14-18 Aug Hilary was with us when we left Den Bosch at 9:15 on Monday so that we could get to the lift bridge for its 10am opening. There were three boats loitering on our side when the bridge keeper turned up to let us through, and one boat moored on the other side. We had a good trip to Veugle where the mooring was in a little narrow side canal. We had been told that as we are longer than 20 m we can moor on a commercial barge mooring and this is what we did, about 200m along the side canal. Howard thought it would be good idea to try to turn around as there was almost no wind and it would make our exit easier in the morning. The canal was around 20m wide, and we are 21.5m long, so we were not sure if we could do it. A local, who was watching the ships pass when we came in, came up on his bicycle to watch the attempt, but didn’t offer any help. Howard held the front on with ropes, and Hilary watched the back and I pushed the stern around using the engine. Half way we stopped and couldn’t go any further, so Howard had to push her back and pull her round that bit, but then we were able to go all the way around. Hilary said we had only a metre to spare behind the boat. We were happy with our efforts and sat down to a pancake lunch. A little later someone from the harbor master’s office came by and told us we couldn’t moor here as were “on holiday” and had to move down to the marina at the end of the side-canal. Hilary and I went down to have a look and then we reversed all the way in – about another km, past a couple of moored commercial barges, and then through the narrow opening to the marina, where we had a nice mooring just near the opening. We had a nice cycle around the town and then sat in one of the cafes in town for a drink before heading back to the boat for the evening. It was a lovely warm sunny day so dinner on the deck was called for. The next morning we left before 8am as we had a long trip and were unable to reserve a place where we wanted to moor at Aarle-Rixtel (near Helmond). We reached our mooring much earlier than we expected and put Howard off with his bike to check out whether there were free moorings. It turned out there was one just past the first boat, which we were very happy to take. It had been a grey drizzly morning, but it started to fine up and we headed off to Helmond for a cycle around and lunch. The weather improved dramatically and we had a lovely cycle in the sun and nice lunch overlooking the Helmond lock (now a water feature). It did start to rain but the waiters put up their large sun/rain umbrellas and we were fine. But the time we finished the rain was finished and we cycled back to the boat for a lazy afternoon. In the late afternoon we went to the nearby supermarket for a shop and then cycled around the cute town of Aarle-Rixtel, then home for dinner and a movie. Wednesday morning, Hilary had to get back to Schipol (Amsterdam Airport) to catch a plane to Berlin, so she caught the local bus at around 8am, and we backed out of our mooring and set off. We decided that we would try for longer day’s cruising – doing in one day what we had originally had planned to do in 2.The weather was fine so we set our target at Weert, about 35km and 5 locks away. Soon after leaving we were passed by what we would term a speed boat, who was going a couple of kms faster than us. Unfortunately for him he was held up at the next 4 locks as they waited for us. At one lock he even asked if we could go a little faster as he was in a hurry. I’m sure that he was glad to see the last of us when we turned off towards Weert. But because he was acting as our advance party, we had almost no waiting at any of those 4 locks, which meant that we made really good time. When we finally got to Weert there were two lift bridges and we planned to moor after the second one. However when we reached there it had 2 red lights – meaning out of order – and there were workmen on it. We called up on the radio and were told that we would have to wait for half an hour until 3:15. Three boats arrived together having locked through together, and they lifted the bridge for the 4 of us at 3:30. As soon as we were through they closed it and set it back to double red. We were happy though as we were able to moor at around 3:35, earlier than expected even with that extra wait. As we were moored right on the canal, we felt the surge from every commercial that went by (overnight they left the bridge open with double red lights – but commercials were obviously requesting to go through and were give a green light to go through without even slowing down). We were surprised that we could feel the initial surge from the heavily laden boats when they were still 500m away. We did our homework for Belgium, put up our Belgium courtesy flag and got all our ships papers together ready for our foray into Belgium in the morning. On Thursday we decided to try for 35kms again (and 3 locks – 1 Dutch and 2 Belgium) so we headed off to Dilsen, where there appeared to be a small quay for passing boats. We headed off at 8am again, and were soon into Belgium. Very soon we were at the last lock where I had to leave the boat in the lock and go into the lock keepers office to get a waterways permit. Given all the things listed in our Belgium Waterways book that we had to show the lock keeper, it was much simpler than we expected with him only wanting to see our ship registration documents. The Belgium canal was tree lined and wide, and all the bridges were high, so, apart from the strong side wind and occasional drizzly rain, we had a nice day’s cruising. At Dilsen there was plenty of room for us and we were able to moor at about 2:30. We did a bike ride through town before settling in for the night. Friday they were forecasting showers and we were unable to make a reservation where we wanted to moor so we decided that we'd have an early start again. This time we left at 7:35, our earliest yet. The trip was fairly straight forward until we returned to the Netherlands where we had a large lock to go through with a rise of 6.75m, and we had to do it in the rain. Soon after that we turned off into the marina, but we had to negotiate their lock first. A small cruiser went into the small waiting area before us and then we had to make room for the boat leaving the lock. Inside the lock we had only rings in the wall with ropes connected. Some of the rings were already gone, and the one we moored onto at the front also fell off while Howard was at the back securing the stern. I was a bit worried that we would hit the other boat in front of us, but Howard assures me we didn't come close. Then, on entering the harbour, Howard wanted to turn around which, in retrospect, I should have left until we are leaving as I was already stressed from the lock. Of course we didn't hit anything, but it wasn't as elegant as I would have liked. Anyway, now we are safely moored in this marina which is close to the old town. It will be nice to have a rest for a few days.
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AuthorWe are sharing stories about and travels on our barge Moondance. Archives
August 2023
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