TV? Newspapers? News? Personally I've not given them a thought, although Jo has said that occasionally she'd like to sit down with a paper.
Work? Yeah, right!
Human company? Well, Jo comes close and we've started to meet people along the way to socialise with.
What we do agree on is that it would be nice to have a shower without needing to take everything you need with you; walk to a shower block; then get undressed, showered, and dressed whilst trying to keep everything dry that should be dry in an impossibly small space!
So where are we? Well, Saturday saw us leaving Scheveningen and heading for IJmuiden - a distance of about 25 miles in theory. The forecast suggested wind of 15 knots from the North East, with maximum gusts of 19 knots - winds that we'd be OK in with our largest genoa (the sail at the front).
What we got was a steady apparent wind of 24 knots with gusts of 30 knots - winds for which that sail is really not suitable! So basically we had a rather lumpy, uncomfortable sail with spray over the decks, the anchor taking a dunking every now and again, and over 30 miles covered as we had to tack (zigzag) our way towards our destination (you can't sail directly into the wind)!
On arrival, we found a huge and largely empty marina. The berths were pontoon berths - what we're used to - except that each pair of finger pontoons had a pile between them (see picture below). Great to help keep the weight off your fenders when being blown onto the pontoon, but an extra hazard to negotiate in the crosswind we had!
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| Berths at IJmuiden |
We didn't explore IJmuiden as we'd decided to head on the following day. The pictures below show the beach huts within the harbour and IJmuiden from the sea.
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| Beach huts.... |
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| ....next to this lot! |
The trip from IJmuiden to Den Helder was a complete contrast to the day before, with so little wind that we had to motor-sail the whole way (boo!!).
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| Wind farm en route |
Now I like to sail and find motor-sailing rather dull. The trip only took about 6 or 7 hours (40 miles approx) but this was sufficient for Jo to start seeing things. The picture below apparently shows a skull with an extended arm controlling an inverted cone puppet on a string:
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| Puppeteer? |
Actually, when the sail was moving the shadows did too, and I could see what she meant.
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| Lighthouse in the approach to Den Helder |
The berth we were allocated in Den Helder's KMYC marina seemed impossibly small. I don't think we can just reverse straight out as there's not room to clear the pile (see pictures) so we'll have to warp her around to leave the way we came in.
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| How the..... |
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| .... did we get in here?! |
In the meantime, we look forward to exploring Den Helder which is the home of the Netherlands navy. At first glance it looks like a really interesting place, combining the naval ships (and others) with sandy beaches and our first view of a Frisian Island - Texel.
We're likely to stay here for a couple of days while we wait for more favourable winds.
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