Monday, 8th July 2019
Middelburg
We had a bit of a lie-in this morning, before having a clean and tidy up of the boat ready for our trip home. By the time we finished our chores, everything looked and smelled much sweeter. We walked to the supermarket and made our purchases of fresh bread and milk and snacks to see us through until we got back home. After lunch, we took a final stroll round the town before heading back to the boat to chill out for the rest of the afternoon. While Carole cooked supper, Chris did his passage planning and weather checking and everything seemed as expected and meant we were good to go to Ostend in the morning. After supper we cleared away and had a game of cards before an early night.
Tuesday 9th July 2019
Middelburg to Ostend via Vlissingen.
We got ourselves ready to leave Middelburg to allow ourselves plenty of time to make the first of the bridges opening at 08.40. This transit from Middelburg to Vlissingen is now called the “Blue Wave”. We were joined by about eight other boats. As expected the bridges opened automatically on schedule, right up to the last bridge and here we waited for about 10 minutes. Once through we made our way to the main lock, where there is a small ships lock and a commercial, large ships lock. Again we had to wait as we had missed the previous lock by 5 mins. We were joined by a few more boats and soon we had the green light to enter the lock but we were at the back end of the boats. A large motor boat got in and blocked most of the yachts getting past. Half of the waiting boats could not get in and so had to wait for the next lock which only took 20 minutes to turn round but seemed like ages. We made sure that we were going to get in this lock with Chris positioning us just off the gates. We were in! Carole found the large bollard to get the spring on and with some extra assistance from Chris we were soon firmly tied on.
Although we were delayed in getting out we had calculated for possible delays. The tide outside Vlissingen and Breskens runs at 4kn and would push us along to Ostend. The sails took us past Zeebrugge then on towards Ostend. About a mile from Ostend, we put the sails away and got the boat ready for our arrival. Once in the Marina we were directed by the Harbour Master to raft onto a 36ft French yacht. Chris turned us around so we had our bow pointing outwards. The manoeuvre went very well and we came nicely alongside the smaller boat and Carole stepped aboard and made us safe. We then put in place spring lines and shorelines to try to make us more comfortable.
Our main concern was that we could have other boats rafting onto us as our plan was to leave around 05:00. We had informed the harbour master this but just to make sure anyone thinking of rafting up on us would also know, Chris made a sign and fixed this to the guard rail “DEPARTURE 04:30”.
After a shower we took a stroll along the front and bought some Frickadel and Chips and Apple Fritters for supper before heading back to the boat for an early night. We would be up and away in the morning just before sunrise.
On checking the passage plan before going to bed, Chris realised that the sunrise time he was using was BST and not CET (local time) meaning that sunrise would be about 05:45 and not 04:45. As we didn’t think it was going to be pitch black just before dawn, we decided to aim to leave about 05:30. We set our alarms for 05:00 and settled down to sleep.