Aim for the Kiel canal, shelter in Borkum

After 2 days in Terschelling, I finally set out with the tide to leave the Wadden Sea and start sailing the North Sea. It all started rather well, I was a bit worried that I had miscalculated my tide and that I would fail to round the exit before it turned. I was more or less in the nip of time, though, since the tide did change shortly after I had passed and the wind started to die down as well.

And it did to the point that I had to go on engine for a bit: without wind but with swell, it was really uncomfortable inside… So engine for a few hours until the sea state matched the wind, or rather the lack thereof.

After that, I spent most of the rest of the night waiting for some wind, slowly drifting, watching the bioluminescence make tiny wavelets on the side of the boat (sadly impossible to take a video of these in the absence of moonlight). I was not too far from the place where huge ships anchor while waiting for a pilot to enter the strait toward Groningen. I could have wished for a quieter place to be able to rest a little bit more than I did.

When the wind started to come back, I checked the forecast update, and it looked rather nasty again. So I decided to take shelter in Borkum, sleep for most of the day and night and leave again once the biggest part of the blow would be gone.

On approaching I tied up alongside another sailboat who had the same idea (but were going West not East). It was a group of French who had travelled from Brunsbüttel (the West exit of the Kiel canal).

“There we see the sandbank, and here I've 7 meter depth. Magic, innit?”

A funny failed experiment with the camera.

As the sun started to dip, the sea got calmer and calmer…

I mean, it's almost a mirror at this point.

Low tide at the beach of Borkum.