Ghent

The Kanaal Gent-Oostende leads us from Bruges to the Ringvaart with a lot of commercial barges, until we turn into the Leie to the center of Ghent. Our destination is the Lindenlei Marina which is located close to the center of Ghent at the former Law Courts. The site is spectacular!

Lindenlei Marina at the former Law Courts

Harbour master office of Lindenlei Marina

Boats along the Leie at Lindenlei

Within a 5 minute walk we are at the Graslei site with its many cafes and restaurants and its unique row of historical buildings. We enjoy not only  the wonderful cathedrals and the Castle Gravensteen, but also active street life, an open-air piano player and great shopping areas.

Shopping Mile of Ghent

Town Hall of Ghent

Castle Gravensteen

Open-air piano music

We leave late the next day since we have only a short trip of one hour to our next destination, Yachting Merelbeke, close to the Merelbeke lock to the tidal Boven-Zeeschelde. Before we left, a traditional rowing regatta came along our boat, and we had a front-row seat with coffee and cakes.

Boat excursions and rowing regatta come across Lindenlei marina

In Merelbeke we were friendly welcomed by harbour master Rocco. The moorings are spread over the two sides of the Schelde, but the next bridge was some distance away. We moored at the "wrong" side so that I had to walk a while to register at the harbour office. Rocco, a nice and spirited italian guy wanted to bring me back to Fiona by car but was not aware of a soccer game which was just going to start in a football stadium close to the marina. Some streets were closed, and so was the street to the other side of the marina! Imagine a hood-blooded italian guy, arguing with the belgian police about going to streets in his own harbour - they didn't let him go, so this poor guy had to drive me back through the traffic of Ghent for at least fifteen minutes until we came back to his office.

Merelbeke: Two Sealines at the "wrong" side of the harbour

From Nieuwpoort to Bruges

It's time to say goodbye to Nieuwpoort and to start our tour to the Netherlands. The route we planned starts with the Kanaal Plassendale-Nieuwpoort and the Kanaal Gent-Oostende where we visit Bruges, the Ringvaart with a short side trip along the Leie, Ketelvaart and Schelde to visit Gent, continues with the Boven-Zeeschelde, Rupel and Dijle to Mechelen, the Beneden-Nete, Netekanaal, Albertkanaal, Kanaal Bocholt-Herentals, Zuid-Willemsvaart until we reach the Kanaal Wessem-Nederweert and the Maas in the Netherlands where we have booked a berth for September and October.

View to the marina in Nieuwpoort

The bridges at the Kanaal Plassendale-Nieuwpoort are open only twice a day which means that we have to join a convoy at 10 in the morning at the first bridge. But first we have to go through a tidal lock which is operated 3.5 hours before and after high tide. Strange that the times for the bridges are fixed while they can only be reached after passing a tidal lock! But this day we can pass the lock at 9 and we are on time at the bridge. The first kilometers are busy with a lot of boats around us, but thanks to the convoy we don't have to wait for the bridges to open, and after 2 hours we reach the historic Plassendale lock.

Convoy at the Kanaal Plassendale-Nieuwpoort

From here we use the Kanaal Gent-Oostende, a very nice canal where we have to deal with only a couple of commercial barges. The convoy has lost some of the boats for mooring or other directions, but we still are in company with three other boats, and this little convoy leads us throug all the bridges around Bruges. Normally the bridges are only opend for commercial barges, and sportsboats have to wait for them, but for the four of us it was obviously worth to open the bridges and to operate another lock in Bruges.
The passage route around Bruges is wonderful! Finally, we reach our destination for this day, the Yachtclub Flandria where we were cordially welcomed by the harbour master Martine.  

Clubhouse of Yachtclub Flandria

The Yachtclub is a wonderful place to stay for one or two nights, quiet but in easy walking distance to the historic center of Bruges and well equipped with water and electricity, showers, washing machines and free wifi . Here we got our first fresh croissants for breakfast, because they even offer a service to deliver fresh bakery products in the morning if it is ordered until 7 in the evening!
Bruges itself is well worth a visit! The historic center is outstanding and full of atmosphere. We stay 2 nights in this wonderful city.

Belfry at the market square in Bruges

First Excursion

After several days of cleaning and reading manuals, we decided it would be time for a first excursion.
We planned a short trip from Nieuwpoort to Veurne and back, 25 km along the Kanaal Nieuwpoort-Duinkerke, a quiet little canal. Since the lock in Nieuwpoort is only operated 3.5 hours before and after high tide, we had to be in the lock at 9 in the morning latest and planned to go back in the late afternoon. So, plenty of time to visit Veurne and buy the obligatory vignette for Flanders. If only there hadn't been the Wulpen bridge... This bridge has to be self-operated, and we got the badge for the bridge in the lock. 

Sightseeing in Wulpen

After some searching we found the panel to operate the bridge, and opened it. A nice Belgian helped us, and we crossed the bridge. So it was now our turn to close the bridge again. But we only saw alarm lights saying "Waterway not free". The waterway was as free as it could be, but the detectors of the bridge did not agree with us. So we had to call for help. Meanwhile, of course, a crowd of pedestrians and bikers crowded on both sides of the bridge and we tried to explain what happened. We felt that we should be polite and wait with the pedestrians and bikers.
After a long while somebody came, used keys, opened boxes, pressed buttons, went here and there, called into his mobile, but still the detectors found something on the waterway. Finally, he managed to close the bridge, and had to open the gates by hand. After a big applause the pedestrians and bikers crossed the bridge, and as a test, he opened the bridge again. And, what should I say - the detectors still found something on the waterway. In the next minutes they could find something, namely us, because we found that, after almost 3 hours, we had waited long enough. We continued our trip to Veurne, but planned to lower the canopy on the way back so that we could pass under the bridge.

Wulpen bridge - closed

Close to Veurne, a railway bridge blocked our passage.  We used the VHF radio, but nothing happened. We could have lowered the canopy, but for whatever reason a lot of water was coming down from the bridge and we definitely did not want to shower under the bridge. So we decided to moor at the jetty which was normally only for boats waiting for the bridge, and go for a short visit to Veurne and to the lock in Veurne, where we wanted to buy the vignette.

The railway bridge which blocked our passage

Fiona moored at the jetty of the railway bridge

Waiting for the vignette

We were not aware that the lock keeper wanted to see the boat documents, so he sent us back and asked us to come back with the boat and the documents. He promised to organize that the bridge would be opened for us - but again, no response on the VHF radio. In the end, we called the lock in Nieuwpoort and asked for help, and immediately the bridge opened...
After some paperwork we received the vignette, payed 40 € and could go for a short visit and some food shopping to Veurne, a charming little town with a beautiful market place.

A school in Veurne

The central Market Place in Veurne

Our way back through the railway bridge was not easier, but after waiting for almost half an hour, we knew the trick and called again the lock in Nieuwpoort, and they organized again that the bridge was opened. All in all, it took us 9 hours for 12 km and the vignette, but luckily our way back to Nieuwpoort was much faster. We are curious if the rest of our 300 km tour back to Roermond will be as fast as the tour to Veurne!

Here she is

We had decided to get the boat delivered to Nieuwpoort, Belgium, instead of her new home in Roermond, Netherlands. The VVW marina in Nieuwpoort is one of the largest in Northern Europe, with good infrastructure to make the boat ready to go, and much closer to UK than Roermond - and this also gave us the opportunity to have our first holidays through Flanders, along great cities like Bruges and Ghent, tidal rivers and nice old canals.

The main building of the VVW marina in Nieuwpoort

VVW marina Nieuwpoort

The delivery of the boat was announced by the haulage company for 9 in the morning. We had booked a lift in advance, but since it was low tide they offered us to keep the boat in the mobile lift for a couple of hours before she could go into the water. 
Waiting for the boat was extremely exciting, but the delivery was perfectly in time, and shortly after 9 Fiona was hanging in the lift, where we found out that the batteries were completely flat! Luckily, the shore power cable was long enough and the time before high tide was long enough to charge them.

Fiona hanging in the lift

After we had emptied the cockpit from the tender and the outboard motor of the tender, and had prepared fenders and warps, we even had time to glue the name and registration numbers on the boat.
We had wondered that we did not see a jetty close to the ramp for the lift, but we learned that we would have to sit in the boat and would be slipped together with the boat into the water. Luckily the ramp was flat enough so that it was a quite enjoyable, but also exciting experience.

Fiona on her way into the water

Moorings

We simply couldn't resist to make a short trial with the boat as soon as it was in the water, but after some pleasing 30 minutes we made it to our berth. We had a nice mooring with free access to water and shore power, so that we could start with cleaning and preparing the boat, which was our main activity for the next couple of days.

The VVW marina is a great place to stay for a while, with very good sanitary facilities, maintenance and repair service, free internet access everywhere, even 1 hour of bike hire was included.

Sanitary facilities in the marina

Nieuwpoort is split into two parts, Nieuwpoort-Bad at the waterside and Nieuwpoort-Stad some kilometers inland. The marina is close to Nieuwpoort-Stad, and at the last evening we managed to go out for a pizza in a nice bar and a short walk to the center of Nieuwpoort-Stad.

Center of Nieuwpoort-Stad

Tram Station in Nieuwpoort-Stad

Fiona

Months before we started to search for the boat we found her name, Fiona.
The name is of Irish and Gaelic origin, which is reminescent of our last boat charter holidays in Ireland, and the meaning of the name is "fair, pale, white" - and that's what she looks like.

Paperwork

Buying a boat means also a lot of paperwork. The boat must be registered, get insurance, and since we also have a VHF radio we need to register for a VHF number. Unfortunately the office where we wanted to register the boat went on strike, so that we found an alternative with the german ADAC. Today we got the last document, just in time before the delivery of the boat.

Searching for Fiona´s harbour 2013

Fionas harbor in 2013

In August 2013, we have another task: As we would need a berth beginning from September for our boat a nice marina had to be found . In some marinas, which we already knew we asked directly. Unfortunately, these marinas were so popular, that no berth was free for us. After further research, we noticed a marina at Heel, not far away from Roermond: Marina Boschmolenplas which is a small harbour with 100 berths that looked new and very good.

The marina is located in a small lake, which is reached when one has passed through two more lakes. Surrounded by a holiday resort village and a modern restaurant and a brasserie, a good holiday mood came over from the very first visit

We got in touch by e-mail to the owner. Soon afterwards we sat outside in the pretty beer garden of the Brasserie in beautiful summer weather with the harbor and restaurant owner. We accepted the conditions and went home as a proud future berth holders.  

The restaurant and the bar of Boschmolenplas

View from the restaurant to the harbour

Seats under the restaurant

Marina Boschmolenplas, situated between Heel und Panheel. Behind the harbour are some holiday houses.

Coming from the harbour

Fiona on her way to the Marina Boschmolenplas

Entrance to the harbour

Our neighbours

View to the exit of the harbour