Goedenavond,
Tonight we are 3 stops away from Vlissingen in Tiel at a lovely yacht club for the night. We traveled 60 kilometers from Papendrecht today with lots of current slowing us to a 4 knot average. Lots of barge traffic also. Tomorrow we may reach the Rhine and enter Germany. Writing these emails has me keeping one foot in our current town and one foot in the town we’ve just left. I spent most of today’s passage going through the 200 plus photos I took in Dordrecht yesterday. But it was charming and fun and we managed to get a tourist booklet in English as well as one for the Great Church whose tower I couldn’t resist climbing so Mary and I raced up and down just before closing time.
Rick and Mary had cruised some of these miles a few years ago in their sailboat so are doing most of the course plotting. Good thing as the guides are in Dutch or German. I’m happy to let someone else plan the route and just enjoy whatever we do see. I’ve never been in most of the countries we’ll pass through so everything will be new to me.
Ru
Leaving Vlissingen along the Volkerak River
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The bridge at Vlissingen was scheduled to open at 9:25 am so we were ready and waiting to make our way through. We knew the schedule for all of the bridges between Vlissingen and Middelburg so made our way accordingly so not to be either too early or too late.
Going through the opened bridge |
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This big boy had been waiting too and followed us out through the bridge. |
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We let the big guy pass us and now we’re following him through the second bridge. |
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Passing by Middelburg. I believe I read that this building was designed to look like a freighter and it certainly does to me. |
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Going through a small lock; we had to tie up but this smaller boat could just hold on t lines made for that.
Sometimes we have to wait for the lock and sometimes pedestrians have to wait for us to cross over the lock. Given this photo I’m not sure what the blue sign is really saying. |
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Then we came to this giant lock that took Mary, Rick and me to handle the lines to tie ourselves to the lock walls. There were two small boats ahead of us. We were all tied up on the right side of the lock. Then a giant barge came in just alongside us with not much space to spare. And, the barge captain who drove so well,…. A woman!!!. I’ve no photos as we were busy with the lines. Sometimes the water level changes enough that you have to move where your lines are looped to the bollards on the lock wall. That happened in this lock, but Mary and Rick took care of all that. They’ve done this route before so are seasoned hands at going through locks. But I am learning. Thanks Sue Kelly for the boat hook trick. Mary and I two it two handed. She holds the rope look and I hook it over with the boat hook. But we might try your tape idea too.
This is the big boat lock, though the barges in with us were huge in my opinion. We were in what was called the sport lock.
We’re the red line going through our lock and the line of black triangles are the boats going through the “Overzicht jachtensluizen.” |
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Boats tied up waiting for a chance to go into the lock we’ve just left. |
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This dock just beyond the lock and bridge were where we spent the night. It was just lovely. Lots of water birds shared their space with us. |
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A nesting swan
A coot family
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Where’s DoraMac? |
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Keeping count of our Schengen days. |
