Jul. 15, 2008 - Black Swans & Haringvreter

Due to work pressures, Kim had to put back the Friday night departure to Saturday morning. Once we arrived at the marina, we found they had their annual Havendag Festival on, so Saturday afternoon, after getting provisions from the local shops, Kim set about the jobs on the list whilst Stewart & Tom amused themselves around the village before returning to the boat to chill.

Kim got all the jobs on the list completed except for the wiring to the binnacle for the Garmin - which was always likely to be a job too many. So all in all, a successful afternoon.

We sat up late watching a DVD of the Godfather whilst listening to the live music from the festival outside the pub.

Sunday we set off for Veere, but as is often the case with a westerly wind, we chose to motor most of the way. The plan had  been to stay on the outer visitor jetty, but it was packed out with dinghys, so we had a few futile attempts at anchoring, before heading off to find an island jetty. More about anchoring (or not as is the case) on another occaision.

We were fortunate to find space (and sufficient water depth) on the island of Haringvreter. Another one to add to the list of jetties we can use.

This is a large island with cattle and even deer on it. The boys had great fun exploring by foot and by tender.

We had a very sucessful Cobb "Bar-B-Que" on Sunday night and a relatively early night. All too soon it was Monday morning and time to head back to the marina. The wind was blowing off the jetty, so whilst we fired the engine up, we actually left the jetty entirely under sail - genoa only. Sailing back in the opposite direction from Sunday we were able to do a bit of sailing, but as is often the case, the clock was against us, so we finished off charging back under power at 6.5 knots!

Got packed away, after cleaning up ready for the next contingent of guests and caught the 6.00pm ferry from Dunkerque.

The Black Swans?

Here they are. They came to visit on Monday morning before we left Haringvreter.