Maasbracht to Maastricht - Sunshine!

This is how cruising should always be!  Sunny, clear, crisp, cold when we started off at 8.20 but it warmed up during the day.

We tied up the bikes on the foredeck,

Don't you love the polka dot covers

paid our bill, €30.85 for 3 nights with showers, water and electricty, not as bad as we expected, then headed out onto the Maas River which was running very strongly, lots of current but this time it was in our favour and we got to the Lock 10 minutes before it opened at 9.00.  With not a breath of wind and cheerful sunshine that wasn't a problem.

This is the first trip we have done in tandem with another boat, which just happens to be Ian's sister Lynn and her husband Shaun on their 12m de Ruiter cruiser, Elle.

The signs posts at the junction between the Maas and the Juliana Canal.

The lock at Maasbracht is another monster with an 11.8m rise/fall depending which way you are going.  You do not want to get too close to the gates!

But it has floating bollards - another wonderful piece of lock technology.

 How easy was that!  Also in this lock we did not have to tie up fore and aft so we just had one line mid-ships and didn't have to move it till we let go at the top.  Easy as pie!

It was a long stretch of canal, 42 km from van der Laan marina to the Passantenhaven (or Porte de Plaisance as they are called in France, in English I think it something like Municipal marina.  Whatever, they are free).  We had a second lock, another biggie at 11.3m rise for us, but it was open and we were out the other side in about 20 minutes.

It is not a very exciting canal, high above the surrounding countryside with tall dykes so you cannot see much, but we did see lots of water fowl.

On the top of the dykes were big trees, just beginning to come into leaf, with great big round things growing in them.  At first, from far off, I thought they might be nests, but no, it turned out to be mistletoe.

Ian wanted to do some grinding on the deck, not allowed in marinas because of metal filings falling on other boats, so he did that while I steered.  Then he covered the ground areas in epoxy filler ready to be sanded and painted tomorrow.  It felt a bit strange to have that kind of industrious work going on while we were underway.

Elle was ahead of us on the canal and as the Juliana canal joined up with the Maas River we could see her being caught in the current and swept sideways.  That current must have been running at about 4 knots.

Just 2km down the Maas we tied up in the free marina in Maastricht. 

We had been surprised that there was very little traffic on the canal but put it down to being Easter Sunday.  The tourist trip boats here certainly don't observe that rule, their base is directly opposite us and they are going nonstop.  Fortunately, the river is very wide here so it doesn't worry us.

We tried a new mooring manoeuvre today.  With the strong current and the marina located in the main stream of the river, Ian knew that tying up was going to be tricky so I measured off a length of rope with a loop at the end that would go to a bollard on shore, and it off at the mid-ships cleat, which would become the spring, but I stood on the bow with loop in my rope to bollard thingy and got that on first.  I also had a forward mooring line ready, placed it in the rope to bollard thingy and got that on the same bollard just seconds later.  We were now secured at two points and it was just simple for Ian to get the stern line around a bollard.  All done and dusted, no fuss.  Then Ian jumped ashore and helped Lynn and Shaun with their lines.  They don't have a rope to bollard thingy.  I have no idea what it is called and will take a photo tomorrow.  It is such a wonderful tool I would hate to lose it and would like to get a spare.