Netherlands Trip - Roompot      13th June:

    We arose before 6am. Plan A was to leave early and punch the tide up the coast for a few hours, then catch the benefit of the ebbing tide before punching the tide again, aiming to reach Roompot. Plan B was to pull into Zeebrugge.
    A quick shower, slurp of coffee and we slipped our lines and made our way down the harbour. There was already much activity taking place. Trucks were already lined up, steadily being filled from one of the mountains of gravel. Seacats, which were all moored on the fringe of the marina, were starting to power out to the distant windfarms that they serviced, some calling in to the quayside to pick up palettes of equipment. Yachts were flowing out of the Mercator and North Sea marinas, and a couple of fishing boats were entering the harbour, each with their beams out dragging their nets through the water, resembling giant cormorants. Totally unperturbed by this, terns still dived down into the water for an early morning breakfast.
    Once out on the open sea, we set about putting the sails up, but with the wind now shifting to on the nose for possibly the whole journey, we decided we didn't want to waste hours by beating all the way. The sails came down and we motored. In theory we could reach Roompot in 7 hours. The sun was beating down, and the sea gently rolling the boat. We warily watched a string of fishing boats trawling through these shallow waters for flatfish.
    The coast was predominantly a stretch of sand dunes. We waved to De Haan, the concrete, steel and glass tall buildings of Wenduine, and the even larger wall of buildings of Blankenberge, which we had sailed into in 2014. The tall cranes of Zeebrugge had been visible ever since we left Ostend.

    We were making good progress, so we carried on with Plan A. There was a stiff wind, and coupling this with an ebb tide pouring out of the Westerschelde across the shallow waters of the Schuur Channel meant a bouncy period.
    Eventually we homed in on the wide expanse of sluices that separate the Oosterschelde from the North Sea. The Oosterschelde is tidal, but the rate of flow of water through the sluices is controlled, hence a lock must be negotiated to enter/leave the Oosterschelde. After a brief communication with the lock keeper, probably based many miles away from the remote-controlled lock, we were soon passing through the lock.
    There was still a breeze whistling over he Oosterschelde, but thankfully the waves were nothing like those encountered in the North Sea. We still needed to keep our wits about us though; there was a constant flow of water towards the sluices during the ebb. The entry into Roompot marina was a very narrow channel with only 1m of water on either side, we picked our way through the middle of the buoys. To our left stretched a long line of holiday homes that led down to a golden, sandy beach. Throngs of families were engaged in all manner of beach activities; a holiday camp atmosphere.

Roompot Holiday Resort Beach

    We tied up to a registration jetty and I scooted off to find the harbourmaster. He was, of course, out, but in a short while he returned; a young chap with a sense of humour and an excellent command of the English language. After an initial berthing in a private berth, we eventually headed to a long pontoon on which we could tie up. This was easier said than done; the breeze was pushing us away from the pontoon. After much cussing and swearing, Rex in fluent Dutch of course, we were safely berthed.

Identical Holiday Homes

    It was a long time since we were last here, 2015 in fact, and I could not recognise it. The whole area was now an enormous holiday resort with several hundred identical holiday homes. A supermarket, restaurant, pizzeria and soft play area lay at its heart; not quite what I expected.
    It is most likely that the name "Roompot" is a descriptive name of the mouth of the river. A speculative hypothesis about another possible origin leads to Romanorum Portus (Roman Port), a Roman-era port from which navigators departed for crossings to Britannia and for coastal voyages south (to France, Iberia and the Mediterranean).

What an Opportunity

    In the evening we headed to the bar/restaurant attached to the marina. A young waitress with a broad smile approached us, and wanting to get our priorities right, I said to her, "Ik wil graag twee groote biers," a sentence that has worked perfectly well over many years. The young woman looked at me with a blank expression, then she tried to repeat what I had said. Soon she was stumbling over simple numbers. "What language do you speak?" I asked in English. Ah, a glimmer of comprehension spread over her face. "I am Spanish, and I also speak English," she giggled, "but I do not understand Dutch or German." Crumbs, I thought, what happens when she is confronted by a Dutch customer who speaks neither English nor Spanish.
    I ordered tomato soup for starters, and Rex ordered bread. He loves bread, but he received it by the bucket load. The Caesar salad we both followed up with was quite refreshing. Meanwhile, a fair breeze was beginning to whistle through the riggings across the marina.