat we faced was from convoys of ships travelling up and down the West Hinder Traffic Separation Scheme. A Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) is an area in the sea where navigation of ships is highly regulated, effectively creating lanes in the water and ships in a specific lane are all going in (roughly) the same direction. A TSS is created in locations with dense shipping where ships can go in different directions and where there is a high risk of collisions. The West Hinder TSS is 11 miles wide, two lanes each 5 miles wide with a 1 mile wide no-man's area between them. Vessels crossing a TSS must do so at right angles. Yachtsmen crossing them need to judge when the moment is right to nip across in gaps between ships travelling in the same direction. At times a few ships could be overtaking each other, so sharp wits are required.
Sleeping on the boat when it is lurching violently in all directions is a somewhat haphazard affair, and at times it is questionable whether you actually get any sleep at all. More often than enough your body physically leaves your bunk as the boat takes a nose dive down into a trough. Tonight was one of those nights. I dragged myself out of my pit for my watch in the middle of the night. Soon I was steering towards a group of lights that appeared over the horizon. As the hours ticked away I discovered that they all belonged to a group of ships at anchor in the West Hinder anchorage off the Belgium coast. Darkness melted into a murky dawn, revealing the outline of the tallest buildings in Ostend peeping over the horizon. We now entered the Scheur Channel (scheur is Dutch for "rip") which ran a few miles off the coast all the way up to the Westerschelde. Numerous vessels use this maritime highway to Zeebrugge and Vlissingen, many carrying on up the Westerschelde to Antwerp.
It was now a long slog up the channel against the tide. By noon I had fixed the autohelm, and just over 24 hours after our departure we entered the sea-lock at Vlissingen.
We were joined in the lock by a gleaming Dutch boat, complete with its friendly, smiling lady crew, and her dour, miserable husband. To complete our lock company, a large police vessel hemmed us in from behind with a throaty roar. The police lads, a jovial bunch, casually sat down on their vessel's side rails to discuss their day's business with much mirth, or perhaps they were talking about fish sizes that they had caught. They gave us a wave as they veered off after passing through the lock. Then Rex noticed he had forgotten to raise the Dutch courtesy flag (the etiquette is to raise a small courtesy flag representing the country in which you are visiting). With a wistful smile and sidelong glance to the police depot, he hastily rectified the situation.
We were now in the Kanaal door Walcheren which passes straight through Walcheren, a former island in the province of Zeeland at the mouth of the Schelde estuary, connecting the Oosterschelde in the north and the Westerschelde in the south. During the Napoleonic Wars, the British sent numerous expeditionary forces throughout the world to assist in destabilizing the French Empire. Without a doubt, the worse expedition of the Napoleonic Wars was the British landing in the Low Countries in 1809. The British hoped to achieve two goals: to assist the Austrians, who had gone to war against the French, and to destroy the French fleet thought to be in Vlissingen. The British force, of over 39,000 men began to land in Walcheren on 30th July. The expedition's goals however, were poorly conceived and were destined to failure. By the time the force had landed, the Austrians had been defeated and were negotiating a peace treaty with Napoleon. Although the British had captured Vlissingen, the French had moved their fleet to Antwerp, thus denying the British any chance of destroying it. After four and a half months on Walcheren, the last British troops were withdrawn on 9th December. The British force had 4,066 deaths during the expedition, but only 106 officers and men were killed in combat. The rest died from Walcheren Fever, a combination of malaria and typhus. The return of the force to England did little to alleviate the problems. On 1st February 1810, a staggering 11,513 officers and men were still carried on the rolls as sick. Less than two years later, many of these troops were still so weakened by the disease, Wellington requested that no unit that served in the Walcheren Campaign be sent to him!
During World War 2, Operation Infatuate, the codename for the invasion of the Dutch Island of Walcheren, was a major Combined Operation's amphibious landing against very heavily fortified and entrenched German positions. The island stood at the mouth of the River Schelde and blocked Allied access to the captured port of Antwerp some 60 kilometres inland which was needed to supply the advancing Allied armies. The city of Antwerp and its port had fallen to Dempsey's 2nd British Army in early September 1944. Montgomery's attention at the time was on securing several bridge crossings, including the Rhine at Arnhem in an operation code-named Market Garden. If successful, it might have ended the war by Christmas 1944 by opening a clear route to Germany and Berlin. There was no sense of priority given to securing the approaches to Antwerp which would require the island fortress of Walcheren, with its formidable array of weaponry and the Fifteenth German Army garrison, to be removed. The island then was connected to the mainland via a narrow isthmus. The bombing of Walcheren in October by RAF Bomber Command had breached the dykes around the island and had turned it into a massive lagoon, rimmed by broken dykes. By 8th November, all German resistance on the island had been overrun.
So here we were, invading Walcheren again. Would we be welcome? Within 50m we came across our first obstacle, a bridge. Some important bridges in the Netherlands are permanently manned, while others are monitored by CCTV, and central control stations operate barriers and open the bridges remotely. We gilled about for what seemed like an eternity before this first bridge opened. Quick as a flash the Dutch boat, that had shared the lock with us, made a dash through the bridge. "Let him get on with it," muttered Rex, who knew that the continentals always strained at the leash to be the first to navigate through obstacles on the watery highways. It must be something in the water they drink. Us Brits are too much, "After you."
That's the First Bridge Negotiated at Vlissingen
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We passed through a second bridge in quick succession, and then we were gliding along a very straight, wide canal flanked by tall trees. Broad cycle paths lined the canal, along which streams of chattering, giggling school children raced along returning from school. Groups of workmen, full of banter and laughs, returned home from their daily grind at Vlissingen dockyards, leaning forward on their bikes with their arms resting on the handlebars.
Three miles ahead of us, the 91m tower, affectionately called "Lange Jan" (Tall John) by the locals, proudly scraped the sky, head and shoulders above the roof tops of Middelburg. Occasionally sleek double-decker blue and yellow trains hissed down the track that ran parallel with the canal. In this serene, calm, canal setting, Rex opened up about the horrendous crossing we had endured for 24 hours. He swore, "I am never going to do a long hop like that again. There is absolutely no pleasure in enduring that hell. In future it will be a shorter hop from Ramsgate across the channel to Gravelines or Dunkirk, a 6 hour trip, then work along the coast from there." He knew of course that coastal hopping could only be effective in 6 hour stints when the tide is with you. I was inclined to agree with him about the discomfort of long bouncy trips. Rex, and also my children, tick me off severely at my habit of refusing food or liquids for such long spells, yet I survive.
Soon we were hovering around the string of bridges that traverse the canal at Middelburg. "Hello English boat," floated a voice out over the ether on the VHF radio. "The bridge will not open for another 25 minutes." The final bridge we had to wait for was next to the train station. A train had just arrived, and hoards of people were tumbling out into the massive bike park, and then scurrying off to their homes and loved ones. This bridge's operation was synchronised with train arrivals so as to provide minimal disruption to commuters.
Finally we found ourselves turning off from the canal and rounding a bend into the Buitenhaven of the old city. Just as we did so, we were confronted by a tall ship, the clipper "Tres Hombres", that was leaving with a small tug strapped to her side to manoeuvre her through the narrow waterways. She smartly tooted her horn when she spotted us, but we gave her plenty of searoom.
A friendly Dutch guy helped us tie up to a temporary berth. "You have missed all the rain," he cheerily said. We learned from him that the Roompotlocks into the Oosterschelde was closed today; lucky we had decided not to enter the inland waterway system via that route.
The harbour master was a chirpy young woman, who gave us plenty of options where to berth for the next two nights. As the solid ground below me swayed, she explained all the rules, and told us she would open the bridge at 18:15. I mentioned the tall ship to her. "It has been here for a week," she explained, "the festival week. There has been a week of music, dance, stories, plays and exhibitions. You've just missed it all." Story of my life I thought. By 18:30 we were safely moored inside the Binnenhaven in a "box" , the continental preferred method for berthing.
A sweet, warm shower stirred some life into my limbs. The confined space of the cubicle enhanced my distorted senses that lied to me, telling my body that I was still swaying about in the middle of the North Sea.
Despite the exhilarating shower, our spirits were not sufficiently restored to the extent that we wanted to cook an evening meal. We were still exhausted, so we opted for a meal in a nearby harbour restaurant, one that Rex had confused for the harbour clubhouse. What an enlightening experience, it only sold Belgian beer, but we could not have cared less. The gratis nibbles were much to Rex's satisfaction: olives and winkles served with mustard sauce. I declined to sample either. I am not a fan of olives, and the last time I had eaten winkles was as a small child when me and pals used to collect them from the seaside. I remember the largest always came from the sewage outlet; the connotations did not mean much to me at the time. The food was delicious. The two waitresses found our attempts at speaking Dutch either impossible or immensely entertaining, they were good humoured about it all. This was just as well. When Rex had told one of them the food was gorgeous, she blushed and smiled. We subsequently learned she thought he had been referring to her. Hmmm..... perhaps our language skills need a little polish.
Neither of us had the will nor energy to extend the evening. We took a short stroll through the town which was seemingly empty of life, to try and regain our landlegs, and were happy to return to
Duonita. I read a few pages of a book I had brought, "Cold" by Ranulph Fiennes, a present from my youngest daughter and her husband. By 10pm I was fast asleep.
