Oostend to Middleburg

Refilling the fuel tanks and cans was the first task of the day, so Mike, Howard, and I went to the petrol station just across the road from the Yacht Club with our empty cans. I stubbed my little toe badly on the bottom of the ramp going down onto the pontoon on the way back, and it swelled up too much for me to wear anything except the flip flops I had on at the time. I sprayed it with some anti swelling stuff that Mike had with him for his knee, and took ibuprofen.

Mike took me sightseeing round Ostend for the rest of the morning. We went in by tram, then we had coffee in the Royal North Sea Yacht Club before an early lunch in a frituur by the Mercator Yacht Harbour and the tram ride back to Elfreda. We cast off at 1300, just after Victoria, but she was on the outside berth, not a finger one and got clear before us.

Ostend is a busy ferry port, and other shipping is controlled by stop lights when the ferries are moving. I noticed the stop sign was lit just before we went past, so we hung around for about 15 minutes until it went out and we could follow Victoria.

By the time we cleared the harbour entrance Victoria was a dot in the distance with top sail and geneker set. We had got our sail up before we left the harbour since the wind was right, so it was just a case of turning onto our course and unfurling the jib. I had the helm, and aimed at the end of the Zeebrugge mole, so we were much further out than most of the other boats. We made between 2 and 3 knots, quite close to the wind, but there was still a little tide against us and when the wind failed we had to motor again, soon passing Victoria.

Zeebrugge is huge and ugly and they were dredging the entrance, but the tide turned strongly in our favour there and we belted along at 8 knots!

We reached Breskens and hung around waiting for Victoria. Going in there was the back-up plan, but Sue phoned to say Victoria was making good time, so we headed over to Vlissingen and locked into the Walcheren Canal. We turned the engine off and drifted around in the canal basin for about an hour until Victoria joined us. We then motored up to the first bridge, tied up, and waited for it to open which it did at 2030.

The canal was almost empty and we chugged along, towing a bucket so as not to break the speed limit, and playing tag with Victoria and 5 bridges. The one before Middleburg took ages to open, then it did just before 2200 (when bridge operations cease). Once through we turned off the canal and into the Middleburg harbour where we tied up on the shopping pontoon.



It was 2215, and Sue and Howard checked out the Yacht Club about food. Mike wanted pasta, but the kitchen was closed and all they could offer us was steak and chips from the grill. We were too hungry to go hunting for anything else, so we went in, and had beautifully cooked tournedos of filet steak with dill butter, garnished with fresh salad and served with freshly cooked double fried chips. All this from a yacht club whose chef really just wanted to go home! Two bottles of wine and several beers washed it down very nicely....