This morning I woke up to a sound of another boat slamming into us. First I thought we were already sailing, but we weren’t. It was another boat leaving the harbour and the wind was so strong he couldn’t make the turn and hit us. That was at 7 AM, al little early to wake up, so we got back to sleep.

At 9:20 we left, we really had to go. If we leave later the waves would have become way too high. The Marker Wadden are at the end of the Markermeer, so waves could build up all the way from Amsterdam, with a 5-6 Bft wind from south-east. They were already huge and with full motor power we left the Island. The waves felt worse, because you didn’t see them coming. It looks like the small waves give more trouble than the big ones. I took the first shift, half wind, on motor and jib to Enkhuizen with 6 knots. The wind was constant 20 knots, with gusts to 25. We passed the lock with no problems.

After Enkhuizen the wind and waves came more from behind with a course of 10 degrees. Because the Houtrib-dike the waves were a lot smaller fortunately, however they increased as we approached Stavoren and also the wind was 25 knots constant. The piers at Stavoren are very small, so still waves rolling into in the harbour basin. I called by VHF radio the lock and we were allowed to enter right away. From Stavoren to home is usually 3 hours, we did in 2 hours with only the jib and a lot of speed and at least one time very very much rainfall.

When we arrived at home we had some time to relax. We reflected a bit at our trip. Unfortunately we didn’t make it to Zeeland, neither the North Sea. The weather didn’t approve, but that was fine. We learned a lot and of course had a lot of fun.