13-15 May Our trip from Gent to Mechelen was mostly on tidal rivers. The Scheldt River is tidal for over 100 km. At Antwerp the tide height is 5.24 and Melle near Gent the tide is 4.83m, so the land is very flat. I had done a bit of research and planning to plan our trip to match the tidal flows. It was all a bit complicated as the tides were delayed from Antwerp tide times by as much as 4 and a half hours, and I had to work it out at each spot. We stayed at Merelbeke lock on Saturday ready for an early start on Sunday. Howard, of course had a little fish, and I took a few photos. On Sunday morning we got up at 6am, ready to go through the lock at 6:30 at high tide. There was a bit of mis-communication with the lock keeper who originally said we had to wait until 8am - but he thought we were at a bridge, not at the lock. We did have to back out from where we were moored to go through the lock on the other side. We were on our way. We hadn't known what to expect, but it wasn't that different from travelling on a normal river, expect that with the tide running we got up to speeds over 12 km/hr whereas normally we only go at 7.5-8 km/hr. Our first night we went through the Dendermonde lock to have a night out of the tidal flow. I was starting to get a bad cold, and the weather was poor so we stayed on board. During our cruise we had had the problem with the raw cooling water not flowing, but after a suggestion from Alan, Howard used the "unbungerer", and blew down the tube rather than using water. This worked a treat and Howard was able to get all sorts of muck out of the line, resulting in our water flowing normally again. Looks like we now have a repeatable simple fix to the problem. The next morning we left at 7:30am, with the aim to get to Rupelmonde before the change in tide, where we were going to have to moor up on a pontoon in the tidal river. The mooring at Rupelmonde was fairly straight forward, but we had to turn around first to be going into the current. We arrived about 20 minutes before low tide so the flow was starting to abate anyway. I took some photos to show the difference between low and high tide at our mooring. The photos are taken from the same spots. We went for a walk around Rupelmonde and had lunch in the only cafe that was open. I was now feeling quite poorly so I returned to the boat, while Howard did shopping. Unfortunately, even though I had the code I couldn't open the gate to the mooring. I had to wait for Howard.
When we got in, the water police, who had moored on the same pontoon earlier in the day, decided to board us, so that we had to produce all our papers and answer a load of questions. It was our first time, so we were quite interested in the process. We passed the check with flying colors On Davy's previous visit before we left Gent, he had changed some of the parameters on our inverter, with the aim of giving solar power priority for charging the batteries. Unfortunately the changes were not having the desired affect. No shore power or power from the generator was being sent to the batteries. Perhaps if the batteries got dangerously low this might happen, but we were not willing to risk it. We had a good charge from cruising and our solar panels, so we turned off our heating and hot water to conserve power. On Tuesday morning Caudio came to reset the parameters to what they had been before. It looks like a firmware change was needed for the parameter change to work effectively, but we were unwilling to risk it as were were getting further and further away from Davy and Claudio's home base. While Claudio was on board we were boarded again, this time by Customs. So Howard had to produce all our documents again - this time we had to show that we had paid correct tax. Again we passed with flying colors. Once Claudio left we set out, by my calculations about 20 minutes before low tide. The aim was to get to the Rupel river before full low tide and then travel down it with the flood. We were on the Rupel for about 20 minutes before we picked up the flooding tide. So initially we were only going at about 4.5 km/hr and later about 10km/hr. When we got to the turn off to the Dijle River, the tide was still very low and it was hard to see the channel. And when we got onto it it was like travelling down a large drain - high walls and muddy sides. After only 1.5 kms we reached the Zennegat Lock, which we hadn't realised only operated 4 hours either side of high tide. We were there about 30 minutes early, and they were concerned that the water would be too low for us. However they kindly prepared the lock for us. We didn't dare bring our stern into the wall in case we beached, so were tied on only at the front when the torrent of water came out of the lock. It was a bit of a wild ride as the water swirled around and pulled our back forward so we were at about 60 degrees angle to the canal wall. When we finally got into the lock, it was a very strange shape with curved walls at the ends and a straight section in the middle. The water was too low to use the poles which would have allowed us to slowly bring the ropes up, so we had to moor onto bollards and move the ropes. Again it was very vigorous water, and we both had to work quite hard on the ropes. But it was nice to leave the muddy river and be in clear canal water again. Another couple of kms later was a similar lock. We had to pull over to allow a commercial barge to pass as she existed the lock. Surprisingly she was going backwards. This time time in the lock, while still turbulent, was a bit easier as we were able to use the poles. From there it was an easy ride to our mooring near Mechelen. There was only one boat on the mooring so plenty of room for us. I radioed the bridge control to let them know we were mooring, but they misunderstood and started opening the bridge for us. They called us, but as we had been speaking to them in English, and now they were talking Flemish I didn't initially realise they were talking to us. Anyway, we sorted that out and got onto our mooring. By this time my cold was very bad so I went to bed, and only got up when Howard had cooked dinner. Howard had a fish, but as he was packing up, the drawer of his fishing box, with lots of gear in it fell into the water. He was able to recover the drawer and everything that floated, but lost a fair bit of gear into the canal. A good excuse to visit the fishing tackle shop in the morning. Also I seems to have aggravated my shoulder with the work in the lock, as it is feeling more sore and tender again. We may stay here for a couple of days if we can so my cold and shoulder can get a bit better.
3 Comments
bruce munro
17/5/2018 12:02:57 am
hope you are feeling better after the wild ride and adventous days
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Ian McCauley
17/5/2018 09:29:39 pm
Lots of excitement in all this cruising and done under pretty adverse conditions, especially for you Deb. Congratulations.
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Lisette McCauley
20/5/2018 11:09:15 pm
Sadly, it is not all smooth sailing (cruising) but every new experience is added to your list. I remember when we took the Scheldt from Antwerp to Ghent, we stayed overnight at Bass Rode. And I was as intrigued as you were at Rupel how quickly the tide lifted us up on the floating pontoon.
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