July 24th 2019
It is time to really leave Enkhuizen behind us. In contradistiction to what we thought a few days ago, it isn’t easier to leave from an anchorage. But we’re easier inclined to leave from an anchorage because we have run out of a.water b.electricity or c.food. And today we really have to leave because we’re running out of water. We were in doubt whether we should refill the tank before we left or that it could wait until we arrived in Makkum. We chose to do it upon arrival because as usual we were on the late side again and set sail for Makkum.
We left the sheltered bay near the Zuiderzee museum and hoisted the main sail and unfurled the genoa. The wind was forecasted to be somewhere between 3 to 4 Beaufort, but in reality it was more like 2 to 3 Beaufort. The sun was shining abundantly so we turned on the autopilot and spent the day being pulled behind the boat in the water and lounging in shade of the genoa.
The speed of our boat was considerably faster than last time we did this jumping in the water thing. You can’t just jump of a boat if it has some speed. It goes a lot faster than you can swim, and the boat would soon be out of sight. So if you jump in you hold on to a rope which is tied to the stern of the boat. We jump in from the bow, and when you surface you see the rear of the boat speeding past, that’s how fast the boat moves. A second later you feel a jolt and the boat starts pulling you forward like a water skier. This time the pull was so strong that it costed a lot of strength to pull yourself towards the boat to get a hold of the swimming ladder.
Late afternoon all of a sudden the wind died. It was forecasted to turn to the west, so we figured this was the moment that the wind would turn. We tacked and changed course to anticipate the changing wind direction. But suddenly, before we even had set the sails properly, Booom! The wind banged in the sails with a force that almost knocked us from our feet and the wind speed jumped from 0 to 16 knots in just a few seconds. Luckily we weren’t dangling behind the boat at that time. The wind kept increasing and we shot forward like we were catapulted and sped over the water towards Makkum. We covered the last third of of the trip in just under an hour, whereas it took us six hours to cover the first two thirds.
When we tacked again to make the turn to enter the channel to Makkum the wind dropped a bit, allowing us to gently sail up the channel in stead of covering the last bit by engine. We had hoped to find a spot in the municipality marina, but what we saw on the way didn’t look very promising. We passed two marinas in the canal absolutely packed with screaming children, yelling men and hysterical women, smoking barbecues and loud music while left and right roaring speedboats sped past. Our spirits fell. This looked more like an Italian camping site than the peaceful marina we had imagined.
We sailed all the way to the end of the channel where the Municipality marina was. Our fears were confirmed. It was completely filled to the brim. We decided to anchor somewhere for the night and see if we could find a spot tomorrow. But we were a bit reluctant to do that, because we were almost out of water. Another thing we’ve learned. Never miss an opportunity to refill the water tank, because you’ll never know what you might find at the end of your passage. We could have easily refilled our tank in Enkhuizen, but decided against it. Stupid. If we would have taken the time to fill our water tank, we could have anchored without a care.
On the way back through the channel we saw another marina, the Prins van Oranje Makkum. It only had a sign with its name on it, but no VHF channel or phone number to call which is unusual. We decided to dock at what looked like a reception dock to ask if it would be alright if we stayed here for the night.
We had just tied ourselves to the dock and had got of the boat to search for the harbour master, when we saw him already coming towards us. It turned out he wasn’t just a harbour master but a yacht broker with a small private marina. Normally he didn’t accept guests, but made an exception for us because, as he put it, we looked like good folk. He showed us a berth where we could stay and soon we were safely docked in a quiet marina with a lovely view. What a day.