A bath in the morning

We planned to go through the tidal river Boven-Zeeschelde non-stop because the jetties there were not the way we like it - right in the middle of tidal current and with commercial barges around us. This meant an almost 90 km tour on one day.
The evening before, Harbourmaster Rocco checked the tidal table for us and advised us to start before 6 in the morning with the falling tide. So we had to stand up pretty early and started in darkness - a luck that the marina was lighted. Next to the marina we had to pass a tidal lock which was also nicely illuminated.

Merelbeke lock, Ringvaart to Boven-Zeeschelde

Locks always take time, and when we passed it morning had come.
What shall I say - shit happens... When we left the lock Frank found that the boat went much slower than before, and the machine began to stop when cruising slowly. Of course we decided not to start the trip, but moored next to the lock to check the propeller. We had the slight hope to reach it from the bathing platform, but in the end Frank had to take a bath in the Schelde and removed a large piece of plastic from the propeller! He was the hero of the day for the rest of the crew!

Trouble for our duoprop

Boven-Zeeschelde at low tide

At low tide the river had a very special atmoshpere, kind of awesome and surreal. We were not unhappy when tide began to be high again.
At Temse we stopped for Diesel the first time with Fiona and were happy about her low consumption of about 3 liters per hour! In Temse we also found one of the most beautiful marina building.

Finally we reached the tidal lock in Mechelen on time and could enjoy comfortable locking with swimming bollards.

Mechelen lock