Drying out on the Waddenzee

Escape from Makkum

Makkum was becoming comfortable. After Reitdiep Jachthaven’s busy city feel, the green grass, fresh flush of leaves on the trees and the song of a dozen different species of bird had made Makkum Marina feel almost pastoral and quiet (bar the odd storm coming shrieking through the rigging).

And, after a month of organising and doing boat work, building up our strength at the newly opened gym, and commuting to Groningen for Dutch and French language classes, there was a bit of a routine building in our life there. It was time to move on before things got too comfortable and moving became too hard.

‘Ovnizeilers Hemelvaartsdag’

The opportunity came when we had a pause in boat work and thus two free weeks that coincided with the annual Ovnizeilers Hemelvaartsdag. This is the Dutch Ovni-owners day out on the Waddenzee (Wadden Sea) where the main goals are to dry out on a sand bank at low tide and to swap Ovni and sailing related tips and stories. So, after a day of tidying up last jobs, packing tools away, and filling our fridge, we primed the boat and headed out of the marina.

Testing our new gear

The day was almost clear, more a classic, light mist, haze kind of a sunny day than a sunny day. With the light winds, these were perfect conditions to try out a bit of our new kit – genoa, mainsail, Code D, pole, standing and running rigging and goodness knows what else. In the end, a struggle to get the main all the way up meant that only the main and the genoa got a work out (and the main didn’t even get its reefing lines rigged).

But that was good enough and we had a pleasant time cruising across the IJsselmeer to Den Oever on its north-western corner. Here we ducked through the locks and headed into the Waddenhaven where we met up with the rest of the Ovni group and had beer and snacks.

Testing our depth…

The next morning there was more chatting, though this time with tea, coffee and Fries suikerbrood. At 1200 though we all slipped our lines and headed out in convoy to a spot on a channel, the Amsteldiep, in the vast expanse of tidal sand and mudbanks that make up the Waddenzee.

At the appointed spot we turned out of the channel and slowly pushed into the shallows. The depth sounder began to read shallower and shallower and soon after we saw 90cm we went to make a turn towards the wind and…nothing happened. We were already aground. It turns out that while our minimum draft is 80cm our sounder’s minimum is 90cm. Good to know!

Drying out the Dutch way

The idea was that we would all line up and dry out in a line. This sounded like a nice idea, very photogenic and all that, but the reality ended up being a bit messier.

If anything, we were a little bit late and consequently we couldn’t all make it into line and instead touched bottom at different points along the sandbank. But, hey, there we all were, a pod of 10 Ovnis stranded together in huddle with the tide rapidly dropping around us.

Some folk went for a bit of a wallow/swim, others got busy cleaning their hulls or lubricating propellors, while others got busy relaxing in the shelter of their dodgers. Once the sandbank was exposed, we all gathered for an hour or so of drinks, snacks and conversation before being chased back to our respective boats by the incoming tide.

All in all it was an fun time. For longtime Dutch Ovnizeilers it is clearly a tradition that they look forward to. Drying out isn’t something we plan on doing much of, but it was good to go out and do it for the first time with experts. We hoovered up all their tips and hopefully, when we need to do it, we’ll know what we’re about.

Next: Waddeneilanden Texel

We stayed the night anchored in the Amsteldiep and in the morning headed northwest to the island of Texel.