For the last week we have been pottering around in the glorious inland waterways of the southern Netherlands. These enclosed waterways were created by the huge Delta Project, established after the terrible floods of 1953, which hit Holland as badly if not worse than they damaged the East coast of the UK. This area is the delta of the Rhine, Maas and Scheldt rivers and stretches from the Belgian border as far north as Rotterdam. The project involved building enormous dams across the estuaries to protect against high tides and flooding, and to allow recovery of marshland for agriculture. See https://www.water-technology.net/projects/delta-works-flood-netherlands/ for more background.
From the south:
- Westerschelde estuary, which is open to the sea and leads to Vlissingen and Antwerp
- Veerse Meer, about 12 miles long and fully enclosed
- Oosterscheldt, which has a barrier, but is kept tidal with water flowing in and out through except in extreme high tides.
- Grevlingenmeer, fully enclosed with just minimal flow to keep it fresh
- Haringvliet, enclosed
From Vlissingen we passed through the Kanal door Walcheren into Veerse Meere, stopping briefly in the lovely old town of Middleburg to pick up some supplies and a few extra fenders for the locks! It was Friday afternoon and it had been hot and sunny for a few days. Clearly half the population of the Netherlands had skipped off work early and headed for the water. Veerse Meer is totally enclosed from the sea now and is essentially a 12 mile long water sports playground, with many campsites and marinas, although there are a few islands kept as nature reserves.
We spent the night in Veere, an old port near the dam. Before the dam was built, this was a small fishing and, in earlier times, trading port. The merchants here had an exclusive contract with Scottish wool merchants, and there are still traces of the Scottish heritage here. Today Veere is entirely turned over to leisure boating – yachts and small boats moored here, and a continual flow of dayboats (much posher than the ones we see on the Broads) coming over from the aptly named Kamperland across the water.
We set off from Veere in brilliant sunshine with a very light breeze, but the wind picked up during the day and by the time we reached the lock at the far end of Veerse Meer, it was gusting 30 knots. We decided to head to a marina in a fishing port, Yerseke on the Oosterschelde, but the visitors berths were full and the harbour master (unusually) wasn’t helpful. So we headed back out and along the coast to the large modern marina at Wemeldinge. The forecast for Sunday wasn’t good – strong winds and rain – so we stayed there two nights.
On Monday, from Wemeldinge we headed to Bruinisse on the Grevelingenmeer. Bruinisse is famous (apparently) for mussel fishing, but it being Monday – and probably not mussel season – there were no mussel restaurants open. The following day we headed out into Grevelingenmeer sailing very slowly in the light winds until we stopped and turned on the engine. We were heading for Brouwershaven, a small town previously a port famous for it’s brewers, but just before arriving we noticed a small jetty on an island in the mere. We pulled alongside for lunch and discovered it was a public jetty with access to walks on the island (Stampersplaat) which was a nature reserve. It was very peaceful so we decided to stay the night and enjoyed the sun going down while watching the birds on the water along the shore.
Our final night on Grevelingenmeer was at Scharendijke, a large marina but mostly filled with quite small boats. Arriving quite early we got our bikes out and went for a cycle across the nearby Brouwersdam. The scale of this construction – not even the biggest dam – is mind boggling. Over 6km long and maybe 400m wide it carries a four lane highway and two service roads. There’s an island in the middle which is now a holiday destination with a marina and Center Parcs, and along the whole length now, on the North Sea side, is a wide sandy beach. We had a strong headwind cycling over, but came back very quickly!