3-6 October We left Bruges on Tuesday. We had to go through 8 opening bridges and one lock on our way to Plassendale. A couple of the bridges were quite unusual. It was great having our new crew - Pam and Stuart on board. The next morning we were ready to start for Nieuwpoort and called the lock at 8:45, only to be told that they didn't start until 10am. So we went into the lock (marked on our charts as an open lock) just before 10am. The height difference was so small we didn't know whether we had gone up or down. The lock was also a rectangle shape - quite wide - probably 30m+ wide, but with narrow gates only 6.8m. Just up the canal we caught up with Silk Purse, a barge owned by Canadians Carole and Barry - Carole had been one of the people who recommended the Diksmuide mooring to us. We followed them for the rest of our trip. We couldn't work out why they kept slowing down before bridges, and so we slowed down ourselves. When we finally caught up with them in Diksmuide we found out that they were waiting for us to catch up so that we arrived at the bridge at the same time - but because we slowed down too, that didn't work. The wind was picking up when we arrived at Nieuwpoort and we found that our pre-booked mooring was on the quay between two rows of boats. Quite a tricky mooring. We had to cruise down between the row of boats and then moor on the wall at right angles with little room to manouver. With the help of the harbour master and a lady from another boat, we managed to inch into place and moor protected from the wind by the high quay. There was wifi provided by the harbour but because of the high quay we had to hold up our phones or tablets to pick-up the signal - which looked pretty odd. After lunch we cycled down to the sea about 5kms away against the wind. The next day we went and had a look around the town which was destroyed in WWI and rebuilt in the style of 1750. Including building a new town hall on the square. We went into the church which we understand was also destroyed again in WWII and rebuilt again. We had lunch at a snack bar and then collected the bikes and went for a cycle, past the King Albert Memorial with it's view of the locks, and then out to the lighthouse and coast on the other side of the river. In the evening we had a delightful meal at a local restaurant and the next day we had to do the reverse manoeuvre to leave the mooring and set off to Diksmuide to our winter mooring. The wind was still strong and we had a few close shaves before finally being moored up in Diksmuide.
1 Comment
Sue Veal
8/10/2017 01:16:37 am
What an amazing adventure you've had these last months. It was wonderful to share some of it with you both. Love Sue and Pete
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