Vlieland

We are back to slow-paced cruising lifestyle, with no long lists of sites to see. We sleep as long as we want and are feeling very relaxed.

Around 5 p.m. yesterday (Sat., May 30), after the dinghy engine was taken apart, cleaned and re-assembled (which took several hours) Peter and I went in to the yacht harbor. We followed a old tall ship into the narrow channel, which took some maneuvering by the captain as he had backing away from it at full throttle to turn toward the approach at an angle so that the current would help sweep him in on a direct line. There are many tall ships moored just inside the entrance to marina, which was pretty packed with smaller boats from the Netherlands and Germany. 

Tall ship entering the marina

Tall ships moored together

Tying up the dinghy, we began to explore the island, walking along sandy paths through low forests and  meadows full of dense brush and gorgeous flowers, and across high dunes to reach the north side. It was a calm and sunny day, and the North Sea lapped gently at the shoreline, where hundreds of thousands of shells, mostly from clams, were scattered. The beach is quite wide and stretches the entire 12 kilometers of the east-west axis of the island. There were few people and several dogs on the beach, spread out over distances. We prefer the natural setting of the Frisian Islands to the beaches along the coast of Belgium, where high-rise vacation rentals line the coast.

View from high dune above the beach

Diurnal cinnabar moth

Peter on the beach

Bird's foot trefoil

Pink roses on one side of a path, white on the other 

The Frisian Islands are an archipelago separating the North Sea from the Wadden Sea, stretching from the Netherlands to southwest Denmark. The Wadden Sea is the largest unbroken stretch of intertidal sand flats and mudflat in the world. It stretches over 300 miles, with a total area of 4,000 square miles. The islands themselves feature beautiful beaches, dunes, forests, polders and Pleistocene glacier sand deposits. The mudflats support a diversity of life forms, including seals, worms, flatfish, crabs, mussels and oysters as well as 34 species of birds, some permanent residents and some passing through on their migration routes. 

During the last ice age, which ended approximately 12,000 years ago, sea level was about 60 meters (200 ft) lower than it is now, and part of what is now the North Sea was dry land. With the melting of the ice caps, the sea level rose, reaching the current coast line around the beginning of the Holocene era, approximately 7,000 years ago. Tidal action transported large quantities of sand to form a line of dunes extending over 500 kilometres (310 mi) from the Netherlands to the mouth of the Elbe River in Germany. The sea broke through the dunes in many places to form the Frisian Islands, with the low-lying country behind becoming the tidal Wadden Sea. 

The current configuration of land and sea developed as a result of storm tides in the 10th to 14th centuries. These tides carried away former peat land behind coastal dunes which are now the islands. Some of the islands, such as Vlieland and Ameland, have moved eastwards through the centuries.

Yesterday, after enjoying some of the natural landscape of eastern Vlieland, Peter and I had a delicious dinner al fresco at a restaurant by the marina before returning to the boat. Once again, it was difficult to imagine it was time for sleep because the sun sets around 10 p.m. and the twilight lasts for a couple hours. Without the natural light being blocked by the dinghy, which is on the foredeck over our large deck hatch during passages and when we are in marinas for a long time, the sun, which rose around 5:15 a.m., woke me up. It did not prevent me from rolling over and promptly going back to sleep.

This morning I did two loads of laundry because we needed clean sheets and clothes and it was sunny with a light breeze (although clouds have moved in now). After lunch, we will do some hiking on land. No worries, no rush!