Sail Amsterdam Festival – Germany to Netherlands

The Kiel Canal ends at Brunsbottle on the busy river Elbe. Trinovante will exit the lock and everything changes. From the still, calm waters of the canal, we enter fast flowing tides. Timing our exit to catch the ebb is important.

Trinovante may be doing 12 knots down the Elbe with the tide under her. The Elbe estuary, the German and Dutch Friesland coast, have many sandbanks and a chain of low-lying sandy islands. This is the area made famous by the pre-war novel ‘The Riddle Of The Sands’.

As we head into the night watch the sea will be lit up with lights. Big ships line up in the offshore shipping lanes, inshore boats go fishing, navigation buoys whizz by, lighthouses flash, the now ubiquitous wind farms blink red and the ever-present pilot ships buzz about their job dropping off pilots.  We will need to keep a good lookout.

Wide Horizons And Sandy Beaches

Trinovante will be sailing along endless sandy beaches as we head west-south-west and clear the busy shipping area.

Places we might call into on the way to Ijmuiden and Amsterdam are the German Friesland island of Borkum which was two seprate islands until 1863, Terschelling which is the second largest of the West Friesian Islands. It has the oldest lighthouse in the Netherlands dating from 1323, and Texel just outside Den Helder which is known for its pine woods.

All these islands are known their birdlife, sand dunes, panoramic views and nature experience. Think of this time as the calm before the storm!