can we help
+44(0)1983 296060
+1 757-788-8872
tell me moreJoin a rally

Menu

Jumbuck - Delivery Cruise - Ramsgate to Ostende



Tuesday saw us depart Ramsgate in a blustery NE wind under sunny sky's, to enjoy a rollicking 55 mile tight reach across the English Channel towards the Belgium coast. Sue commented that in two days she'd experienced her two worst nightmares at sea. Twenty four hours motoring - then a bashing to windward across lumpy seas. Me? I enjoyed it all.

Jumbuck seemed to ignore the weight of cruising gear we were carrying as she dipped the lee rail and powered along. We've got our cruising sails on - Kevlar main and a No 2 headsail - and we slid across the shipping lanes making good time.

Leaving at 10 am we had an hour or so of ebb tide, before it flooded back up Channel to help speed us along. The combo of wind and tide saw us topping 8 knots over the ground on a more or less direct route to fetch up off Ostende by 3 pm, where we locked into the Mercator Marina and what proved to be a very tight berth! Oh for a bow thruster at times like that.

Enjoyed a great steak that evening at Den Artiest, a highly recommended atmospheric restaurant, and completed the night with a second bottle of red on Jumbuck with Emily Sande on maximum volume. Have to say it was beginning to feel like our trip had really started!

How do we rate Oostende and Mercator Marina? Maybe 8/10. Cost €30. Showers superb. Berths very very tight. And the locking in was a real faff.

Our French pals Gerard and Evelyne, sailing four up, left Lymington 24 hours before us. They stopped into Eastbourne, then Dover, and are now in Vlissinger - still a day ahead. Tomorrow's forecast is for light winds from the NW/W which is a much better direction for us. The plan is to only go 35 miles north to Vlissinger in Holland, where hopefully we can link up with some Dutch family before heading north along the Dutch coast to Den Helder just before the North Freisland Islands. That's probably going to be a night sail.


Previous | Next