Vreeswijk to Cambrai

 

We got back to Vreeswijk a couple of days before Mary and Martin were due to arrive so we discussed it with the harbourmaster, Ton, and he agreed we could stay on for them.

Ton and his wife Riny came for tea on the Friday and we had a lovely chat with them. We promised to wave to them in their flat overlooking the port de plaisance when we left on the Sunday.

Mary and Martin arrived late on Saturday evening, as their bus had been re-routed due to a historic vehicle event which had been taking place throughout the day, travelling right past our barge. We were in pole position and enjoyed seeing all the interesting ancient vehicles and tractors passing by.

On Sunday morning we were all ready to go and Alex went to start the engine, but instead of it bursting into life there was an almighty explosion in the engine room. One of the two 12v batteries that power the 24v starter motor had exploded – bits of battery, battery compartment and battery acid all over the place. So a bit of a clear up required, plus the purchase of two new engine batteries. But – as this was Sunday in Holland, not a single place to buy them anywhere within a 20km radius: Alex and Martin drove round and round, to no avail.

Come Monday morning at 8am they were off again and this time, success! A couple of suitable batteries were acquired for an amazingly reasonable price of €170.

So, off we went on Monday and Ton said he wouldn't charge us for the extra night. (Maybe it was the box of Scottish shortbread biscuits we had given him and Riny when they came for tea that did the trick!) But how kind. We gave them a cheery wave, as promised, when we passed their flat as we left the historic harbour.

The Hollandsche Ijssel turned to to be a lovely cruise after the first few industrial kilometres, and we stopped for a peaceful night at Oudewater.

We got another early start but were held up for an hour at Haastrecht where the bridge only opened for passage to boats every two hours! Goodness knows why, as the bridge itself was hardly busy with cars. In fact I think there were more boats waiting at the appointed hour than cars that had crossed the bridge!

We had lunch at Gouda and then set off to cruise south to Dordrecht.

There was a fair amount of barge traffic and we cruised down minding our own business, when suddenly we spotted the container ship which had been catching us up for some time was right on our tail and about to ram us!

We had all been momentarily distracted by watching a breasted-up couple of barges travelling in the opposite direction and so this emerging situation had escaped our notice. Alex immediately called the container barge on the radio but to no avail and it subsequently rammed us on the port quarter, thankfully missing both rudder and propeller.

Re-arrangement of the rear port quarter

RICCALL shot forward but the momentum of the container barge meant that it careened down the whole port side of RICCALL bending the handrail in by a foot or so and the rear quarter of the bulwark of the back deck.

Being 'carried' down to Dordrecht

The crew member of the container barge came to explain that the captain had alerted ‘the Sector’ and they would take us abreast down to Dordrecht where the police would be waiting to take statements. But before we got the lines on properly, the barge took off again and it was all we could do to hang on to its very rear being buffeted about by the propeller wash.

However, we got to Dordrecht finally (rather more quickly than we could have managed on our own!) and were interviewed by the land police, the water police and breathalysed: eventually at 8.30 pm and in the dark we were told we could finally make it to the historic Wolwevershaven, our intended mooring for the night. The RWS police boat accompanied us there and even organised for the lift bridge to be opened for us.

I must say, mooring up in the dark in a harbour you’ve only visited once 15 years before and with no idea of where and if there might be a space would be pretty daunting at the best of times. But we made it despite still feeling pretty discombobulated. Mary and Martin had done sterling work clearing up all the dislodged items down below and made supper for the two weary sailors! and the next day had to leave for their flight back to Scotland. We sat back to lick our wounds!

The owner of the sailing boat behind RICCALL came and chatted to us, offered us electricity and the help of the young man working for him on his boat, another Martin. Martin said he would be happy to help us the following morning at 8 am with straightening the handrails so that we could at least walk down the port deck!

8 am came and went and no Martin, so Alex got one of his bottle jacks, filled it with fluid, found some old timber baulks once used as fenders, and he and Louise set to work.

Alex hard at work re-aligning the port handrail

By 11 o’clock the rails were all but back in position with just one upright needing to be welded into position at the bottom and the lifting gate rail requiring welding into a new temporary position to cope with the re-positioned back quarter.

At this point Martin came up trumps. “I’m a welder,” he said and for €20 did all the welding absolutely beautifully. Yes, Alex could have done it but nothing like as neatly.

So the rear of RICCALL was not quite what it was, but she was serviceable and we could continue to our winter mooring in Cambrai.

The trip down the Merewede and onto the Amer went without incident but not unnaturally we gave every large barge a wide berth! The Wilhelmina Canal onto which we now turned presented much smaller locks and barges and we felt more at home as our shattered confidence gradually built up.

Tilburg’s myriad of bridges posed no problem or hold up whatsoever. We never even slowed down through any of them, each one opening as we arrived. Finally, at the last bridge Alex was so impressed by the bridge controllers that he thanked them for a brilliant passage. ‘No Problem’ came the laconic reply.

We then discovered that Keith and Louise were here on this very canal and we caught up with them at Orangesluis. Another opportunity for drinks and catch up.

We turned onto the Zuid Willemsvaart Canal to head south leaving ASCENSION behind. At lock 12 we were kept waiting for some considerable time and then into the lock came barge SUZANNA. We had last seen Dick and Lin in 2016 in Bruges, so that made for a happy re-union. We both moored up at Lock 16 near Weert and more drinks and chat followed. We stayed on for shopping after they left the next day.

                                                                            SUZANNA leaves Weert

When we got to Lier we decided to spend a day moving the car from Vreeswijk to Vilvoorde as that meant an easier pick-up again when we got to Cambrai.

For the day of departure for the Rupel we were advised to be at the Duffel Sluis to leave at 7.30am to catch the tide, to reach Klein Willebroek Sluis before it closed at 10 am.

However, at 7am when we asked the lockkeeper, he told us the tide had been late arriving and he couldn't let us out before 8.30 which meant that Klein Willebroek Sluis would be closed by the time we got there. Oh hell!

So we decided, with his advice, to wait at Duffel until we could go down river on the ebb, stop on the floating pontoon at Boom (over the river from K W) near low water then wait there until K W opened again three hours before high water.

We turned round in the ebb just upstream of the pontoon and eased our way backwards onto the inside where we would be out of the way of the ferry mooring.

                                                Safely moored awaiting the flood to enter Klein Willebroek Lock

Three and a half hours later we were able to contact K W Sluis who let us through and allowed us to moor up on the lock moorings for overnight.  On our way south  and just after Halle, we came across this most amazing piece of street art.  It stretched for hundreds of metres and was truly wonderful.

                                                                  Enough said!! Just marvellous!

Now we had the Brussels-Charleroi Canal under our keel and the several lift bridges and locks to negotiate before continuing onto the Canal du Centre. Of course, when we got to the Ronquieres inclined plane on Sunday afternoon we discovered it closed on Sundays! (despite all info giving 7-day opening). 

                                                                                    

                                                                                                Almost there

 An early night, then off early to the Strepy-Thieu lift – once again we were alone in this marvellous ‘machine’.

The next day more excitement to look forward to – traversing the newly re-opened Pommeroel-Conde Canal. All went well and we moored below the Hensies Lock still just inside Belgium. We had moored at the very extreme end of the moorings which was fortunate as at midnight an 80m barge squeezed into the space we had left. He left at 6 am, as soon as the lock opened.

At Trith-St Leger Lock we moored right behind a 39m barge which had obviously been there for some time. At about 11o’clock that night an 80 x 10m moored up behind us (just exactly enough room) then later another one appeared and moored on the 39m in front and on little us! Blimy! They both left around 6. I’d like to say they slipped away silently into the dark morning, but they didn’t – engines roaring, propellers thrashing. Hey, ho!

And strangely at 10 am when we ourselves left, we had the canal and locks to ourselves all the way to the turn off onto the Escaut Canalise, which leads to the St Quentin. We decided to stop at Estrun and spent an uncomfortable night moored, with permission, on Ray and Rachel’s barge, BANDRA, as the wind in the Bassin Rond was very strong indeed. But we made the decision to carry on next morning despite the wind, and in the shelter of the canal itself we felt much happier.

We made it to Cambrai by 2.30 pm that afternoon and settled into our winter mooring spot. Hurrah!

Now, only 4 trains to collect the car from Vilvoorde! Alex had planned the itinerary and by booking split tickets and a slightly convoluted route, we did the whole thing for €34 for the two of us. And the car was unmolested and right where we had left it, outside the police station!

Quite an end to a momentous year. But of course, now we have the unenviable task of finding a shipyard which can undertake the repairs RICCALL needs!

This year's stats:

1826.88 Kilometres

114 Locks

235 Mobile Bridges

Ketelsluis to Vreeswijk

We left the mooring at Keteldeep after a couple of days moored up on the waiting quay for the lock and tried to contact the lockkeeper. Same problem as before – no reply. Then a cruiser moored up behind us, the woman complaining that we had moored in the middle of the quay. “Well, there’s room for you behind us and room for another four boats in front. What’s the problem?” Their attempt at mooring made us realise why they needed the whole quay! She then told us that we must wait for the green light before entering the lock, as if we don’t know that already. When it came time for us to set off we took off the front rope and reversed onto our rear spring to force the front end out from the quay as usual. The lady behind was in a panic ‘You’re moving backwards into us’. “No, we’re not, we still have our spring on!”

Through the lock and we found the mooring downstream of the Ketelsluis completely empty.

                                                                                                All alone!

We moored up at one end while the cruiser moored right in the middle! By the evening the whole 200m was completely full.

George and Suzanna came over from Dronten for a drink and the following day we set off for a mooring about 8 kms along the canal. We had ridden our bikes to it a couple of days before just to see what it was like and to have a picnic lunch there. Sadly the only bench to sit on had been made unusable by the crew of one of the cruisers. They hadn’t sat on the bench themselves, just parked their picnic chairs so close to it that it was impossible for us to do so. Yes, we should have just sat down on it and let them feel uncomfortable enough to move, but we are not like that, so we just sat on the quay elsewhere rather uncomfortably for our own picnic lunch and looked daggers at the cruiser couple.

When we arrived in the boat we had the mooring to ourselves that night, but the farmer opposite decided this was the time to get in his crop. So rather than the peaceful evening which we had hoped for, we had his combi and tractors working till it got dark. Typical!

Finally we got to the lock at the end of this canal – the Lage Vaart – which would get us back up 6m onto the Randmeer. We contacted the lockkeeper on the VHF who asked us for our dimensions – 19m. That’s OK he said, the lock is 20m x 5m wide! Wow! That’s our size of lock! We’re only 4.8m wide but most locks in France, even the Freycinet locks, are 5.10m or 5.20m. 5m dead on felt pretty tight and our rudder sticks out a good metre behind making us as near as dammit 20m long.  Actually in the event I think there was room for 22m but it was fun to fit so well.

                                                                    Rather fearsome entry to the Lage Vaart lock

We moored on De Legge Island where we were surprised to find we had to pay 90 cents/metre. All the free moorings seem to have been taken over now. 

However, the next day we peeled off to a pier which jutted out into the channel at 90 degrees.

                                Interesting mooring, next to an interesting steam barge at an interesting steam museum!

On one side was an old barge of some sort and the other side was empty. This mooring seemed to be tied in with a museum in which an old steam engine driven paddle-wheel had emptied the adjoining land into the main channel. It was free to visit so naturally we did that then the owner of the old barge appeared and offered to show Alex round his boat. It was an old German harbour master’s barge but steam driven. The owner was in the early stages of re-building the steam engine but evidently still had a lot to do.

Alex had a good look round this barge then showed Cess (pronounced caisse) round RICCALL (as you do). He was quite impressed with what we had done and said it had inspired him to put his all into his project. How kind, and good luck Cess!

We failed to get into our next island mooring as the owner of one of the cruisers was absolutely NOT prepared to move his boat back a couple of metres to make room for us. Bastard! So we motored on and felt our way into a nice sheltered mooring on De Hooft island. There were precious few things to tie a rope to but another barge owner already moored up pointed to the almost hidden ring and suggested a nearby tree. All went well until the middle of the night when the wind turned through 180 degrees and became much stronger. Now we were in the teeth of it with waves breaking against the hull and the rudder crashing about.

At three o'clock in the morning Alex put the rudder hard over and secured it with an enormous ‘G’ clamp kept specifically for that purpose.

In the morning all the other boats had left and we couldn't wait to get away ourselves!

We set off making a bee-line for the deep channel which was only about 50m away but after a few metres from our mooring it was obvious that we were in shallow water. Alex gave it more throttle and we slowly slowly ploughed our way through the sandy bottom until eventually we got to the deeper water. Phew! That was close to another going-aground. Our way into the mooring had been fine but we were coming away from it in a different direction.

We got to Muiden lock without further incident and a few days later we arrived at our booked mooring in Vreeswijk. RICCALL moored in a pleasant spot quite close to the old disused lock out onto the river. We felt happy leaving her there while we returned to the UK for the month of August.

                                                            Great spot in Vreeswijk Historic Harbour - by day . . .

                                                                                            . . . and by night

And a few other pics of our journey

The usual Dutch view!

                                                                                            and another

!!!

                                                                                     3 babies up for the ride

                                                                                          Sweet little boat

Flevoland to Ketelsluis

 

Although the cruise across Flevoland was unremarkable in itself, what WAS remarkable was the thought that until the 50s and 60s this whole enormous area of 1000 square kilometres would have been 6 metres under water.

We set off again on our way out of Flevoland, through the locks and the 6M rise at this end of the island onto the Ketelmeer. Alex wondered if our much-reduced speed may be the result of growth on the hull. This had been bothering him for some days and so he decided that as we were relatively close to SRF in Harlingen we might try to see if they could fit us in for a quick lift-out to check. SRF couldn’t fit us in before September so he tried Multiship, also in Harlingen. They could do it the very next week – at a price!

After some heavy bargaining over the cost of it all, we made the decision to go ahead. This meant we would travel a similar route to Harlingen as we had 8 years previously, rather than taking our direct route from Mepple to Groningen on the Drentsche Hoofdvaart Canal via Essen. But never mind! There are always the meers to enjoy on our way to Harlingen

Now we could look forward to the historic village of Blokzijl where we had been lucky enough to moor in it’s harbour 8 years ago. When we got there we saw what looked like a space big enough for us between two cruisers. We headed for it but as we started to manoeuvre in we saw that the quay had a kink in it half way along. Abort! Abort! We’d have to reverse out and moor elsewhere - perhaps in a space that a passer-by told us was normally used by a trip boat. But as we backed out the wind caught us and Louise had to quickly insert a fender between us and the posh cruiser as we slid along its upper hull!

Alex went along afterwards to apologise. “Is there any damage?” asked the grim-faced owner. “No” said Alex. “Well that’s all right then”. No smiles or bonhomie – miserable git!

That night there was to be an alfresco play by a local touring ensemble. A stage had been floated into the lock after hours and tiers of seating erected looking over it. All the local residents appeared dressed in traditional garb and the “Lord Mayor” in a top hat and his lady came to talk to us before the show began but said, sadly, that there were no more tickets available.

However shortly after the show began we went for a wander and found ourselves ‘backstage’, as it were, sitting on a bench with one of the locals watching the whole thing from the ‘wrong’ side!

The most interesting part was that the hero of the piece was seated not 10 yards from our bench on an old tjalk, waiting to claim his beloved. His back was to the audience throughout and he joined in the singing but kept a low profile. Not until the very end did he leave the barge and join the rest of the cast in the finale. He did have a very good voice and Louise thought he looked smashing! But of course the whole thing was in deepest Dutch dialect so we hadn't a clue what was going on! But the hero got the girl. Universal!

As we journeyed on from Bloxzijl we noticed that the propeller seemed to be more noisy than it had been! What next? We found that if we slowed down to about 5.5 kph it became quiet again. As we had plenty of time we decided to do that speed all the way to the lift-out and investigate what might be amiss on dry land.  

Spotted this rather strange double-master in the throes of renovation in Franeker - note the hole in the hull, and the welder working INSIDE the boat through the hole!!

The lift out went without a hitch and it turned out that the growth on the hull was not as bad as we had thought. But we were committed now, so the job would have to go ahead. The propeller also looked absolutely fine. So the noise would probably still be there when we got back into the water!

On our way back into the water

Alex knew the seals on the outside end of the stern tube had ceased to be effective as water had started to seep through, so while we were on the hard he introduced some extra grease into the bearing. After refilling the greaser TWICE he at last managed to get some grease to exit the outer end of the prop shaft. Perhaps as the oil seals had failed the grease had been washed out?  

We spent a day or two over the weekend when the yard was closed, re-visiting lovely Harlingen and particularly the docks area, where we potted this (replica) galleon.

When we finally got back in the water and set off the strange noise from the prop had stopped. In fact, the whole barge seemed to be back to a time when all had been operating smoothly. And our speed seemed to be back to normal. Hurrah!

We moored at Stroobos so that Jeremy and Carol (latterly of barge ANTHONIA but now in a camper van) could meet up with us, but before they arrived we noticed that the discolouration on the port side of the barge couldn’t be removed however we tried. We had thought it was just general wind-blown shipyard dust and that it would come off with a good wash. The starboard side which also looked discoloured did come clean fairly easily with a stiff brush. Strange!

Alex wrote to the shipyard, sending photos, to ask for advice. It was thought by them to be overspray from the undercoat being caught in the wind. We were asked if we could return to the yard and they would sort it out. Alex explained that we were by then 3 days cruising time away and couldn’t return. Finally, it was agreed that if they could give us a couple of 5 litre tins of hull blacking, we would do the painting ourselves. After much discussion it was arranged that one of the staff members who was driving to Germany that very evening could drop it off at Stroobos.

So on Friday night at about 7.30 pm and while we enjoyed supper with Carol and Jeremy, we received 20 litres of Hempex High Build Black. Fantastic! More than we had asked for, but hey, we still had to do the work!

Onwards to Groningen and we found the same mooring we had used 8 years ago, and it was available. Lunch at IKEA, a climb of the Martinitoren for fantastic views of the city, and more food shopping as usual. We were just setting off after the 2nd night when the Havenmeester appeared – that will be €57 please. We explained that as there was no signage regarding payment, we had assumed the mooring was free. “Oh no! Nowhere in Groningen is free – it says so on the internet” he said. But €57?!!

And when we set off we discovered a definitely free mooring just round the corner!

As we travelled east out of Groningen we spotted ahead of us what looked like an extremely large barge, but as we got nearer we saw that it was in fact an ocean-going ‘tramp steamer’, huge, brand new and still being completed in a massive shipyard. Then a kilometre or so further on another and then more and more, all brand new and in various stages of production: a sort of production line of huge sea-going barges, each 150m long and at least 12m wide and so tall – 7m minimum freeboard and the wheelhouses 14m up in the air! Extraordinary! Who knew this was all happening in north east Holland.

When we arrived at Veendam, we moored up on what we hoped after Groningen, was a free mooring, and adjacent to our mooring was a ‘coffee shop’ of the Dutch variety. There was an endless procession of cars stopping for just two minutes – time enough to buy the next joint but no coffee. Next morning we discovered it wasn't, as hoped, a free mooring - But €8 is fine thank you very much.

The lock keeper had told us to be ready at 9 o’clock to traverse all the bridges together with three other cruisers (all German on their way home via the Ems).

At 8.30 he came to tell us that one of the Germans wanted to leave as soon as possible and could we be ready sooner. We said give us 10 minutes to warm the engine and then we can.

This was the start of a day in which we were last in a convoy of impatient Germans who wanted to get home before the weekend at which their holidays ended. They had to wait for us at each bridge and lock as we could only mange 5 kph in the shallow canal. We made many references to the hare and the tortoise during the arduous day!

Alex managed to remove two bits of detritus from the prop (which Alex had expected had been there for some time) but the last bit of string just couldn’t be shifted.

We had asked for 10am start the next day but it wasn’t till 10.30 when two other cruisers appeared that we got going again, for another day of bridges and locks.

One of the cruisers stopped at the passantenhaven so that left just one to contend with and he was also heading for Germany so we lost him at the junction as we headed south on to the Compasscuum Canal. At last, we thought, we have the canal to ourselves, but No! A cruiser came round the corner from Germany and joined us in the first lock to head south!

The locks are not so big here and seemed to be getting smaller as we progressed. When we reached the Compasscuum Jansen lock the lockkeeper would only let us in by ourselves and also mentioned that there was a low bridge ahead in a couple of kilometres. We decided to moor up for the day and hope for drier weather in the morning when we would have to remove the roof.

The morning dawned sunny and wind free! We removed the roof and set off. As it turned out we might have just squeezed under the bridge (which was a lift bridge but seemed to be restricted as to how high it could lift).

The rest of the day was great as we were the only boat travelling. We had to negotiate the circuitous route around the Veenpark (an industrial heritage site). No boats can moor here to visit the site, which seemed a shame. This canal had been closed for some time and the original route had been built over so when they reopened it in 2013 the Veenpark jiggle was the only available route.

This included several right angled turns and also the pinch point of the whole journey – a very old lock – kept open but still only 4.8m wide.

RICCALL is exactly 4.8m wide so we were looking forward to this. In the event it was tight, but the lower hull of our barge is narrower than the deck and we got through with centimetres to spare.

Finally we moored up near the start of the StieltjesKanaal at the first lock – just in time as it turned out as the wind became a near-hurricane together with heavy squalls of rain. The day ahead, Sunday – appeared to give us just an hour and a half of cruising time before a rail bridge which is totally closed on Sundays – the only one of our entire route. Louise made a decision and declared a day of rest – then went on to the paint the starboard hull of the boat making good use of a fine morning.

Lovely day, but not exactly warm!

It was a nice spot upstream of the Stieltjesluis so we stayed a couple of nights.

In the morning we tried to alert the lock-keeper, assuming that he/she was at the lock as there were two cars parked outside. There appeared to be people inside the lock building but Alex was unable to contact them when he walked down to the lock. In the end, having tried the VHF to no avail we had to ring the phone number given in our P C Navigo computer program. After trying each of three numbers, finally a lady said “I will prepare the lock for you”! Gosh! The myriad systems of alerting lock-keepers here in Holland really makes alerting someone difficult. By press button, by VHF, by phone, by video surveillance camera. You never know which it’s going to be!

When we got to one of the many lift bridges we seemed to have lost our travelling bridge operator. We hung around for 10 minutes or so then gave up, moored and started our lunch as it was 11.50 and the bridges close between 12 and 12.30pm, so we assumed we would have to wait.

We had just started our lunch when the bridge operator arrived together with two cruisers. We asked to stay to finish our lunch but he explained that if we didn’t go through now we would have to wait till late afternoon to get going again so we went through the bridge, stopped immediately for a quick finish of lunch then set off again to catch up with the other boats in time for 12.30 at the next bridge.

​What a palava! The other two boats sped off and we trailed along behind. After the next bridge we gave up and moored up for the day. This gave us time to cycle back to Lidl, our favourite shop (who knew?) for supplies.

We had assumed that this 'little' canal in the far east of Holland would be calm, rural and very peaceful.  In the event it turned out to be the industrial powerhouse of the country, with huge gravel workings, cement works, chemical factories and so on.  Quite a surprise!

As we were nearing the end of the Stieltje Kanaal we, on a whim, contacted the Almelo Passantenhaven and asked if we could moor our 70 ton, 19m barge in his marina. This seemed to be fine and he opened the two bridges necessary to travel to the end of the dead cut. He welcomed us to the mooring just before the Java bridge. This was a really good mooring for us and especially for historic boats as they can moor for free. He kindly gave us free electricity too so we just had the tourist charge of €1 per person to pay.

                                                                           Almelo town from the wheelhouse

                                                                  Almelo small boat harbour from the wheelhouse

Almelo fire brigade chaps do their practice stuff

We stayed for two nights, had a very mediocre lunch in town and had a look round the old textile district. The whole area has been demolished and re-built with social and private housing in typical modern Dutch style. Very impressive.

Moving on we decided, in the teeth of yet another rain storm, to grab an ideal mooring somewhat earlier than normal. It was intended for commercial craft but it was supposedly necessary to contact the Eefde Lock to ask for permission to moor from 6pm-6am, which we dutifully did. We rang the number but as expected the message was in totally unintelligible Dutch. We used our translator device to record the message and wow, it worked – press 1 for the control centre, press 2 . . . etc We did so and the guy who answered spoke perfect English. “Could we moor here for the night please?” “I will ring back and let you know.” OK right.

10 Minutes later he rang back and told us we could moor at the ‘Sport’ mooring (pleasure boats are called Sport in Holland and Germany) at the next lock Eefde. Alex explained that we were miles from Eefde at this mooring east of Goor. “Oh, I see. Well that’s OK, you have my permission!” Good job.

This most impressive mural covered the whole side of an enormous industrial edifice 

Arriving at said Eefde Lock the next day some time after 3pm we asked to moor on the Sport mooring for the night. “No.” Well how about the commercial mooring “No.” We asked what had happened to the Sport mooring which our Waterway Guide from the DBA had mentioned. “There is no Sport mooring here. Go back 12 kms to Lochem or out onto the Ijssel and up stream to Zutphen.” The Ijssel, we knew, was running at around 6kph so trying to go upstream would be, if not impossible, at least very difficult.

Well, what could we do? Faced with this impossible choice we turned tail and retraced our steps, expecting to have to do the 12 kms to Lochen where we knew there was mooring. However, approaching the little harbour of Nieuwe Aanlag we saw that there was a ‘box’ available wide enough for us to nose into – carefully! (A box in this context in Holland, is a space designed with upright poles to corral a suitably sized boat bow or stern on to a quay.) Very slowly and with great care we went in. 

Tiny little Nieuwe Aanlag Harbour

 Thankfully snuggled into this tiny little harbour 

The havenmeester, after welcoming us warmly, expressed amazement that we had been refused mooring at the lock and took pity on us, despite our being oversized, and said we could stay providing we were well roped. In the end we had 7 ropes to various points around the barge and fenders in everywhere. Even so we moved around a great deal as the big commercials whizzed past.

We decided despite some consternation about the speed of the Ijssel, to leave the next morning and managed to extricate ourselves without side-swiping anybody (by a miracle) and headed back down stream to Eefde Lock.

As we went through we saw that there was a perfectly good Sport mooring both above and below the lock and plenty of space on the commercial mooring. Was it just coincidence that 2 days before England had beaten Holland in the Euros? We feel a letter of complaint is in order, because that is just not on.

There really WAS a Sport mooring at Eefde Lock - we knew it!

The Ijssel was flowing at 5 to 5,5 kph so on top of our 7.5 to 8 kph we made good progress.

 This is probably the fastest we have ever cruised!
    

The moorings at Deventer were under water and there was no obvious place to moor so we decided to just get the Ijssel under our belt in one shot as it were, and reached Zwolle Lock just after 3pm and with some trepidation asked if we could moor on the Sport mooring downstream of the lock for the night. Again the lock-keeper said he’d check and get back to us on VHF. “Yes, you can, but please moor at the very end of the mooring and what time will you be leaving?” We said 9-10am, our usual departure time.

We were just starting breakfast at 8.45 the following morning when the RWS (water ‘police’) launch crossed the waterway from its mooring and moored up behind us. They came to say that we should have left at 8am, despite their having heard our conversation with the lock-keeper the night before as to our intention of leaving at 9-10am. “Can we finish our breakfast?” “You have 5 minutes.” That’s a no then!

Honestly, if they had heard our intention last night, why didn’t they come over and make the 8am departure clear. We would have got up earlier. What is it with these guys. The England-Holland match again?

They hovered around us in their launch until we actually set off then they whizzed off into the lock while we set off down the Ijssel again while finishing our breakfasts and the morning’s ablutions in shifts.

With relief we got to one of our favourite moorings on the Keteldiep by 11 am. Off the main line, quiet and peaceful and 3 days allowed (max length 15m). But gosh where did we lose those 3.75 metres?!

As in our last blog, we add some photos of things we've seen on this cruise.

Virtually derelict but with pristine awning!

Another rather splendid house

Completely empty on passing one way - totally full 2 weeks later!