After we had passed through the lock at Harlingen, we remarked how much we have enjoyed our days on Vlieland and Terschelling and how much we enjoy cruising in between the islands. And this evening we wondered what the attraction of the water there is? It certainly has something to to with the never ending and always different play of the tides and the currents in between the sandbanks and the richness of the nature caused by it. If you look back to a blog post some time late in 2011, you will see that the 'Wad' is an area between the Northern coast of the Netherlands and Germany and the string of islands North of that coast. It is generally very shallow, falls dry at low tide and has many channels between these banks. Even some of those channels fall dry at low tide whilst others are 10m or more deep!
Especially at low tide, you will travel sometimes very close to the sandbanks, guided by the channel markers:
This is a marker buoy in the 'Slenk', the ferry to Terschelling uses this channel. At this stage we were in 7m deep water and see how close the sandbank is. The markers often are much smaller and sometimes just consist of dead trees such next to the - much smaller and shallower - channels. These trees are then called 'prikken'.
It is - depending on the construction of your ship - quite possible to put it aground at falling tide, let it fall dry and float off at the next tide. That way you have your own spot for a few hours (or a night) and you can enjoy the bird life and possibly even seals. That's what this boat would have done (picture taken this morning just after 8):
Although we did not see any seals this morning (we regularly do see them), we saw lots of birds, not in the least these following a fishing trawler:
We are currently in Franeker and will look for a place 'in the wild' for a day or two before moving to Grou and Sneek.
Location:Tuinen,Franeker,The Netherlands
No comments:
Post a Comment