We arrived at our boat in the afternoon of Thursday 22nd
to find 3 months of accumulated dirt/leaves/cobwebs/spider shit (known as
“spinnekoppoep” in this part of the world – what a great word!).
We spent Thursday afternoon unpacking and settling
in and waving to all our friends from Buitenbeentje (where we took the boat out
of the water last winter) who were busy with all sorts of tourist activities
(canoeing, rafting, bicycle rides, etc) as they passed our boat.
It is still their busy time of year so we
left it till Friday before we went to visit them. It was great to see them all again. Mostly
on Friday, we spent the day cleaning, getting rid of all the dust, crud, spinnekoppoep,
etc, and buying groceries to stock up the store cupboards.
We left our mooring at Diksmuide at 12.00 noon on Saturday and ambled ever so slowly down the Ijzer River
to Nieuwpoort where we stopped at the VVW Westhoek for a couple of hours so that Ian could go to the local
chandlery to buy a new fire extinguisher.
It was a beautiful afternoon, late summer sunshine, a light breeze, and
just pleasantly warm. We left again at
16.10 through the Sint Jorissluis (lock) into the Nieuwpoort-Plassendale Canal
where we expected to wait until 17.00 for the “mobile ploeg” (itinerant team)
to start the traverse of the canal which has 5 lift bridges in 18 kms. But this year the canal has been automated
and now it is all controlled by someone sitting in an office near
Oostende. He opened the first bridge for
us 10 minutes early and we got through 3 of the 5 bridges in super quick time,
no waiting around. But at the 4th bridge nothing happened; we waited
for 7 minutes then called the Plassendale Cantrale: as soon as I gave the name of our boat the
operator said “oh, yes, I will open the bridge straight away”. We reckon he had got engrossed in his novel
or crossword puzzle and forgot to watch for us approaching the bridge!
Being Saturday afternoon, and lovely sunny weather, the whole of Flanders seemed to out on bicycles, rollerblades, motorbikes and sports cars. At one of the bridges a friendly chap, waiting
in the queue at one of the bridges as it was prepared for us to pass through, shouted to us “Welcome to
Belgium …… and the great beer!” Such nice people, the Flemish.
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| One of the many motorbike clubs |
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| A father and daughter on rollerblades, it looked like some serious training! |
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| Flowers! |
At 19.15 we tied up at the Genevepiete dock in
Oudenburg. This is a free mooring with free
water and electricity!!! When we plugged
into the shore power with 2 bike batteries, a laptop and fridge the shore power
tripped! Too much, we had to unplug some
of the things and charge them one by one.
Right now the fridge is sitting on 0c degs so all is well. We will stay here today so that Ian can install
a new rev counter, and we will watch the MotoGP race in Spain, then head for
Bruges on tomorrow.
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| A beautiful evening |
Excellent new adventure! Cruise on.....
ReplyDeletepmjudy