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From April 20th until April 22th 2016 a number of coast guard partners joined forces for operation Opera. Teams of the maritime and river police, customs, sea fisheries service and FPS Public Health boarded the patrol vessel Pollux of the Belgian navy. Together, they carried out inspections off the Belgian coast, aided by the surveillance airplane of the Management Unit of the North Sea Mathematical Models (MUMM) and the Maritime Security Centre Belgium (MIK) in Zeebrugge.

Three days of intensive cooperation resulted in approximately 300 administrative inspections and 9 physical inspections on board of different vessels, so called 'boardings'. In case of infractions or violations, an official warning was issued and /or a report filed. If you know that such boardings can easily take up to two hours and involve quite some paperwork, it is clear that our coast guard partners did a very good job. 

The Belgian coast has a so-called microclimate.  This means that the weather on the coast differs from the weather in the rest of the country. The sun shines more often and globally speaking, it rains less. On the other hand, in the summer temperatures are less high and there is more wind. The agency for Maritime Services and Coast (MDK) makes a special weather forecast for the coast. It is updated four times a day and split between the westcoast (De Panne to Oostende) and the eastcoast (Oostende to Knokke-Heist).

You can also see webcam images of several coastal municipalities. Curious about the weater at sea? Surf to www.kustweerbericht.be or check the coastal weather forecast on your smartphone.

The consortium around Nobelwind announces the start of the construction on their new wind farm in Belgian territorial waters. The park, at approximately 45 kilometres off the coast of Zeebrugge, should be operational by 2017. Nobelwind has already installed its offshore grid which is operational and connected to the substation of the grid operator. The start of the works is running according to planning. March 23rd, the first foundation components arrived in the harbour of Oostende. 

Oostende will be used as marshalling harbour. All foundation components will be assembled here. The first installation offshore is expected to start early May. 

More information: www.nobelwind.eu