Sailing on the Waddenzee

Lots of water, good times, a couple of seals and a great experience!

Last week we Shosh and I joined a group of our friends to go sailing on the Waddenzee (the sea between the northern part of the Netherlands and our 5 islands). Bonne organized the ship, a 22 meter long, flat-bottom sailing ship called "Bonte Piet".

We arrived in the town of Harlingen on Friday afternoon to prepare for our journey. And that included doing quite a bit of shopping... The next morning we set sail.

A "bonus" we got was that our captain was someone most of us already knew... a couple of years ago he participated in the TV show "Expedition Robinson". His name: Douwe Popma.

On Saturday the weather was great and some of us already got pretty sunburned. On Sunday the morning started out wet, but with some wind so we could actually practice the sailing.

In the afternoon the weather turned and when we arrived at the island of Terschelling we had nothing to complain at all.

The Monday would be the most exciting day because we would try to do "droogvallen" (parking the boat on a sandbank, in Dutch called a "Wad", and waiting for the water levels to drop so you can walk around). For me this was the best experience. The weather was great, the water was nice, we found mussels and enjoyed the great views.



Tuesday would be the last day. Due to the hardly-existing wind it took us quite a while to sail all the way back to the harbor of Harlingen but late in the afternoon we got there. We ended wit a good dinner at a local restaurant and everyone returned to their homes.

Below you can see where we sailed exactly (recorded with an app called "Motion-X GPS" on my iPhone). The .gpx or .kmz files are available upon request.
That's it for now. I am going to enjoy the rest of my Sunday and prepare for the coming week. In the next weeks I'll be looking for a new position at work and spending more time with Shosh outside since she recently got a second-hand race bike which we have to try out :-)

Cheerio,
Ruudje & Shosh