Kiel - Cuxhafen - Lauwersoog
Kiel Canal was not so bysy as usual, but still a lot interesting vessels passed by. Early morgning sail to Cuxhafen where we bunkered food and picked up a sock for the genacker. Thank´s for the Bryt Sailmakers in Poland.
The wind prognose was bad for the end of the week and a storm front was approaching from mid Atlantic. We decided to set the sails as soon as possible and left the harbour 05.00 for Friesland.
We had a perfect sidewind from the mainland and very little waves. Winds from 23 to 31 knots.
We reached 6 - 8 knots in speed.
In German bight outside the island of Juist the wind turned against us. We where now tacking in quite hard wind and the waves started to build up. We arrived to the island Shiermonnikoog during the night and tried to spend a few hours to get daylight before sailing in between the the islands and the sandbanks in Westgat.
We called coast guard on VHF to ask the position of the entrance buoys. The Westgat entrance had been changed and we did not have the uppdate maps in the area. The entrance in the North Frisian island is all the time on the move because of the sandbanks.
The sun came up and delighted the minds of the whole crew. "Mar del Norte ,Mar de la Muerte" as I told the crew before entering the North Sea. The crew did experience a little what North Sea has to offer when the going gets rough.
The Nort Sea is shallow and on Westerly and Northerly winds it is open for whole Atlantic so it can be nasty in bad weather.
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| Lauwersoog fishing vessels meet us outside of Shiermonnikoog. |
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| Engelsmansplaat |
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| Happy crew after the sun came up. |
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| Senior steerman. |
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| Some sewing made during the journey. |
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| Kiel locks |
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| Some charplotters only show us the worldmap? We had our old chartplotter and had to rely on it. |
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| Hydro charger for the big ocean passages. |
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| Interesting vessels |
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| Classic TUI cruiser in Kiel channel |
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| Captain is having his evening excercise...mounting.. |
