July 28th 2019
Today was Carmen’s birthday. Although the forecast had predicted thunder and lightning and lots of rain, the weather turned out fine again, slightly less tropical, but hot enough to spend the whole day lounging and swimming. The perfect way to spend a birthday.
Every evening we watch the rush hour when all the boats come in. It begins around 4 o’clock when a steady stream of pleasure crafts starts to arrive at the marina, all rushing to obtain the last free spots. Usually the last slip is gone by half past 5. Same story yesterday and the day before. So if you want to be sure of a free slip during high season, make sure to arrive before 4 o’clock. Most sailors start early. At 10 o’clock in the morning most of the marina is empty again. So all those early birds that have left at the crack of dawn will arrive at their destination early as well, and take the first empty slips. After that it’s a matter of stacking boats, and you can imagine that the early birds that have arrived first are not happy with 2 or more boats tied on to them. Because if they want to leave early the next morning, everyone has to move first before they can leave.
We are no early birds. How hard we might try to have an early start, we always leave around 12. The one time that we left earlier During the whole of our adventure was when we had a dragging anchor at the Braassemermeer.
In the meantime emotions were running high in the marina. It was already packed, with stacks 4 boats thick connected to every side dock. People with humongous motorboats yelling at other people to move their boat so they could fit. Others yelling that they have permission of the harbour master to dock exactly where someone else is already moored, or people trying to be quicker than the others to race for a slip which was already taken. And there are the people with very big and expensive boats that don’t know how to moor properly, are totally stressed out because they don’t want scratches on their hull and as a result hit almost everything in their way. And we, moored snugly in our berth, watched the drama unfold outside our cockpit whilst eating the delicious fried chicken that Jeroen prepared. Beats watching television every time.
