June 29th 2019
We’re leaving today, destination Enkhuizen. This is such a wonderful spot, if it wasn’t for the dentist appointment we have in two days, we would probably stay indefinitely. There are worse days to leave, though. The sun was shining abundantly, the temperatures were tropical and we had nice light winds for a downwind sail. We quickly forgot our sadness, because when we had hoisted the sails and shut down the engine it was great to be sailing again.
Time also to try something new. When we bought the boat it came with a steering pilot. We’d never used it before, because there wasn’t really a need for it plus we wanted learn how to sail and get a feel for the subtleties of the wheel before delegating it to an automaton. And since it was almost a straight line from our anchorage to Enkhuizen, it was the ideal passage to try it out. You enter a course with degrees, and then the pilot steers the wheel and holds the course. It took some getting used to. The rudder responds slower to the pilot than to hand steering which led to overcompensating and nervous pressing of buttons. But after a while we got the hang of it and were able to relax and let the pilot steer for us. Although an oldie, it still worked perfectly.
We had to cross the Ketelbrug again, so we started the engine and lowered our sails. The lazy jack we made works great as well. The sail just drops into a heap in between the lines, without it flapping all over the place. And after we had passed the bridge we could easily hoist it again. Another success!
After the bridge the only thing we had to do was sit back and find something to do for the next 6 coming hours. We found the perfect way to entertain ourselves on a boat with tropical temperatures: jumping off the boat. Without the need for constant hand steering we could take turns in taking a dive to cope with the heat. Although it looks like the boat is practically standing still, it still has a speed of 2,8 knots. It doesn’t sound like much, but if you are in the water the boat moves incredibly fast. We jumped in from the bow holding a line, and the moment you surface again the boat has already past. That’s how fast the boat moves. You feel a jerk of the line and then you’re towed behind the boat. Way to slow to do any waterskiing or wake boarding, but the force you feel is already tremendous.
We also discovered that the best place to sit was on the bow in the shade of the genoa. From there we also had a better view on what happened before us. When we spotted someone who had right of way or big freight ships, we could walk back to the pilot easily and adjust the course, after which we could continue lounging on deck.
However there were not only success stories today. There was one technical issue, not with the pilot, but with the wind meter. It just suddenly stopped working. A few quick interventions we could think of didn’t work. A detailed investigation has to wait until we’re in a marina. Hopefully we don’t have to go up in the mast again…
After 5 hours of sailing the wind started to die down slowly. We saw our speed dropping from 2,8 knots to 1,8 knots and finally to less than a knot. Since we were already quite close to Enkhuizen, we turned on the engine and motored the last 15 minutes. It was already after eight, too late to moor in the Oosterhaven because the bridge is only operated till 5 o’clock. That’s a pity. We had hoped to moor in a marina this evening because our water tank was almost empty. Hopefully our water supply will last till tomorrow morning. We decided to drop the anchor at Kooizand, the recreational beach of Enkhuizen. There were already quite a few boats there, but we found a spot amongst them, anchored successfully and shut down the engine. Another first, we never have sailed from anchorage to anchorage before.
We took an evening dive to refresh ourselves a bit and contemplated the day in the cockpit whilst the sun was going down. It was an amazing day, glorious weather and the most relaxed and magical passage we ever had.
