• Sailing in Normandy

    October 3-10, 2020 It was stormy weather in the Atlantic and no good weather for us to leave Dieppe so we stayed there a week. During that week we got a lot of small jobs done on the boat, which was good. For example, more work on autopilot installation, fix our toilet (that started having some small issues on the way to Dieppe) and other small stuff. As we where closing in on Bay of Biscay we also spent a lot of time preparing for the crossing, by cooking a lot of food and put it in our freezer box. So when we where gonna do the crossing we would…

  • A visit by the coastguards…

    October 1-3, 2020 After two nights in Dunkirk we where ready to sail into the English Channel through Dover strait. We sailed along the coast and had the tide with us (about 3-4 knots through the strait) so it was pretty easy sail. We sailed to Boulogne-sur-Mer, which we reached short after lunch. We took a walk around town and up to the old town where we ate some waffles. After that we went to the boat stores around the marina to try and find some stuff we needed, but did not find that much. It is hard to find the right stuff when you’re in a foreign country and…

  • Sailing past the shipping lanes to the English Channel

    September 28 – October 1, 2020 Our next planned leg was sailing to France past the big shipping lanes around Rotterdam and Belgium and into the English Channel. So after our short visit in Amsterdam we woke up early to leave the canals and head back out to the sea. We first motored from Amsterdam towards IJmuiden, where we would pass through the last lock. Through the English Channel and North Sea the big ships travel along the TSS (Traffic Separation Scheme) which we didn’t need to cross (as we where just going along the coast). Where there are TSS zones there is usually an ITZ as well (Inshore Traffic…