North Sea Haar

The wind is light as we leave the mooring. Stargazer glides down river on the tide, sails just drawing. Wild fowl wheel overhead, calling in the still air. Its a day too perfect to sully with the sound of an engine, the first day of my holidays. We anchor inside the marshes, at the river mouth, content to wait for the morning tide and the prospect of a breeze.

Stargazer foams out of the Medway in a northerly force 4 to 5, short taking against the last of the flood. Poised to catch the turn of the tide at Garrison Point. I revise our passage plan as we go. With this wind we won't make it to the River Orwell today. But, with the Thames ebb under us we can lay North Foreland in a couple of tacks. Ramsgate will be our first port on this cruise.

I take two reefs in the main and Stargazer romps east. Visibility is down to about a mile. We sail in our own bubble of sunshine, the shore unseen until we reach Ramsgate's familiar stone walls.

We wait out a windless day, then make sail. As we leave, the breeze is back in the north, and a hazy sunrise glints off the sea worn moles.

Stargazer rides a gently undulating swell under cruising chute. Wind and tide urge her south. A fine mist hangs in the humid air, blurring edges rather than obscuring vision.

A soft focus Sandettie Light Vessel slips by to port, beginning to swing as the tide turns. I drop the cruising chute and point Stargazer's bows north east, up the French coast toward Belgium.

We close reach up the inshore channel to Dunkerque, cross the offshore banks at the Passe de Zuydcoote and skim the depth contours of the shelving shoreline. Twelve hours of fair tides, and our north wind, carry us into Nieuwpoort.

We tie up alongside Drum of Drake. Last year she acted as our pilot for the Zuydcoote. We lay hove to off the Passe, at low water, unsure if there was enough depth for us to cross.

 Drum of Drake roared through, square sails set. We followed her track, laying the way points we relied on for today's hazy trip.

I allow Nieuwpoort's sleepy charm to wash over me for a day. Lazily perambulating leafy canal sides. The sound of birdsong and cycle bells punctuating the silence.

Atop the cathedral a golden weather cock reminds me that the wind is fair for the Westerschelde.

Stargazer sails into her familiar bubble of sunshine and the shoreline disappears astern.

The cold damp fingers of a full North Sea Haar close around us. Choking off visibility. We tip toe around the stern of a coaster in the Oostende approach channel (peer hard and you will see it, top right!). We heave to off Zeebrugge, until the AIS screen shows a gap in the shipping, then make a dash across the busy entrance. I breath a sigh of relief as the rumble and thunder of the port drops behind us, replaced by the sigh of the wind and the surge of the sea.

The sluicing Westerschelde tide draws us into Dutch waters. The sun warms my back, drives away the Haar, welcomes us to the Netherlands. 

To starboard, white sandy beaches and a familiar sentinel appear. Stargazer is reaching at 8 knots over the ground. We are in the Westerschelde.

A thunderstorm cracks overhead. The deluge freshens the air, intensifies the evening's colours. We nose into the old ferry berth at Terneuzen to find a delightfully informal club marina.  

I circle the pontoons, seeking out a vacant finger. Some are occupied by an eclectic collection of cherished and individualist craft. Others appear under renovation, with cleats or planking removed. A beaming figure emerges from beneath the gleaming bright work of a rakish gaffer and greets us: "My boat is 70 years old, built in Burnham on Crouch..... You are from England too I think?.... On your own?..... How was the crossing?...... Do you know Woolverstone?.......Yes, yes - tie up here, on B"

While we yarn, I secure Stargazer's lines, in a tranquil basin, sheltered by lush green banks and overlooked by suburban bungalows.

Off the entrance of our peaceful resting place, shipping, in the deep water channel, scurries to and from Antwerpen.