Escale a Gravelines

To "Escale a Gravelines"

19th May in Calais

Birthday girl had a lazy day. Not so the chief sanitation officer who had to deal with a holding tank which was living up to its name and not releasing our “you know” into the depths of the sea as and when required – hence it had filled up.
Unspeakable!
We piled our heaviest gear (life raft, anchor chain, buckets of water) onto the port side to lean the boat over a bit and Howard was able to remove his inspection panel from the starboard side of the tank without too much mess.

Heeling the boat over to port


Anyone who followed us in 2013 when we sailed round Britain will remember we had problems with wet wipes causing blockages, this time it seemed to be scaled up. Once cleared, our troubles, and smells were not yet over as it transpired that the tank is cracked where there's a fitting for the exit valve. So it had now been by-passed and we are back to using facilities ashore as much as possible or pumping straight out into the sea.
(Next logistical nightmare will be how to get the plastic tank back to the manufacturer for repairs).

20th May
Calais to Gravelines for “Escale a Gravelines”

Leaving Calais Marina has to be done at specific times as there are gates they close to keep the water in when the tide drops. So after coffee ashore we took the last possible bridge opening before the gates closed at 11am and moved out to a buoy in the outer harbour until it was time to take our tide up the coast at about 4pm.

Staysail poled out, mind the gybe

Phew! Winds come round onto the beam - easier steering


It's not very far – log showed about 15 miles - but it was a joy to be sailing with no engine assistance. We had a grandstand view, albeit a long way off, of the various beach activities available here: sand yachting we'd seen before but kite carting was new – maybe they don't even call it that. Kite buggies?

Kite buggie? Kite cart?

Sand yacht


We entered the Gravelines channel over the sane bar 2 hours before high water with only a few feet under our keel despite keeping over to the east side as directed.
We tied up with the rest of the fleet just in time to join them for dinner and music in the Brasserie Au Cap Compass.

Dinner - but the garden's upside down
No caption needed
No, we didn't!



Comments

Post a Comment

We've set this up so anyone can comment - though we'll see your comment before it's published on the blog - please comment away!

Popular posts from this blog

Inland Schleswig-Holstein

Image
Wednesday 19th July to Thursday 20th July - River Eider inland Reasons to take the River Eider route to the Baltic: 1. It's easier to get to from Heligoland (in the right conditions). 2. You avoid travelling (and crossing) the River Elbe with all its traffic and strong current. 3. You avoid the massive ship lock at Brunsbüttel where we have heard of yachts having to wait as long as 4 hours out in the Elbe before locking in. There are some issues with the locks and they are not all operating. 4. There's no commercial traffic, till you join up with the Kiel Canal 5. Once in, it's more interesting to travel along a river with small towns to visit than 100km of straight ship canal. So, Tönning was our first town with its small harbour a feature in itself overlooked by houses and cafés. When the tide went out overnight we didn't see the mud, we just floated in almost no water.  On Wednesday we moved on to Friedrichstadt, just 10nm further on, a pleasant short trip with withi
Read more

Rigging screws? Hmm...

Image
Sunday 23rd July - guest crew join at Rendsburg. If you believe what you read in Riddle of the Sands (sorry, here we go again) then guest crew joining your yacht in the Baltic can be prevailed upon to bring any number of weird and wonderful items of equipment.  Carruthers brought rigging screws, a prismatic compass, a pound of Raven mixture for Davies's pipe and a No. 3 Rippingille stove.  We thought that a replacement heating system was rather a lot to ask of guests trying to stay within the Ryanair hand baggage limit, and in any case the current heating system is not quite ready to be consigned to the deep. Though Howard does distort its name from Webasto to Webastard sometimes, so it may only be a matter of time. Anyway Pete and Sarah very kindly made room in their bags for our new cockpit cover (now adjusted since its first fitting back in Bergen op Zoom) and a pair of shorts we'd asked for. Pete had also packed a rigging screw which we hadn't asked for, but you can see
Read more

Eider Canal

Image
Friday 21st July - Eider canal The Nordfeld lock which brings us out of tidal waters for the last time (the Baltic Sea doesn't really have tides) is only a couple of miles from Friedrichstadt and once through it we are in the Eider Canal.  Canal it may be but it looks and feels like a river wending its way northwards and eastwards in big sweeping curves for mile upon mile.  Most of the supposed boaty stopping places from now on (marked on our chart there with a yacht symbol) are tiny: just a few posts by the bank with a few small motor boats in and almost no sailing boats. Süderstapel is an exception and is somewhere we might stop another time to have a look round. Our rather ancient pilot book tells us to look out for a colony of storks near the church and we are lucky enough to see one stork fly over as we pass.  Another highlight spotted on the river bank is a pair of musicians: one playing some kind of squeeze box and one a cello. We throttle back to listen but the breeze carri
Read more