West Terschelling

Terschelling is the 3rd Frisian Island you get to having passed Texel and Vlieland en route from Den Helder. In theory it's a trip of 39 miles - so says the Reeds Almanac - but in practice it's 56 miles as the more direct route is silted up and requires local knowledge.

Another 0500 wake up call saw us squeezing out of our berth and on our way by 0600. It's OK once you're underway, but I don't think we'll ever be pleased to hear the alarm go off at that time of the morning!

We don't have detailed tidal atlases for this part of the trip so, whilst we know the approximate direction of the tide at any time, the actual help / hindrance of the tide only really becomes known once we're underway. On this occasion we were pleasantly surprised as the favourable tides were stronger than we'd anticipated and we actually only travelled 43 miles through the water; the other 13 being courtesy of the tidal conveyor belt we were sailing in! As a result, we were tied up in West Terschelling, the port at the western end of Terschelling, by 1430 - not bad considering the light winds (we had to resort to motor sailing for about half of the trip).

A distant West Terschelling

The sandy beach to the west of West Terschelling

Entering the harbour

Some colourful navigation marks on vacation!

Just managed to squeeze into our berth (bit bigger than Den Helder!)

West Terscelling is an attractive place. The small town is clean and tidy with lots of cafes, bars and restaurants to cater for the tourist traffic that must flood in during the summer months. Just outside of the town is a sandy beach which is large at high water and presumably massive at low water as it's all so shallow around here (see below). 

The wacky races passes the marina

  

It's those buoys again! Jo likes em, you know...

Tall ship in the harbour. The marina is in the distant background.

A memorial to those lost at sea overlooks the beach

Behind the beach are dunes and wide open spaces with the obligatory cycle paths running through them. If you like bikes, you'll love the Netherlands. Me? I hate 'em! You can't hear them coming and the humble pedestrian (i.e. us) seems to be way down the pecking order.

There's a lot of this.....

..... and this.....

..... and this!

The lighthouse is in the middle of the town

The view at high water

The same view near low water

Looking over the harbour channel near low water.

Art (I suppose)

We had intended to move on to Borkum, the first of the German Frisian Islands, on Sunday 26th. Looking at the forecast we may stay here until Monday though, as Sunday looks rather wet for what could be a 17 hour trip. After all, there's no hurry.