Wednesday 24/07/24 Burnham to Brightlingsea (19Nm)
A 1pm departure having said goodbye to the Marina Staff and we were on our way…. Sadly not bound for Oostende yet but happy to be on our way to Brightlingsea for a change of scene and the possibility of seafood at The Rosebud Pub! Motored all the way to the Ray Sand buoy, introduced the Tulley’s to the joys of East Coast Sandbanks and then “enjoyed” a wallowy, roly sail across the wallet towards the Colne (it’s not called vomit alley for nothing). Managed to just squeeze into the marina with 20cm to spare and quite a lot of cross tide. Went for a walk up to Batemans Tower, watched a bit of Wednesday night racing before Dinner on board!
Thursday 25/07/24 Brightlingsea
A windy day in port so took the opportunity to visit the big chandlery there and have a late lunch at the Rosebud which didn’t disappoint. Much discussion about exactly what time to set the alarm and how early we could get away with leaving. We decided to set alarms for 2:30am and aim to leave at 3.
Friday 26/07/24 Brightlingsea - Oostende (85Nm)
Woke at 2:30am to the wind howling in the dark outside the boat. Leaving our marina berth seemed very unappealing but we got up and prepared to leave. Once we were up and moving I could see that the wind sounded worse than it looked. We checked the weather forecast and eventually left at 3:45am.
I was keen to get Dee on the helm as soon as possible and she dutifully obliged. As the least experienced crew member, recently recovering from a brain tumour, and hadn’t yet helmed Laurin I wanted her to feel comfortable helming as a way to ease any potential queasiness! The sunrise wasn’t quite as magical as we’d hoped but the transition between darkness and the warmth of the day is always something I enjoy. It was an absolute blast of a trip, allowing us to sail whilst still making good speed for most of the journey, arriving 7:30pm local time (just under 15 hour passage). It was also a massive achievement for Dee who as part of her recovery had set herself the challenge of “being braver”!
We were all shattered but despite the savoury mince having been cooking in the thermal cooker all day we opted to head up to the Royal North Sea Yacht Club for a celebratory drink and to see if Moules were on the menu. We ascertained that Moules were not on the menu so decided we’d eat out the following night, however one Duvel down and really fancying another we ordered some hefty snacks to mop up the alcohol. The Clams were amazing and as always Esme loved the bread. Back to the boat for a “main course” of savoury mince and then much needed sleep!
Saturday 27/07/24 Oostende
After pastries from our favourite bakery, and the compulsory visit to customs to get signed in, we had a “rest”day consisting of walking, shopping, waffles, go-karts, Moules and fountains.
Sunday 28/07/24 Oostende to Middleburg (35Nm)
We delayed our start slightly to give Steve chance to get more pastries and then headed up the coast towards Vlissingen. Steve was skipper for the day and navigated us safely past Zeebrugge, through the shipping of the Westerschelde, into the Vlissingen lock, and up the Middleburg canal, learning “how not to act English” through the bridges before handing over to me for my first ever attempt at backing Laurin in to a box mooring. Got it first time!
Monday 29/07/24 Middleburg to Goes (20Nm)
An early alarm for Esme as we had arranged for our Dutch friends to pick her up and take her to ride Icelandic Ponies on a beach…. Something she has been wanting to do for over a year! She had an amazing time with Jazz and Monique whilst we took the boat to Goes.
Patrick and I took advantage of the local Chandlery Barge, Jos Boone to replace our furling line which broke on the North Sea crossing, buy sail tape to repair our UV strip on the Genoa and grab some up to date charts before we left. We then enjoyed a very crowded but beautiful Veerse Meer before locking out into the Oosterschelde and into the Goes Canal where we were dismayed to hear there was a problem with one of the bridges. The guy on the boat behind us told us that we would have to wait at the marina at the top of the Goes canal and didn’t know how long for! I messaged Martijn and just as I was juggling lines to exit the canal he phoned back to say that he had called the lock keeper and the bridge was currently stuck open… he didn’t know how long for so suggested we motor quickly towards it to see if we could get through! Once we’d left the lock it seemed most of the rest of the boats had a similar idea so it was full steam ahead with fingers crossed! We were in luck and managed to make it through (with no clue when we’d be able to leave but at least we would be with our friends!)
It was so lovely to be back in Goes (on Laurin unlike last year), to see our friends and to chill (except for the looming problem of a blocked holding tank, but after a stern word from Steve, that was a problem for another day).
Tuesday 30/07/24 Holding tank woes in Goes
Not going to go into too much detail but Tuesday we kicked Steve and Dee off the boat to explore, sit in a cafe/bar and not return until we had hopefully fixed our blocked holding tank. The kids were delighted to catch up with Dylan and Jazz while Patrick and I dealt with our problem. Multiple trips to the DIY store next to the marina, a bike ride to a boat repair shop and lots of sweat and swearing meant that by the end of the day although we weren’t quite finished, the end was in sight. We celebrated with a shower and another BBQ this time cooked by Dylan and AJ. We were still unsure about how long the holding tank would take to fix and also unsure about when the bridge would be opening so, as Goes is pretty good for public transport Steve and Dee decided that Wednesday would be a good time to start their journey back to the UK. It was sad to say goodbye and we’d have liked to show them the Grevelingenmeer but they’d enjoyed their 10 days on board and hopefully they’ll be back.
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