Cuxhaven to Den Helder

On Sunday night and Monday morning the weather reports came through with more encouraging forecasts, changing their tune from north westerly 6's occasionally 7 to variable 3 or 4. So we decided to head out at around 15:00 on Monday to catch the last hour of tide coming in to be followed by a nice sweep out of the Elbe, albeit still with strong headwinds at first.

We crossed the shipping lane to follow the proper right hand side of the lane and worked our way out of the Elbe into the 2 to 3 metre swell which had had the chance to build over the last 4 days. It wasn't so nice. But even this stretch inevitably came to an end and as we mingled with the various ships anchored offshore, we hoisted the full main (still in anticipation of a dying wind, which was still close to 6), selected a quiet moment in the traffic and headed due south for about a mile to cross the shipping lane again. The No 3 genoa also went up and as we cleared all traffic we headed west to south west for the 150 mile stretch or so around the top of the Friesian islands. With the engine relieved of its duties - at last - things started to quieten down.

As the night fell, the sailing was yet again glorious. However, the wind was dying and, as the night progressed and as windy as it had been previously, calm descended upon us. We left it for what is was for a while while the speed slowly dropped to 0, but with the residual swell, it soon became uncomfortable with the sails doing little but make a lot of noise, slamming from side to side. So the engine came back on and as dawn came on Tuesday we found ourselves in the midst of a mirror like sea.

This continued into Tuesday but luckily the wind did come back, just off Schiermonnikoog, and we continued sailing. Peace again....

Some other events of note were the sighting of seals poking their heads out and taking a look around and the visit of a Dutch customs launch to check our papers, in the afternoon. The palavre of getting Struana properly registered paid off handsomely, it was a brief visit indeed.

And then as night fell again, and on a high tide, we made it passed Texel to set course for our final destination, Den Helder. The old saying about relaxing when the harbour is in sight proved too true, with a near existential brush with a sandbank at midnight following a collosal and damning error in navigation tarnishing an otherwise fine voyage.

We entered Den Helder at 01:00 on Wednesday.

Distance 180 Nm.