ship’s log 6: crossing the English channel
Since we bought the boat, we knew that we want it to be as close as possible to Switzerland, so that we don’t have to drive even longer to get there. The boat being in England, we had to pay over 200€ just for one crossing of the English Channel – not even talking about the amount of gas and the extra time that it takes us.
So, we started to look for options on the coast of France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Long story short, we decided to go with the Netherlands. After looking at some Marinas, we found one that looked very inviting and even had a Elvström shop, where we wanted to get our new sails from anyways.
The crossing of the English Channel will be our biggest adventure so far. Since we never done something like that, we felt much more confident, having a third person on Board to help with the nightshift and keeping the crew spirit high. So, we invited Reto’s childhood friend, Jonas. He also recently purchased his own boat in Mexico and was eager to make this passage with us to add some experience to his résumé for his own future, living on a boat by himself.
Hours before we left, we made some last-minute preparations. We mounted a Radar reflector, disconnected the leaking water tank, sealed in the new air vents since the old once where leaking and filled Lív’s tank and some cherry cans up with diesel. After everything was prepared, we checked out of the Marina and the UK and then waited for the right tide to exit the harbor and to have the current pushing us in the right direction.
Once we left the Marina, we took down the British flag and hissed the yellow flag, signalizing that we are checked out of the country. Our captain, Reto, made the right decision with the day and time he chose for our departure. We had great wind conditions and made good progress. For dinner, Jonas cooked some awesome Chili con carne whilst I was steering the boat which was pushed by some big waves from behind.
We decided, to make 3h shifts over the night, so that we had a good chance to get some sleep. To get ready for the night, we turned on the navigation lights and changed all our lights below deck to red lights (on boats, it is very common to have red lights under deck during the night, so you don’t lose your night vision every time you turn on the light). In the night, the wind calmed down just as predicted and in the early morning we turned on the motor to cross the channel. For safety reasons, it is required to have the motor running when crossing the channel so that you are maneuverable any time and able to give way to the big cargo ships. For us, the crossing went very smooth without close confrontations with any other ships.
We arrived on the Belgium side early in the afternoon and went on straight up to the Netherlands. Our Destination that we needed to get to was Vlissingen. There is a lock there that we had to go through and then we would tie up on a little harbor just behind the lock. We planned on being at the lock at about 8 pm – but we forgot to take the tide and current into consideration. So, it was almost midnight when we arrived there. Going through a lock for the first time would already be stressful enough – but doing it in the dark ads even more pressure. After trying to reach the lockkeeper on the VHF for about 30 minutes (we had some issues finding out the right VHF channel), we were finally able to enter the huge lock in front of us. We were very glad that there were three of us – so one could steer whilst the other two tided the boat up. It went surprisingly well and we where very proud of us! We exited the lock into the Kanal door Walcheren where we motored about 5 more minutes to the pontoon that we had the permission to tie up to. Shortly after midnight, we stepped foot on Dutch ground for the first time. Since it was in the middle of the night, we couldn’t reach the border control anymore to go through the prosses of checking the boat, the cats & us into the Netherlands. So, all we could do for now was raising a glass on the successful crossing of the channel and our first big adventure with our boat Lív and our two sailing bengals.
