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Thursday 14 July 2016
Studying the weather for today last night, after a long day at sea, and hating Borkum and its vile U-Boat pontoons, a way out had to be found. The weather we had coped well with on Wednesday looked as if it might continue on into Thursday morning. The tides was high at about 0600 and that meant the 30nm sea section of the passage to Lauwersoog could possibly be done before the strong winds arrived mid morning.
Up at 03:00, breakfasted and Jasper walked, we cast off in the dark and motored out at four oclock, just remembering to switch the nav lights on as we crossed the basin. The long westward exit route crossed a shallow area, but we had used it on the way up and were confident it would be reusable. With a large swell, more wind than expected, breaking seas on both sides of us, the echo sounder dropped to 3.1m before gradually rising to something taking our hearts from our mouths. The hearts stopped pounding and we regained deeper water, had we missed a mark - for sure one SWM had not been seen - but it was just getting light and the plotter chart may have been imperfect, anyway we were OK now.
A long motor sail in heavy seas breaking over us continually took us close to our seegat, the entrance alongside the western edge of Schiermonkoog. I called the coastguard here and received confirmation of my depth calculations for the bar, a revised position for the SWM (safe water mark) and hence the new bouyage route in. I was also asked to contact them again when at the SWM. This I duly did at 08:00 and was told they would plot us on radar and to leave the VHF on Ch 5. All hugely reassuring as this entrance is shallow and dangerous in onshore winds and we had a Force 5-6 blowing from the NW.
Our entry was pretty routine apart from the huge waves breaking around us and under us - but never over us. The boat was slowed down to ensure no undue strains on rudder and rig and we passed by the huge breakers, in depths down to 4.1m, without any more than a lot of rolling from ear to ear.
Wendy plotted each buoy set as we passed and we both spotted and confirmed each forthcoming pair, we made the entry safely. There then followed a couple of hours pilotage up the Waddensee to the lock at Lauwersoog, which we passed through and took a mooring in the large inner marina close by. The wind has howled ever since, it has rained and we have slept through most of it this afternoon, tired but pleased to be safely in and able to move on through the Dutch canals almost regardless of the weather.
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