On the way from Calais to Dieppe we heard a startling warning on VHF because there were swimmers crossing the English Channel. They notified coordinates for each swimmer and his escort boat. This way the ships can avoid swimmers. The
The gennaker is definitely our favourite sail. During the sailing in France on the coast of Normandy from Calais to Dieppe we had a perfect gennaker weather for 82 miles. Onboard Suwena we have a North Sails G3 gennaker with
When reading other’s sailing blogs Calais has always felt a distant city by looking at the end of the Baltic Sea. It really felt like an achievement by arriving on own boat to the harbour of Calais. At the same
From Bruges it was first nine miles on the canals to the North Sea. After passing the port of Zeebrugge we raised the sails and it was another nine miles until we were in front of Oostende entrance. Still one
We arrived from Rotterdam to Zeebrugge at nine o’clock in the evening. On arrival we were informed that the next upstream lockage will be at 23:30 and again our plans changed. We stayed in Zeebrugge for the night. We were
When we were departing from Gouda to Rotterdam, two red lights lit on a bridge over Nieuwe Gouda canal. The harbourmaster arrived and happily announced that ”the bridge is kaput”. There we were, everything ready, thinking that how long the
For Friday evening we stayed at the lock and our idea was that we can move Suewna to Gouda centre in the morning. The morning approached and we planned the lockage when we noticed that the lock is in use
The Dutch are the boating people. There are 6000 kilometres of navigable waterways in Holland. There are a lot of bridges on the canals and most of them are fixed. The depth of the canals should always take a notice
There were a huge amount of boats on a Sunday sail when we made a short hop from Volendam to Amsterdam. It only took a passage through Oranjesluizen lock and we were on lake IJ. Our destination, marina Sixhaven is
It is only a 10 nautical mile jump from Hoorn to Volendam. Again during the short sail we got watered by the rain but afterwards the Sun was shining for the rest of the day. When we were entering the
