A clear blue sky greeted us, and there was some warmth in the sun. After a delicious shower, I took one last look over the vast beach. Tractors pulling cleaning machines had returned it to pristine condition for today's onslaught of beach lovers, none of whom had turned up yet, though there were a few towels stretched out on sun-loungers.
On my return to Duonita, I came across an English boat tied up not far from Duonita. "Morning," piped out a cheery voice, its owner emerging from the innards of the boat. He was a chap about my age. "Morning," I replied. "Where is your home port?" I enquired since his craft had no markings. "Dover and Ipswich," he replied. Not the sort of answer I would expect, and it turned out he and his wife were happy to leave the boat in either location. I mentioned that I came from Ipswich and asked if he left his boat at a well-known marina there. He cursed that particular marina fluently; I guessed he didn't.
The couple had spent most of their trip sailing around the Ijsselmeer, and had sheltered in Hinderloopen from the big storm. I gave him an overview of our trip, which seemed to interest him, indeed he asked his wife if she was listening. Perhaps she didn't enjoy journeying through canals much.
I learnt that his yacht had once belonged to the former owner of the Tollesbury Marina, who had died, and neither his son Julian, who now owned the marina, nor his brother wanted the boat. So he acquired it. The couple were preparing to head off to the fuel pontoon before moving on to Dover, so I left them to it wishing them fair winds.
Not long afterwards, we slipped our lines after a long convoy left before us, and headed out into Ijmuiden harbour. It was like Piccadilly Circus out there, with large ships entering and leaving too. We weaved our way out, and making sure we were well out of the main shipping lane, we steered a course out west between two large wind farms, carefully avoiding an oil well 10 miles off the coast. A group of large ships sat at anchor out here, waiting for their opportunity to enter the locks at Ijmuiden perhaps.
Occasionally we traversed long meandering sheets of orange suspension, which we thought might be algae. It took hours for Ijmuiden to slowly sink below the horizon. By mid-afternoon the slight swell we had found at Ijmuiden due to the previous day's winds, had subsided significantly. Ships came and went. Curiously we did not come across any bird life so far, usually gulls, fulmars and gannets would linger in the area. I watched far in the distance behind us, a fleck of white was heading in our direction. After ten minutes I could clearly make it out to be spray emanating from a boat, and fifteen minutes later the gleaming white gin palace sped past us at 17 knots, its ensign hanging out horizontally from the stern. The vessel must have been guzzling fuel like nobody's business, but there again I suppose if you can afford a boat like that, fuel costs don't even register on the horizon.
Rex spotted a porpoise at one point, and by 9pm, with the sun sinking rapidly, we were approaching the Hinder Junction; almost halfway through our return journey. The occasional fulmar now glided above our wake, and the sea had lost its calmness by now and the boat was continuously rocking and rolling. Quite a few ships had been encountered by now too.
We had started to take note of a ship far behind us, the Elke W, bound for Ipswich from her AIS signature, and she was on a converging track to us. It was slow moving, in fact only 1.5 knots faster than us, but definitely on an approaching course. I went off watch at 22:30, by which time the vessel was about 250m off our starboard side. I had confidence Rex would keep a close eye on it as I settled down for some sleep.
