Rottumerplaat () is one of the three islands that make up Rottum in the West Frisian Islands. The island is located in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

off the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

coast. It is situated between the shoal

Simonszand Simonszand () is a sandbank between the West Frisian Islands of Schiermonnikoog and Rottumerplaat in the Netherlands. It is located in the municipality of Het Hogeland in the province of Groningen. The sandbank was originally mapped as being a ...

and the

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

Rottumeroog Rottumeroog () is an uninhabited island in the Wadden Sea and is part of the Netherlands. The island is one of three West Frisian Islands in the province of Groningen. It is situated between the islands of Rottumerplaat and Borkum. The islan ...

. Rottumerplaat started as a shoal in the 1830. It continued to grow into an island after 1950, when a ''stuifdijk'', a wind-blown dike, was constructed by

Rijkswaterstaat Rijkswaterstaat, founded in 1798 as the ''Bureau voor den Waterstaat'' and formerly translated to Directorate General for Public Works and Water Management, is a Directorate-General of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management of the Net ...

, because there were plans to use Rottumerplaat as a work island for the reclamation of the Wadden Sea. In 1959, the Boschplaat merged with Rottumerplaat. Sediment deposition has caused the island to become significantly larger in recent years. Access to the island is prohibited since Rottumerplaat is a resting and forage area for numerous bird species.

and

Staatsbosbeheer Staatsbosbeheer, founded in 1899, is a Dutch government organization for forestry and the management of nature reserves. Staatsbosbeheer currently oversees over 250,000 hectares of land in the Netherlands. Usually this land is open to the public ...

are responsible for the administration of the island. Rottumerplaat is the northernmost point of the Netherlands.

Fauna

Rottumerplaat is a resting and forage area for

sanderling The sanderling (''Calidris alba'') is a small wading bird. The name derives from Old English ''sand-yrðling'', "sand-ploughman". The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by Aristotle for some grey-colou ...

dunlin The dunlin (''Calidris alpina'') is a small wader, formerly sometimes separated with the other "stints" in the genus ''Erolia''. The English name is a dialect form of "dunling", first recorded in 1531–1532. It derives from ''dun'', "dull brown ...

and

Kentish plover The Kentish plover (''Charadrius alexandrinus'') is a small cosmopolitan shorebird (40-44 g) of the family Charadriidae that breeds on the shores of saline lakes, lagoons, and coasts, populating sand dunes, marshes, semi-arid desert, and tundra.S ...

Common eider The common eider (pronounced ) (''Somateria mollissima''), also called St. Cuthbert's duck or Cuddy's duck, is a large ( in body length) sea-duck that is distributed over the northern coasts of Europe, North America and eastern Siberia. It breed ...

, common shelduck, Arctic tern,

common tern The common tern (''Sterna hirundo'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. This bird has a circumpolar distribution, its four subspecies breeding in temperate and subarctic regions of Europe, Asia and North America. It is strongly migrator ...

little tern The little tern (''Sternula albifrons'') is a seabird of the family Laridae. It was formerly placed into the genus ''Sterna'', which now is restricted to the large white terns. The genus name is a diminutive of '' Sterna'', "tern". The specific ' ...

, and

ringed plover The common ringed plover or ringed plover (''Charadrius hiaticula'') is a small plover that breeds in Arctic Eurasia. The genus name ''Charadrius'' is a Late Latin word for a yellowish bird mentioned in the fourth-century Vulgate. It derives from ...

nest on the island. From 1996 the

Sandwich tern The Sandwich tern (''Thalasseus sandvicensis'') is a tern in the family Laridae. It is very closely related to the lesser crested tern (''T. bengalensis''), Chinese crested tern (''T. bernsteini''), Cabot's tern (''T. acuflavidus''), and elega ...

nested on Rottumerplaat, but has since stopped doing so.

Godfried Bomans and Jan Wolkers

In 1971 writers

Jan Wolkers Jan Hendrik Wolkers (26 October 1925 – 19 October 2007) was a Dutch author, sculptor and painter. Wolkers is considered by some to be one of the "Great Four" writers of post-World War II Dutch literature, alongside Willem Frederik Hermans, Ha ...

and

Godfried Bomans Godfried Jan Arnold Bomans (2 March 1913 – 22 December 1971) was a Dutch author and television personality. Much of his work remains untranslated into English. Life and career Godfried Bomans was born in The Hague and grew up in and arou ...

each spent a week on the island. Their only connection with the outside world was a short daily radio relay with

VARA Vara or VARA may refer to: Geography *Vara (river), in Liguria, Italy * Vara Parish, former municipality in Tartu County, Estonia * Vara, Estonia, village in Peipsiääre Parish, Tartu County, Estonia * Vara Municipality, municipality in western S ...

radio presenter Willem Ruis, who stayed at a hotel in nearby Warffum. The interviews were broadcast as a radio programme, ''Alone On An Island''. For Godfried Bomans, the stay on the island was a disaster; he could not cope with the noise the many seagulls made and he was troubled by loneliness. Jan Wolkers however experienced his stay on the island as an adventure and kept himself alive by catching shrimps and eel, and boiling sea sandwort. He also rescued a young seal. Both authors published a book about their stay on the island.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Het Hogeland Islands of Groningen (province) Protected areas of the Netherlands West Frisian Islands Uninhabited islands of the Netherlands