We knew the cruising season was over when we set off from Veere before it got light this morning. Strong winds forecast for Sunday and Monday had prompted us to make a run for home and we had opted to make a passage straight back to Great Yarmouth from Vlissingen. The North Sea passage pilot does not cover this unconventional route although it is no longer than alternatives to Harwich, or from further north in the Netherlands.

After a straightforward cruise through the Kanal door Walcheren we left the Westerschelde on the north side of the channel. We turned north west at Trawl south cardinal marker and followed the bouyed channel past Westkapelle. From here we could set an almost straight course for Norfolk, on a bearing of 320° for most of the journey. Our passage took us through the North Hinder precautionary area, where the main north-south shipping lanes meet traffic from the Hook of Holland. There didn't seem to be any particular hazards in doing this and we only saw a handful of ships on the whole trip.

We were lacking the main chart for the central part of the channel, having only a large scale planning chart once we left the coast, but with the detailed CMAP charts on the plotter we could see there were no obstacles and could keep track of our progress. 25 miles east of Aldeburgh we made our first plot on our East Coast chart and knew we were nearly home. Whilst we had been away the Holm Sand north cardinal buoy had very conveniently been moved 645 metres south - as published on the Navtex - which allowed us to head straight for our home waypoint a mile off the Great Yarmouth harbour entrance.

Cruising Statistics

Distance: 110 nm

Total to date: 2199 nm

Avg Speed: 13 knots

Duration: 8:30 hours

Diesel: 585 litres, 31p/litre

Mooring: Free

Electricity: N/A

Locks

Veere

Vlissingen

Bridges

Stationsbrug

Schroebrug

Soubrug-draaibrug

Sloebrug

Keersluis

Waypoints

Vlissingen entrance
51 26.40N 03 36.15E

Vlissingen HSS NCM
51 25.91N 03 36.19E

Wielingen Noord
51 25.90N 03 28.25E

GVW8 PHM
51 28.60N 03 24.96E

Grauw WCM
51 33.00N 03 15.00E

East Coast Approach
52 10.00N 02 18.00E

Gt.Yarmouth Hbr
52 34.40N 01 45.70E

Charts

1805.2

1803.8

1801.3

1801.5

2449

Imray C70

1543

1536