| |
| To email this person click here |
| You can upload a photo by clicking here |
| |
| Judy CREWS FOR THESE BOATS |
| Cloud Walker |
| |
| USER INFO |
First: Judy
Last: Lomax |
| Info: |
edit |
| Co-owner with husband David of Cloud Walker from new in 1985. Since then we\'ve sailed many 1000s of miles in her, from a trade wind Atlantic crossing with oldest and youngest daughters (then 23 and 5) to several arctic expeditions and most recently a circumnavigation of the UK leaving Ireland to port and Shetland to starboard. | |
|
 |
| LOG INFO |
add a
log entry |
 |
DATE: 24 June, 2003 |
BOAT: Cloud Walker |
|
Cloud Walker in Holland and Germany
Judy and David Lomax, June 24 2003
June 7 - June 24 2003: Cloud Walker, our 18-year-old Beneteau First 345, is waiting in Cuxhaven near the mouth of the massive river Elbe for force 8-9 thundersquall gusts to abate. In the last two and a half weeks we have done France and Belgium (one night each), Holland (two nights in the canals), and Friesland (ten days shared between Dutch and German mud-hopping between
islands).
Dunkerque was dull. Blankenberge in Belgium was better. Holland, en route for the Friesians, was an unexpected pleasure. After a spirited night arrival in Ijmuiden, we entered the excellent Dutch canal system, dropping two metres below sea level in the entry lock. Bridges opened for us, sometimes as if by magic, sometimes via VHF requests, as we motored past a kaleidoscope of flat scenery: at first industrial warehouses and workshops alongside modern apartments, then picturesque traditional wooden houses and windmills, workmanlike lines of modern windmills whirring high above us, flat fields set below our water level. After two elastic days which felt like weeks we rose out of the canal again at Den Helde.
From there we set out for two days in the Dutch Friesian islands en route for the German Friesians. The origins of several everyday expressions gained reality with the need to get the tide right to cross watersheds, often a matter of touch and go as we wound our way tortuously across the Wattenmeer between islands Texel and Vlieland in Holland, out to sea for an overnight
passage to the German islands, mudhopping again between Norderney and Langeoog. It was real Riddle of the Sands stuff and so it should have been, in the year of the centenary of the publication of Erskine Childers book of that name.
Valour won over discretion when we fell prey to the lure of the oogs, several more long narrow islands facing the north sea and backing onto tortuous inland passages through the Watt. The channel behind Norderney, the Riffgat, might in gentler weather have been more touch than go for Cloud Walker with her 1.8m draught and is not advised for yachts which draw more than 1.4m; but there was extra water after two days of strong winds. By putting up more sail and gunning the engine when we touched, we bounced and bumped across the watershed on high water.
Half way past the last of the oogs, en route for Cuxhaven, we were boarded by three members of the German border coastguard patrol. "Where is your black triangle?" Oops! The Germans are very keen on an international sailing regulation that a yacht under power must hoist a black triangle or take down its sails. We were excused a fine once we had dropped our mainsail, which we normally always use as a steadier when motoring, and promised to remedy our
lack at the first opportunity.
The Elbe is huge. Its complex series of shipping lanes which must only be crossed at certain points and at right angles are mercifully well marked. Cloud Walker wallowed without her mainsail as we motored in deteriorating weather into an increasing headwind inside the final shipping lane and into
Cuxhaven. As soon as the weather stops throwing gusts of F9 at us we shall cross the Danish peninsula's German neck by canal to Denmark's Baltic islands. There is another unfamiliar regulation to obey in the canal: as a yacht we have to fly the letter N, to make it clear that we are not carrying a pilot. We have it and the black triangle ready. |
|
|
|
|
