Boulogne-Dunkerque-Ijmuiden

18.6. Fecamp-Boulogne. 80 miles and we had a nice wind for two hours, otherwise the sea was dead calm for hours. Boulogne Grand Marina was almost full but there were a few places vacant. The office was closed but there was a Finnish boat and we got the keys to the showers from them. The marina is far from everything and we planned for a short overnight stay.

19.6. Boulogne-Dunkerque. We paid the harbor fees at the office and left. After an hour I noticed that somebody had stolen my fishing rod and reel during the previous night. I actually woke up at night because I heard some noise outside but I thought that somebody was arriving and taking a berth next to us. That was a really bad end to the visit to France. The day was gray and rainy again but as we reached Dunkerque the sky cleared up and we made a long walk around the town which has been rebuilt after the war and isn’t exactly nice.

20.6.-21.6. Dunkerque-Ijmuiden. According to the forecast there were two lows coming from the Atlantic so we decided to make longer trip, 117 miles to Ijmuigen. The wind was next to nothing during the whole trip and the visibility was 0,5 miles at the best. The poor visibility made the trip interesting because you only could see the oncoming ships only at the last minute. The AIS and radar were a good help, though. After midnight the visibility became even poorer and as we reached Ijmuiden it went down to 30 meters. Even the bright light at the end of the breakwater could be seen through the dense fog at 40 meters. In the marina we had to crawl very slowly and finally attached us to a vacant spot and went to sleep. The wind started to pick up in the morning and it had started raining as well. It rained heavily until the afternoon and the wind gathered speed and was mostly between 10-15 m/s. After visiting the office we waited for the rain to stop but finally we had to move the boat to the visitors’ pontoon even with the wind and rain. Later in the afternoon we took a bus to the grocery and had some nice chicken for dinner. I think this was the worst midnight sun eve weather I have ever seen.