After a triple- header of my 60th Birthday, the London AGM and a night out in Amsterdam, to say I was not in the best of condition was an understatement, as I listened to the forecast on VHF 23 in Enkhuizen. “Blast” I thought, “He said ‘There are no warnings to shipping’. I have no excuse for not sailing. Even the ice is melted.”
Sail cover off, staysail bent on, I awoke the harbour office from their winter slumbers to open the bridge. Maryll slipped out from the lee of the Maritime Museum, where Dutch traditional boats are kept nice and warm. The wind was north, but due to turn SW the next day when I would have to return, so I planned to sail to Monnikendam on the Maarkenmeer and headed for the lock and waited. The lock gates opened and shut 3 times, but still the lights were red. Then I saw the lumps of ice coming out. My Dutch for “ B------ this for a game of soldiers” escaped me, but it was hard astern and turn about, plus an urgent revision of passage plan. I headed out of the Krabbengat, and mindful of the changing wind headed South by East, and trimmed a course for the Island of Urk. I knew from experience it was a religious place with few suitable bars, but my constitution needed a quiet night. The wind was fading a bit, visibility wasn’t very good, but the sun came out and Maryll pottered gently along guided along by the electric woman. Quite pleasant really, and an ice cold beer was issued. Apart from a few course changes avoiding commercial shipping and fishing craft it was a gentle approach into the harbour, and I moored Maryll to a deserted quay. There was no havenmeester about to advise about the German mooring line (electric cable), but I had a small oil heater aboard and plans for a big meal. After a short stroll round the town with its fascinating little fishermen’s houses on a hill and a look at the memorial to the hundreds of fishermen who had lost their lives, I adjourned to Maryll’s cosy little cabin as it became dark. 
Then the quay suddenly came to life, with tugs and fishing craft mooring up for and aft of Maryll, fortunately not alongside. I was worried I had taken someone’s spot, but whether they saw the red duster, or whether they just wanted to keep clear of a madman I don’t know, but they did not complain. Eventually they finished unloading and went ashore, leaving me in peace again. I had a nice meal, read and listened to the radio, and eventually fell asleep.
It was freezing when I woke up. My used Tea Bag skidded across the ice. My pee splashed as if on glass. The nice man from Netherlands Coastguard had some warnings to shipping. Too darn right as the wind started to blow from the SSW. Some waves started coming into the harbour, breaking the ice. And then the fog. A Bacon butty later the fisher boats and tugs had gone. I decided to make for sea, it was not going to get any better, and I had to be in Amsterdam that night for an audience with the Dutch President. The waters off Urk are something of a junction for commercial shipping. There are commercials locking out of Lelystadt making for Lemmer and the Friesland canals, there are commercials coming from Lemmer and the north to go up the Ijssel inland, and there are a few big fishing vessels going out to work the Waddenzee. We crept between shipping and shoal on the Friesland side for a little way, before making a dash across the channel to shoals by the dyke which joins Enkhuizen to Lelystadt. I had to start the engine when suddenly the bow of a ship emerged from the mist. I think he had seen us on his radar, but I wanted to be sure. Then thankfully the westerly channel mark passed close abeam and we were in the shallows. The wind was blowing five, and with two reefs and tows’l we were making five. In the mist there was a cold biting drizzle, no early beer today, just the tea factory on overtime, as the electric woman struggled to steer in the broaching seas. My little hundred metre diameter world was dark and grey, no definition where sea met sky. The course was set to track just inside the normal route to KG4, the approach buoy to Enkuizen, between shipping and shoal. When the fish finder said eight feet we steered half a point east, when the shipping lane became too close we steered half a point west. I should have seen the two metre sticks that mark the shoals, but these had been taken away for the ice. No need, no Dutch Yachts, only a lonely British old gaffer a long way from her real home in Morecambe Bay. A long time away too from the summer and the marine press photographers snapping classics in the sun! 
The GPS showed the KG4 was half a mile to the East North East, but I needed to find the little red mark inshore of that before we could make a turn westwards to take us up the Krabbengat to Enkhuizen. The throbbing sound of an invisible ship passed in the mist, then there, the little red mark popped up twenty metres away on the port bow. I had to make my way to the starboard side of the Krabbengat, but where was the starboard side. Then an eel fisher crossed close ahead, so I turned in his wake and then saw the Enkhuizen shore some 30 metres away. The sheets were hardened in, and Maryll crept along the shore until harbour entrance could be seen. I hove to, lowered sail and called up the Havendienst to open the bridge to the Oostenhaven. The locals must have wondered why the bridge was up, hardly noticing a little wooden mast briefly appearing in their headlights. Maryll made her way to her berth at the back of the Maritime Museum.
The old gaffers in the Museum probably sensed one of their kind on the move outside, giving a little stretch of their timbers in their central heated air conditioned environment, pleased that they weren’t being abused by the weather. However, I almost heard Maryll saying “Better to be at home on the water than in a home!” But they would not understand, because Maryll speaks Welsh. In fact nobody understands or appreciates what they have missed on a cold dank day in the middle of January. |