Deinze to Kortrijk

26 kms, 2 lift bridges, 2 locks

We were up early, beautiful sunshine, no wind, but we had to wait for a printing shop to open.  At the weekend we received, by email, the contract for the marina we want to leave the boat at when we go home in the summer.  We had to print it out, sign it, scan it and email it back.   We found a print shop that could do that but it was closed yesterday and only opened at 9.30 this morning.  It took all of 10 minutes; back on the boat I sent the email off to the marina in Roanne.  Hooray, our marina is all sorted till the end of May next year.

We set off at 9.50, through the lift bridge with a cheery wave from the lady lockie.

Out on the big wide Leie River it was not too warm (11^o) and we were well wrapped up.

It was a pleasure to be back in Big Commercials World, especially now that we have Boat Beacon so we can see them coming before the we can see them, if you know what I mean.  There certainly were a lot of them.

Boat Beacon shows us as purple and lots of green commercial barges

Two barges heading towards us, one overtaking the other, and a third disappearing around the bend.

2 locks today, both biggies. The first one was 136m long. As we approached the lock keeper called us to tell us to enter first and tie up right at the front, a barge would come in behind us.  Boat Beacon told us that the boat immediately behind us was 105m long and behind that was an 80m barge.  We tied up right in the very front, 5m at most from the lock gates, the longer barge stopped before entering the lock and the smaller one joined us.  Whew!

At the second lock we had to wait because it was already busy bringing a load of barges down.  It is 185m long but when the gates opened it might have been the Tardis, the barges just kept coming out of it.  There were 4 big barges (including a 105 footer) and a tug. 

And then there was just our little 9m Njord going upstream, we had the whole 185m all to ourselves.

We tied up in Kortrijk (under a low bridge, we had to drop the bimini and mast) at 14.20.  

There used to be a harbour master here but he died about a year ago.  Apparently there is a new harbour master but he lives on a barge at the opposite end of the town, and the local lady we spoke to said she is not sure if he is there now. Meanwhile the water and electricity was open, so we plugged in and took leisurely showers.  Let’s see if he comes by tomorrow morning to collect his dues.