26-28 April We left Ypres on Thursday - the day after Anzac Day, however we were only a couple of minutes away when we decided to turn back as we were getting almost no water out of the exhaust - a similar problem to what we had last year. The wind was quite gusty at Ypres so after getting caught by a gust in two attempts to moor in our original spot, we moored against the wall. We thought that the problem with the water was probably a blocked inlet, so Barrie and Howard tried to clean the bottom of the boat with a broom, which wasn't very successful and looked dangerous. After that they made two new tools. One a right angled broom, and the other a device for squirting water into the water cooler at pressure (at least tap pressure) from inside the boat (now known as "the unbungerer"). The use of these two tools did improve the flow somewhat, but by the time it was OK it was too late to set off. Instead we had a domestic day. We did washing. And I commenced making the tomato relish that we had planned. And then we had Barrie and Carol over for dinner. In the morning we did have some water flow as we left Ypres, but this soon dwindled to almost nothing. We continued this time, turning off the engine in each lock. We passed Piedalieu and Carmen on our way out. The engine was not over-heating, but we decided to stop at the junction with the Ijzer river for lunch to let everything cool down. Here we used our new mid boat bollards to tie up as it was a short pontoon. I finished my tomato relish that had been cooking all morning. All that work for just 4 jars of relish! We got to Fintele at about 2:30 and Davy had arranged for a Diver (Derek) to meet us there and he dived under the boat. Howard had to hold the boat away from the dock to give him somewhere to come up. He gave it a good try, and cleaned out a bit of mud and muck from the box cooler, but when he came up he thought that it wasn't enough to have fixed the problem. However when we turned on the engine, water was coming through normally. We were very happy. In the evening we went for a walk around the area. We saw the listed lock, with sloping sides, and met a family of sheep and saw a family of ducks. When we arrived a couple of weeks ago the trees were all bare, but now they mostly have all their leaves. We woke up this morning and it was strong winds and rain, but by the time we got going the rain had stopped and we were protected from the wind by the dykes on either side of the canal. We had two locks and 5 mobile bridges to navigate and we arrived in Veurne at midday. We had to tie up to the wall, which was quite high so we have set up to use the gangplank off the roof of wheel house. Our neighbours were just about to head out to lunch and invited us to join them so the 6 of us went to a lovely restaurant in the square. Diana & Chris Grant (Esme), and Nils & Torild Pihlblad (Passe Lagom) were good company and we had a lovely lunch that lasted most of the afternoon. A great welcome to Veurne.
3 Comments
Ian McCauley
29/4/2018 12:14:19 am
Great company for you in Veurne, barge royalty those two pairs. We met Nils and Torild on the Somme last year. Too bad about the cooling although its a shallow trip up and back to Ieper so it's one most likely to cause problems, so perhaps you'll have fewer problems on the deeper waterways. Looks like some scuba training is in order!
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Hazel
1/5/2018 10:05:07 pm
Don't fall off the roof of wheelhouse Deb!!!!!!!
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Dawn & marcel
21/5/2018 10:07:01 pm
Hey!!!! We did that too and after you having a deep dive in that cold water we finally solved the problem right? So what is it this time?
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