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On the 12th of October we passed the 1000 mile point of our travels with Tenaya. |
We left Enkhuizen at the very reasonable hour of 11:00. With no tides to worry about and only a 20 mile trip we didn't need to hurry.
The wind was light, F 2, and from the south so we departed with our sails wing-in-wing. When the wind dropped we were forced to motor. The visibility kept getting worse and soon we were watching for ships on our RADAR.
Den Oever has the main exit locks from the Isselmeer for ships heading for the North Sea. I was more worried about large ships that we couldn't see than Katie was, but the RADAR worked perfectly, picking up every large ship and most small boats that were in our area.
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We made it to Den Oever at 3:30 PM and tied up to the visitor's pontoon that we shared with only a couple of other boats. The sun came out and the weather was nice, so we celebrated our 1000 miles with champagne. Before we had more than a couple of sips we were visited by Netherlands customs agents. They were very friendly and extremely nice, but asked all the questions to make sure we were following the laws. As Americans we were able to purchase Tenaya without paying the VAT tax, which is about 20%. But we can only stay in the European Union for 18 months at which point we need to leave. We had all our paperwork showing that we had done everything correctly but they never asked to see it. I guess they believed us.
Next Stop Texel |
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The customs agents were very nice and one was very interested in sailing and boats and asked many questions about Tenaya. When we told him we planned to sail the Waddenzee and visit the Island of Texel he suggested that we should not sail there, but to another large harbor and then take the ferry to the Island. The Waddenzee is a very shallow sea with fast tides. While it looks large on a regular chart actually there are very narrow channels that we will have to follow because of the depth of Tenaya.
For many people the Waddenzee was made famous by one of the very first spy novels, The Riddle of the Sands written in the early 1900's about German spies in the Waddenzee.
We decided not to listen to the advice and planned our departure through the locks at 10:30 AM to catch the tide. By 2 PM we had sailed the 15 miles to the town of Oudeschild on the island of Texel.