Astene to Kortrijk, Leie river

Excitement - but not the kind you want. The dramatic kind!

We set off from Astene early, 9.15, with a longish day ahead - 30 km to Kortrijk.  Heavy clouds and the threat of rain.  After half an hour I heard a high pitched noise cutting in and out - thought it was the telephone.  But when I got below to fetch the phone I knew it was not. 

Ian, I said, there is a very funny noise that I don't recognise. But not that politely. 

I took the wheel, he flew down the companionway, and yelled: It's the alarm, the engine is overheating! But not that politely.

We dived for the river bank, ran aground before we got there, switched off the engine - well, we weren't going anywhere with the keel in the mud - and looked at each other in horror.  The engine has been running sweet as a nut for almost 100 hours, and Ian does his engine checks religiously.

Chairs thrown out the way, engine hatches open, it smelled hot down below. Yes, the engine was hot!  Lots of liquid in the bilge.  What is it?  If oil - a major problem.  Ian tested it - no, it was coolant from the closed cooling system.  Thank goodness - the engine had not blown. It was a pipe, a simple piece of radiator type hose that had ruptured and sprayed most of the contents of the closed cooling system around the engine room.  A bit of mess, you may say.  But at least it wasn't oil.

Ian cut off the offending piece of pipe and reattached it, poured 8 litres of water into the coolant reservoir, knowing it needed more but there was an air lock and he had to bleed the system; to do that and sitting on a mud bank in the middle of nowhere was not the ideal place.  Lynn and Shaun on Elle, who were travelling behind us, went ahead and said there was a quay just around the bend.  So we backed off, ever so gingerly, and eased around the bend at the lowest revs possible, even so the engine temperature climbed too fast.  But we had less than 100 metres to do and tied up at a quay in deep water. 

An hour and many four letter words later, and with another 20 litres of water in the cooking system, we set off again.  Me with my eyes glued to the temperature gauge, which stayed steady just under 80 degrees.

What a relief!   But that was more than enough excitement for one day.  Fortunately, things ran smoothly from then on.  Apart from the weather - the rain set in - as usual just as we went into a lock.

We left the lovely Leie River behind us,

This spot is very close to where we tied up to bleed the cooling system.

But first we has to negotiate another low bridge; mast, bimini and windows down again (we could have called for them to open the bridge, but why stop all the traffic unnecessarily).  This bridge was 2.7 above the water and yesterday we got under a 2.3 bridge.

Plenty of room, at least 20 cm to spare.

Then we turned onto the wide, comparatively, canalised Leie which runs from the Ghent-Ostend canal to the French border.

We saw big barges again.

And negotiated 2 locks, easy-peasy - I'm an old-hand now (whoops, I bet that's tempting fate!).  At the second lock the lock keeper came down for a chat.  Such friendly and helpful people they are (well, most of them). 

He told us we were lucky to get through the lock because the alarm had gone off when he opened the gates for us to enter.  A plastic barrel had stopped the gates opening all the way but he could see there was plenty of room for us to go in so he pressed the reset button.  Antwerp even called him to find out what was going on! The old locks, he explained to us, are much easier to override than the new locks.

We said we were intending to stop at the passenthaven just after the lock (we had had enough of drama and rain by then) but he suggested we go on to Kortrijk where there is a very quiet passentenhaven than the one at the Harelbeke lock which was "onrustig" - bouncy from the passing barges and water movement through the lock.  Only 10 minutes further he said.  Wonderful suggestion!

Another low bridge to negotiate, but this one was 3.2m high, didn't even drop the windscreen.

Here we are in the loveliest setting.  How can you possibly be unhappy with a mooring with views like this out the windows.

And it costs just €8 per day, including electricity and water.  What?  That's cheaper than paying rent/rates/utilities in a house and we are slap bang in the middle of town. Can we stay here all year? Probably not - but we are staying 2 nights at least.  And for a big town so much nicer that Ghent with it's sewerage smells and dirty soup-water canals.