Through to the sea - eventually.

We carried on through stopping at Dokkum for a couple of nights. This was a fortified town still surrounded by the moat and star shaped earth battlements. There are two enormous windmills on two of the star points which are very spectacular. The cost to moor up overnight is under 8 Euros.

From Dokkum we went just 13 miles to a lock where we left the canal system to go out behind the Frisian islands. We went through the lock in the evening and set sail in the morning to cover the 50 miles to Norderney.

Didn't we get it wrong!!! We did not realise that the tides inside the Frisians can change up to 2 hours earlier than the tide outside. This left us plugging a foul tide to get the other side of the island and then the wind died. We turned back. Went back through the lock and as the wind was forecast to go Easterly for a few days sat on one of the totally free docks provided all over Holland for three nights.

We did lots of cleaning and touching up the hull paint where I had managed to scratch it going through the locks. Found that the outboard fuel pump was leaking so bodged that with a couple of paper gaskets and then set off again through to exit at Delfzul and sail to Borkum the first of the German Friesians.

On arrival we moored next to a Dutch cruiser we had met before and his greeting was 'you're ok you're leaving the EU!!!' Apparently the Bio fuel that the EU forces it's citizens to use had gone foul and stopped his engine. He then proceeded tell us that it is a known problem and complain about lots of the laws they are having to adhere to like the EU suddenly banning 2 stroke scooters leaving all the dealers with lots of them that they can't sell.

The UK government went against EU law and allows marine diesel not to contain bio fuel which stops the problems found in Europe.

We stopped one night in Borkum before sailing (and getting the tides correct) for Norderney.

On arrival we were met by the police who with great language difficulties said that the marine police would be along to see us about going aground. We initially didn't understand but after they had gone we realised that they thought we had grounded outside. We had followed another British boat in and when the marine police arrived in their dinghy they looked at us then went off in the direction of the other British yacht. It wasn't us that had caused a problem but we were the boat with a recognisable red ensign not a white one so the land police had visited the wrong yacht.