Amsterdam to Eastbourne - 50° 47' 28" N 00° 19' 30" E

The old and the new - apartments now line the old docks in Eastern Docklands

After a magical sail down from Enkhuizen, and timing the opening of the bridge to perfection (okay, that was just insanely good luck!), we pulled into the marina in Amsterdam in the late afternoon.

This left us plenty of time to head out for a wander, followed by a couple of beers and dinner at a canal-side café.  A pretty perfect way to arrive in Amsterdam!

The weather was windy and very wet so we hunkered down and caught up on all sorts of housework, boat jobs, filled out immigration paperwork, administration of life and cooked up a big pot of chili to freeze for our upcoming passages. This cruising life is not all champagne and sunsets!

We rode our bikes to check out of the EU at Marechausse and received some very welcome news from the from the very friendly officers.  As Sean is an EU citizen, Kate is able to stay in the Schengen Zone with him as long as we travel together and we don't stay in one country for more than three months. 

The 90-Day Rule Exemption:

Under EU Directive 2004/38/EC, non-EU family members have the right to accompany or join an EU citizen. When traveling together within the Schengen area, guidance (such as the Practical Handbook for Border Guards) suggests non-EU spouses are exempt from the standard 90-day-in-180-day limitation.

This means as long as we are travelling together, we are both able to stay as long as we choose in any EU country ... without visas.  Our travelling just got much simpler!

Can we call this a red sky at night??

Getting out of our rather tight berth was a bit of a nautical adventure — there may have been the odd raised eyebrow from the crew! But thanks to Sean’s marvellous skippering, we escaped without scraping anything important and off we went through Amsterdam.

It was quite the obstacle course out there: ferries darting about, swans apparently believing they have right of way, cruise ships looming over us, riverboats everywhere, barges, sailing ships, tall ships and goodness knows what else.

Not a small ship.  Luckily, this one is docked.

One of the many interesting ships we passed, this one appears to be able to lower the piles and "stand" on the sea floor ... likely to serve as a construction platform.

We kept firmly to our side of the channel, eyes peeled, hands on the helm, and made it to the lock at IJmuiden without incident. We timed it perfectly and, before long, were out into the Zuiderbuitenkanaal — the Southern Outer Canal.

And this is where things became really sporty!

We were instructed to keep to the south side of the canal to allow several outgoing ships to pass us to the north. At the same time, we had to avoid a dredger hard at work in the channel, as well as the breakwater and its rather enthusiastic collection of crashing waves.

Add to that a short, steep sea, 25 knots of wind and absolutely no room to get the sails up, and we had all the ingredients for a proper little adventure.

So, into the North Sea we went — under bare poles!

The boat was bucking around in the steep seas, and at one point a particularly enthusiastic wave launched the fruit hanging in the nets beneath the solar panel like a slingshot. Suddenly we had apples, bananas, nectarines and lemons rolling to and fro around the cockpit, adding a fruity dimension to the proceedings.

Eventually, we cleared the dredger, the breakwater and the navigation mark, and at last managed to get the sails up and turn south.

Almost immediately, everything became considerably more civilised. The boat settled down, the fruit that could be was salvaged and that which couldn't was scraped off the cockpit floor and donated to Davy Jones.

The apples and lemons were remarkably resilient. The bananas were bruised but perfectly edible — although they clearly needed eating sooner rather than later. The nectarines, sadly, had experienced a rather more terminal encounter with the cockpit deck and did not fare well at all.

That's a lot of fridge magnets

We knew the first few hours would be bumpy.  There was a nasty weather system across the top of The Netherlands and we were catching the very southern end of it.  As we sailed into sunshine and gentler waters, we were listening to the gale warnings on the radio - for Den Helder, for Deftzijl, for the Waddesee and the IJsselmeer...

Sailing into a parking lot of tankers and bulk cargo ships off Rotterdam. They are all very safely at anchor and don't pose any danger to us.

Glorious sunrise

It was a magic run down the coast of Belgium and France.  The wind was steady and moderate and the night was bright and clear.  The sky sparkled with stars and a large crescent moon.

White Cliffs of Dover

As morning broke, the coast of Britain revealed itself from the mist.  We were monitoring the traffic around us via the chartplotter when I noticed something unusual.  There was a French coast guard ship about to cross our direction of travel, and it had a sizeable (22 metres long) Belgian military ship travelling very close, as well.  They were both going 2 knots - about 1/6 their normal cruising speed.  As we got closer, we saw that they had a small vessel between them.  Through the binoculars from our cockpit we could see ... at least TWENTY orange-lifejacketed occupants.  

It was what looked like an inflatable boat of asylum seekers!

On this and previous transits of the Channel, we had heard notices on the radio to be on the lookout for small craft attempting to make the more-than-twenty mile crossing and to report any sightings to the authorities. We had hoped never to have to encounter one for fear of them being in trouble and not being allowed to lend any assistance other than radio-ing for assistance (advice from the UK and French douane was to report and stand off at least 500 metres).  Luckily, this boat was being escorted across the shipping lanes and would be met by officials from the UK when they landed.  Even though it looks calm in the pictures, there was enough swell to make it dangerous for the coast guard to approach the inflatable boat. 

Just under a kilometre away when we passed, the escorted inflatable boat is in the middle.
The orange colour you can make out on top of the small boat are lifejackets.

As the boat was being escorted, we were free of our responsibilities for SOLAS.  We could carry on our way.

Although on this day, The conditions were relatively benign (daylight, clear skies, somewhat calm seas) for the people making their way across, it is still a dangerous undertaking.  Fog can envelop the sea in much less time that it takes to get across the Channel.   Big ships cannot always be relied upon to watch out for these unlit boats that have limited manoeuvrability and that do not show up on radar.  The people aboard are literally taking a chance with their lives ... most of them knowingly taking this chance.  Their situations must be so, so desperate in the places that they are coming from that they are willing to take such a chance with their lives to get to a place that they HOPE (not even really know) will be better and safer.  They will also be restarting their lives with very little.

Actually seeing this taking place with our own eyes was quite sobering. 

Another small boat on the horizon

Seeing another small boat on the horizon, we braced ourselves for this encounter.  What could it be?

It turned out to be a much happier voyage - this was an escort boat for a Channel swimming team!  We were close enough to shout encouragement, but not so close as to get in their way or interfere.  Go swimmers!  Enjoy your drinks at The White Horse Inn!

Hey, wait!  You went right past Dover!

The plan was to sail from Amsterdam, through the night and to land in Dover.  We had filed a voyage plan with the UK Border Force saying we would make landfall there.  But ... we had made really good time due to the tides pushing us along, and therefore they would continue west for another five hours.  The next attractive port along the coast was Eastbourne ... and it was about five hours away.  Perfect.

As we were close enough to shore to have mobile phone reception, we called Border Force and told them of our plans to continue on.  A cheerful response on the other end of the line had us setting sail for Sovereign Harbour.  We would be there before dinner!  Hooray!  

18:00 and almost there!

We were tired but happy to be further west than originally planned.  This would make the next leg - likely Portsmouth - into a less-than-24-hour journey.

And we could re-provision with English essentials.  Tea ... 

... and biscuits.  No hardtack for us! 

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