DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS - THURSDAY 2 JULY -WILLEMSTAD to DORDRECHT

We can’t be sure whether the tiny knot of apprehension was because we had a busy waterway to traverse, because we had developed just the teeniest distrust for Mr Perkins, because the forecast said “sensible people might consider staying one more day”, or whether it was just that we were returning to the scene of last year’s somewhat life-changing mishap.   

Whatever the case, we were both experiencing it.   The weather did promise improvement, but by the time that happened the tide and wind would be against us, so we called our friend Rob, the harbour master in Dordrecht just to make sure that if the conditions were terrible when we arrived, that help to berth would be at hand.

With his assurance and our magical electronic device to give us at least some warning of ships approaching beyond our visual range, we gave Mr P the final veto.

He confirmed with gusto that he was relishing the prospect of the day ahead. What could be better he seemed to be asking, than a day spent being overrun by ships travelling at twice our speed and appearing from nowhere as the squalls moved around us?

We made it of course, remarkably uneventfully, with those tummy-knots still in place even after safely securing ourselves on the second go, with the considerable assistance of Chris and Anne and a few other onlookers.

Surprisingly, it may take a day or two for the reality of us being here to sink in.   We are back where we left off, just a few weeks shy of twelve months from when our travels were so rudely and unexpectedly interrupted.

WILL WE GO, OR WILL WE STAY - WEDNESDAY 1 JULY -THOLEN to WILLEMSTAD

We like Willemstad.  Who wouldn’t?

The wind was up a bit when we arrived, but mercifully had taken a short break at exactly the time we needed to navigate the narrow confines of the harbour, yet neither of us felt particularly relaxed even after we were safely secured.

We think we might be a little apprehensive about returning to the scene of the crime, or perhaps it’s just that we’ve been a bit discombobulated by the fact that we are so suddenly, almost accidentally here, weeks ahead of schedule.  

We can’t decide to stay one night or two.  Should we try to relax for another day, or just bite the bullet and face whatever unknown demons await as soon as we can?  Is the forecast really that bad, or are we just hoping it will force us to decide.

Whatever the case we’ll wait for tomorrow to make that decision, it’s another lovely day, and we have another lovely windmill to photograph!

HIDE AND SEEK - TUESDAY 30 JUNE -THOLEN

When last we were here, not quite a year ago one of us saw nothing of her surrounds, the other was perhaps slightly pre-occupied with things other than his immediate surroundings.

Strangely this time we were both a little shell-shocked.  Perhaps because we were weeks ahead of where we thought we might be, perhaps partly because we were really retracing that evacuation journey, the one that had promised almost no hope of us being here twelve months hence, yet here we were.   

During that last visit Ron was convinced that many years ago, they had moored beside a windmill, which, given the lack of any hint of the presence of one on the skyline, and the lack of inclination on the part of any on board to go exploring, seemed unlikely.

With nothing to do but settle into something of a cruising routine we struck out in search of that mythical beast.  At least in our limited experience, there are a few of these things in the Netherlands, and they are usually not particularly hidden from view, so it was almost a surprise to find the subject of the first windmill photo of the year almost hidden in a little copse on what was once the moat of the old fortified town.  It was fully kitted out with sails and we’d guess it’s probably a pump rather than a mill, but that level of investigation was beyond the scope of our day’s outing.

It could be that harbour works since Ron and Robin’s first visit have blocked access for boats, or it might be that twenty years of successive travel memories have merged into one glorious idyllic postcard and they didn’t really moor in front of it after all, but in the absence of any other mill, even though it’s not exactly as described, we’ll count this as mission accomplished.

OH…MR PERKINS! - MONDAY 29 JUNE -YERSEKE toTHOLEN

 

It’s been some time since Mr Perkins has done anything other than behave like the well mannered old dear we’d all love him to be.

Franky had given him the usual post winter fondling.  Even his  (Mr P’s not Franky’s) weeping orifices had dried to a socially acceptable level, although we can never be sure that will be a permanent state of social compliance or whether he’s just having us on for a bit. By and large he’s been giving us the impression of running like a Switch watch, or at least something like a Swiss watch would be if it was powered by ancient British diesel technology.

Just why he chose this glorious morning to remind us that he’s in charge, we’ll never know.

When the time came to leave, we turned the key on the (completely refurbished and rewired last year) dashboard, to hear nothing but a single loud click.

We tried again.   Click.

And again.  Click.

It seems that his starter motor is starting to feel its age.   In lieu of a defibrillator, a large screw driver shorted across it’s terminals had the necessary counselling effect and we were away once again bounding across the bay, running with the tide at about the speed a snail would bound if it could.

To Tholen this time, where only one of us has a memory of last year’s visit!

A DAY OF REST - SUNDAY 28 JUNE - YERSEKE

Yesterday, when we told the nice Harbour Master that we might move on to Tholen today, he warned us that everything there would be closed so there’s not really much point.  Then he confessed that nothing would be open in Yerseke either, (except for the church and perhaps a cafe or two) so we had a clear choice of moving to somewhere where we could do nothing, or simply doing nothing.

Common sense prevailed.

Exercise is often overrated, but after a long day lolling around inside a ten metre boat, the lack of it does begin to weigh on one’s conscience, so late in the afternoon we thought we’d take a turn around the town known as the “Oyster and Mussel Capital of the Netherlands”.

Had we not done so, we may not have known that Oyster farming was invented in China three thousand years ago, the Romans refined it or did whatever they did to it 400 years ago, but as with many of their good ideas, when they left town, the instructions were lost.  Sometime in the mid nineteenth century a French chap thought it might be a good idea and that prompted a fellow from this very town to give it a go as well, and that apparently was that; the beginning of a very long and presumably fruitful relationship between this town and the Mollusc family.

Everything was closed exactly as was promised of course, so we contented ourselves with not visiting the museum, nor sampling any of the wares of the many empty restaurants overhanging the ancient ponds.  The juxtaposition of fine dining and oyster farming seemed odd at first glance, but then we noticed that the farms, which are of necessity industrial in character and not exactly the sort of thing that would top one’s list of scenic attractions, in a certain light, with one’s head tilted in a particular direction, reflected one of the great fashion colours of today.

American Flag Oyster Farm Blue.

DAZED - SATURDAY 27 JUNE - SAS VAN GENT to YERSEKE

We’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating, that the Westerschelde holds the potential for enormous discomfort, but only a little cautionary fear for those in suitable vessels who are prepared to take the appropriate degree of care. While we are abundantly cautious, sadly our little boat is not intended for waterways of that ilk nor for any but the kindest conditions that one can encounter whilst on it.   Therefore before even considering the twenty-something kilometre journey wind, tide and forecast for the several hours the crossing takes need to be in perfect alignment, with a safety margin to boot.

Thus it was that we were up at a time that even the birds barely consider acceptable, once more double checking tide tables and forecasts from several sources before setting off to cross the dull, hazy, and with today’s temperatures, inappropriately tropical, ocean’s edge.

The most favourable tidal current would not be with us until ten, but delaying till them would offer the possibility of storms and increasingly disconcerting breezes in the early afternoon, so we opted for an earlier, slightly slower passage without the peak tidal assistance to ensure the most comfortable journey before the weather broke.

As is the way when one tries to predict the unpredictable, the forecast was correct, the timing a little off, but just enough to vindicate our early start. Every squall along the way materialised happily somewhere where we were not, and we managed to be sitting happily in Yerseke sharing a a late lunch serving of mussels and chips by the time the wind arrived.    

“Sitting happily” in this case is a euphemism for “sitting in a semi catatonic state”.   The temperatures of the last week combined we think with the “stress” if that’s what it was, of implementing our instant plan, or perhaps just the shock of being here,  have exacted their toll. 

We haven’t even done the “provisioning” shop that begins each season.  We’ve decided, that having a day off tomorrow in the promised milder temperatures, will completely cure whatever it is, and as the sun slowly sank in the west so too did we, (sink), quietly into our pillows.

A CAUTIONARY TALE - FRIDAY 26 JUNE - BRUGES to SAS VAN GENT

According to the forecast, we can expect two more days of this, but just to add to our enjoyment the overnight minimum is set to increase to twenty-seven instead of the twenty four or so to which we've become accustomed.   Hilariously perhaps it has taken five days for the topless buses to realise that perhaps relocating to a shady spot will enable sufficient misrepresentation of reality to attract one or two paying customers.  

Not so the tour boats that grace the canals.  They are boats. On the water.  Of course they are the coolest place in town. (NOT).  So hordes of hatless or near topless people still fill them for the thirty minute tour and all we can think of as they go happily by is how those burnt shoulders will feel against sweat dampened sheets when the reality of the overnight minimum temperature sinks in.

That forecast also resulted in a surprise change of plan for us, not that we had much of a plan beyond breakfast.  It offered just the merest hint of an opportunity to once again cross the Westerschelde, tomorrow, all being well.   All it would take would be one mighty dash; sixty kilometres at eight kilometres an hour, the equivalent of sixteen consecutive open boat tours of Bruges but in an enclosed, space devoid of breeze bar our lonely little fan which has spent most of the last week chattering to itself in a somewhat fruitless attempt to provide us with some relief, and we would be in that part of the Netherlands where we thought we’d be in a few weeks’ time.

If you read the title above, you will have already deduced that we rolled the dice, and with cooling scarves deployed and litres of water consumed during the course of the day, found ourselves in the evening in the Netherlands once again, in Sas van Gent to be precise, loitering in arctic chill of the supermarkets’ interiors under the guise of “picking up a few things for the voyage” as though there are no supermarkets in the rest of the Netherlands.

We are a little numb, more than a little hot and bothered, and wondering if tomorrow will turn out the way we hope it might.