Back in Ostend, Belgium

We had planned to stop overnight at Roompotsluis in the Netherlands, but I missed the part about an 18.2 meter fixed bridge. Our vertical clearance is 19 meters, but we’d be more comfortable with 20. Still, if we got to the bridge near low tide, we would have the clearance we needed. Unfortunately, the wind and current conspired against us, and we decided to play it safe and continue overnight to Ostend. Hours later we realized that we hadn’t reset the local time on our instruments after the repair, and we probably had plenty of time to get to Roompotsluis, but we were way past it by then, and we like Ostend anyway.

Several people had told us how much fun the Royal North Sea Yacht Club in Ostend is. Last year we stayed at the Mercatur Marina because it’s more sheltered, but this year the winds are supposed to be calm, so we decided to try RNSYC.

The yacht club is right by the beach, which is nice, and the harbormaster is very friendly. He comes out in his dinghy to direct you to a place, and then if you need help getting into position, he helps with that too. First he put us on the outside of a boat that was going to be leaving in an hour. John finessed that maneuver beautifully. Later when we had to make the boat go sideways to get to the dock, we appreciated the nudging he did on our bow and all of the line handlers lined up on the dock. This is a small harbor, but they sure pack them in. Still, we're the closest to shore and the facilities that we've been in a long time.

Full harbor at RNSYC. There's Solstice in the lower left corner.

Today is Märzen’s birthday; she’s 14. We got her an extra treat to celebrate and then took her for a walk to the end of the jetty. It was nice to get out in the breeze because it got hot on the boat this afternoon. Yes, we’re finally having summer weather again. We even dug our Mexican fan out of storage in the quarter berth.