Our first leg south

Leaving Amsterdam

Amsterdam Marina, 0600. It is a grey day. Not a dull grey day but rather a light and airy grey day; one whose sombre tones are added not only from the day itself but also from the dreary silhouette of this aging city with its modern pretensions, industrial edges and its lovely rundown and grubby feel. Even smokestacks look good with the right light but sadly today, this isn’t that kind of light and Amsterdam isn’t in that kind of mood. Ah well, good bye for now Amsterdam, I still reckon you are one of the best cities I’ve spent time in.

The Noordzeekanaal (North Sea Canal) is surprisingly quiet and we slip along without company for most of the way NW towards the sea. Once past the massive port facilities on Amsterdam’s edge, it is wind turbines, derelict industrial areas, agricultural land and housing that can be seen from the water. Not a very pretty bit of water by any stretch of the imagination. Despite this, swans and geese graze the shoreline, grebes and cormorants fish its very modest and very brown depths while gulls and terns patrol its skies.

In the sea locks at IJmuiden, we join two other sailing boats. They are both filled to the brim with dogs and small children and are watched over by surprisingly relaxed looking parents. One can only assume that it is still early in their respective holidays. There is some inter-boat small talk as we are lifted up to sea-level and then we all scoot out into the harbour and head out to sea. There, outside on the open, grey ocean, a lovely beam wind and a gentle sea give us a splendid start to our two-and-a-bit-day trip south to Deauville, for a date with two friends from Paris.

These pleasant conditions lasted most of the day. We passed Rotterdam in the dying light of the day, slipping through gaps in a heavy stream of very heavy shipping in the ‘Maasgeul’ under the guidance of the Port Control. Partway across the channels here the wind got a bit unreliable so we fired up the engine to ensure that we could maintain speed and course. Happily, cargo ships were diverted around us, ahead and astern, meaning we could make a direct and quick passage across the fairways. Man, those things are big and fast.

Belgian waters are not so smooth (no photos)

Heading further south into Belgian waters conditions began to deteriorate. The winds gradually built to the high teens, quite a nice strength really, but in the shallow North Sea that just meant that the sea state got messier and more confused. Onboard the sailing was fine but the doing of other things, anything, became more difficult as we were tipped and dipped and rolled around. To the extent that Frederieke began to feel miserable, and then totally miserable, and ultimately ended up feeding the Belgian fish not just once but twice (F: “Good riddance to the North Sea!”)

On top of that, somewhere off Zeebrugge, at about 0200, we managed to hook some crab pot floats around the rudder. This necessitated a bit of fishing around under the boat but thanks to our lifting rudder no mid-night swimming in a boisterous North Sea was required.

Despite these short interruptions, we continued to make good time until early the next morning as we approached Dunkirk where the wind slowly died away. Happily, the sea died away with the wind and life onboard got a whole lot easier.

Finally in French waters!

With an almost non-existent wind we got the motor going as we passed the northern resort beaches and approached the harbour entrance of Dunkirk. The main harbour and southern industrial areas were impressive in the early morning light, dramatic plumes of steam and smoke brightly contrasting with the jumble of rusting metal and chimneys below.

Beyond Dunkirk the wind returned, a lovely light wind from the south-west. Pushing as high as we could into it, and into a 3 knot current, we made slow progress into the broad bay off Boulogne-sur-Mer.

The going was getting a bit slow but, mid-afternoon-ish, we got a visit that brought a lovely bit of excitement to a pleasantly slow day.

Official welcome from the French Douane

We had been seeing French patrol boats cruising up and down in the distance most of the day and had assumed that they were on the look-out for immigrant boats crossing the English Channel from France to England. We had stopped paying attention to them when, suddenly, a very large patrol boat appeared right on our tail and a stern voice on the radio barked, “Sailing Vessel Yuma, Sailing Vessel Yuma, this is French Customs boat ‘Jacques-Oudart Fourmentin’, maintain your speed and course, we are going to board you. Maintain your speed and course.”

A chance to have a chat was welcome and we readily agreed (not that we had any choice, mind you). We made things ready for their boarding party and in a few minutes we had a RIB alongside and four burly uniformed blokes climbing aboard, armed with pistols, handcuffs and most importantly, the accoutrements of a bureaucratic service – forms, pens, and clipboards.

After a very formal introduction and explanation of their intentions they got to work. Frederieke (the French speaker on Yuma) sat in the cockpit providing the paperwork information they needed, while I went below with two of the officers to ‘observe’ (their word) their thorough search of the boat. The inside of a cruising yacht is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle so my time was spent showing them how to get into storage compartments and convincing them that it would be easier if they didn’t try to put them back together and to just let me do it once they’d left. They felt this wasn’t fair, they reckoned that since they’d made the mess, they should tidy it up, but in the end the attempt to put the v-berth back together convinced them that it was best to just leave it with me and they retreated with sheepish grins and jokes.

Official travel recommendations from the French Douane

Once the formalities were done the visit got far more relaxed and we sat in the cockpit talking about where we’d been and where we were planning to go. They got very excited looking at our charts (eagerly following our trip up to Svalbard on our electronic charts), and about our plans to sail to Australia via French Polynesia. Frederieke inquired about some must-see places in a sailboat in France, and next thing we were getting the ‘official’ recommendations on the best spots along the French coast to visit. Brilliant!

Official souvenir from the French Douane

One of the officers was a diver and was delighted when he found our compressor, scuba gear and underwater camera gear. So much so that when it finally came time to stop socialising and for them to get back to their patrol boat, which was still patiently ticking along just astern of us, at the suggestion of one of his companions, he tore off the official Douane Plongeur badge on the shoulder of his uniform and gave it to us as a souvenir of their visit. “This style badge is brand new for the service, so you are the second people to have one”, he said.

And with that, and a lot of handshakes and ‘bon voyages’ from both sides, they jumped back into their RIB and headed off. That badge now has a proud and prominent place above our chart table. We hadn’t yet gone ashore in France but we certainly felt welcomed!

Making time to get to our date

As the patrol boat pulled away it somehow seemed to suck all of the wind in the area away with it. We could have sat bobbing around, waiting for it to come back but we had a date in Trouville-Deauville that we didn’t want to miss. Our friends from Paris were holidaying there until the 27^th and it had been two years since we’d seen them last. That meant it was worth burning some fuel to ensure that we had as much time as possible with them. And so, on went the iron genoa and we motored until early the next morning when rounding Cap de la Have just north of Le Havre we caught a pleasant breeze and could sail the last hours into Deauville.