02-07-2010



Today we are leaving Holland and will sail (or better motor) to the German island of Norderney.
It’s a trip we made over a dozen times but I will give some impressions of it.
To reach Norderney in one day you have to cross two almost drying out places so the planning is crucial.
There are only two or three days each fortnight so missing one occasion may be either a delay of two weeks or a one day detour around the island of Borkum!
We leave the harbour of Delfzijl about one hour before low tide so we will reach the first drying crossing at half tide which is enough for the 1.2 meters draft of YELLOWDREAM.
Regrettable the wind again was almost absent so the good old diesel made its hours again.
Exactly at half tide (!) we reached the first drying and proceeded straight on for the next crossing just south of the island of Juist which is a further 3 hours to go and thus is crossed at about high tide.
After this second crossing the last part is rather easy although the several lane crossings may give some confusion.
We reached the harbour of Norderney ( Segel Verein Norderney) at 17.30 .
As usual this harbour is quite full but anyway we found a place between two other yachts, one being a classic from Holland.
Its always a bit of a guess to get a berth here but everybody always seem to succeed which may be called a true miracle .



The marina of "Segelverein Norderney" from the air.



Norderney town and harbour

A lot of informtion about Norderney can be found at http://www.norderney.de/publish/4189d107_20ed_76a6_2cebfc527dffc568.cfm?m_id=42503

The start

01-07-2010



As planned,YELLOWDREAM started her voyage .
At first , going off the lake "Schildmeer" we had to go through a swing bridge which is self service operated. I have a key that unlocks the control panel to open the bridge. Its a simple job because only two buttons have to be pressed at the right moment.


Control panel at swing bridge.


Bridge opening.

The next obstacle after a mile canal is the small lock that lifts us from 1.7 meters below to about 0.3 meters above sea level and brings us on the "Eemscanal" ,a major
waterway from Holland to Germany.


YELLOWDREAM in the lock.


After a few hours of quite uneventfull motoring we left the inland waterways of the Dutch province of Groningen for the seaport of Delfzijl.
Tomorrow we will leave at 8.30 to catch the half tide for the crossing of the first of two drying out locations that day.

To be continued!

Ann and Ad aboard YELLOWDREAM

Introduction "YELLOWDREAM"

Hello fellow sailers,

This is the start of our blog about "YELLOWDREAM" a 1978 Leisure 27 sailing yacht.
We start this blog because after reading some nice blogs of other sailers we also wanted to let other sailers share our experiences.

But first let us introduce ourselves: "We" are my wife Ann and Ad . both 62 years old and last year (at least myself) retired from a busy job as an process engineer.


After having owned Yellow Bird , a Leisure 23 for 11 years , we decided that something a bit bigger should come in place to make a more extensive cruising possible. We did sail about 15000 Nautical miles with Yellow Bird , mainly to Germany , Danmark , Sweden and Norway and one detour to England France and Belgium in 2006.


In september 2008 I discovered a Leisure 27 called "Bagheera" . We had been looking at something like that for some time but it took some time to find a suitable and affordable boat because I preferred a bilgekeel or centreplate to get acces to my home berth which is quite shallow ( Lake "Schildmeer"in northern Holland 53°16'6.78"N , 6°50'15.58"O) and be able to sail the "Waddenzee" .

Coincidentally "Bagheera" had exactly the same yellow color as Yellow Bird so changing the name into something similar seemed quite naturally.

So it became "YELLOWDREAM".



Loa: 8.2 m
Beam: 2.8 m
Draft : 1.2 m
Displ. : 2800kGs
Sailarea : 32 m2
Engine: Vetus M2C5 11Hp with Volvo Penta 110 S sail drive

Much more information about the leisure 27 can be found at the Leisures Owners Association : http://www.leisureowners.org.uk/site/contents/leisure27_new.shtml
or at the Dutch Leisure club : http://www.leisureclubholland.nl/

After doing a lot of improvements to our new boat such as , installing a wheelpilot, bigger engine (the bagheera originally still was equipped with the original 7.5 Hp Md5A which was much too small), mastlowering device to sail the Dutch and German inland waterways, chartplotter, GMDS VHF , log/sounder combination , windpilot, solar panel and much more , the YELLOWDREAM now is ready for her first "big trip" which is expected to bring her to Scandinavia , especially Norway (off course if the weather permits it!).
The cruise is bound to start in about two weeks from now and will first bring us to the nearby Delfzijl which will be the departure port for the first leg to the German Island of Norderney.

Until then!
Ad