Page 15 - Demo

As can be seen we jumped around a fair bit, tidal considerations only arise in the Oosterschelde which is determined by the North Sea tides via a big set of gates ready to shut. Rosemary particularly liked not having any nasty departure or arrival times! There are little landing places in places like the Veerse and Grevenlingen Meers, the latter requires an upfront small fee and the fine is larger so buy it.
The rally congregated in Middleburg where you might encounter box moorings, go between two piles bow first, putting ropes round them ready as you pass, until you get to the jetty where you get on
and off over the bow, a little step will be required.
After a wait for everyone to collect we moved off down the canal into theVeerse Meer and Veere. If you go to Veere enter the harbour backwards, it is a requirement to
be bows out in case of an emergency and it is fun watching those who cannot turn in
a confined space!TheVeere yacht club was good, but I wonder if it is still run by the same two ladies.After wandering a while, we gathered at Zierikzee and a rally dinner had been organised by Ken Oakerbee.You have all seen photos of such meets with clustered boats, where boats such as the picture of Charlie here filled with empties!
Zierikzee was explored by several and we all ended up one evening as a group in the restaurant, which was above average for Holland, a very enjoyable evening.
There was a mass exit next day which had to be carefully timed to meet the span opening in the Zeeland bridge. Rosemary and I have been over that bridge when we went with our motorvan to visit places we could not get to by boat.We were on our 100cc scooter when crossing the bridge, it lived in the motorvan! It is an impressive bridge as in the photo of Charlie and the bridge taken by Martin Alexander.
At this point in the rally smaller groups were formed scattering in various directions. We went along the Oosterschelde and then through the lock into the Grevelingen Meere which was originally totally open
to the North Sea, resulting in deep water channels and shallows so watch your chart.We have found a good first stop is Herkingen on the opposite side from the lock.There is a yacht club to port and
a commercial marina to starboard both reasonably priced and we have always gone to starboard.The approach channel is as
little as 2.1m so do not wander.The Meere is a delightful place and the Stamperplatz island little harbour especially so. Look at the following link for information. https:// www.staatsbosbeheer.nl/natuurgebieden/ grevelingen/english.There are also several ponies on Stamperplatz who just wander around, as do the humans.
We wandered for a while in Grevelingenmeere before going out and through Krammersluizen into the Volkerak which then goes through Voleraksluizen
into the Hollandsdiep.The photograph of the empty lock is of theVolkeraksluizen,
in the winter! The bridge height is 18.2m with the lock operator in a remote tower, he promised to stop us via the radio if it was wrong.
We decided Charlie had to go back to where we bought her so popped over to Numansdorp where yacht club members came to see what had happened, Charlie was back.We then wandered further as can be seen in the chartlet earlier getting as far as Dordrecht before retracing our steps home. Everywhere was interesting and different. We have also been on other trips including one via Amsterdam to Den Oever where time and a F9 gale stopped us from going out into the Wadenzee, waste of money on
a nice new chart! If one wishes to go it is worth checking on school holiday times as it gets manic so I will end with this photo of a lock loading lightly for the season in holiday time!
Words and photos: John Webb
CRUISING REPORTS 15