2019 cruising starts again
Day 1 – Into the Netherlands
Setting off from our winter mooring at Bruges (capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the seventh largest city of the country) and heading for the Netherlands, we opted for a more direct route that would take us across the Westershelde (the Western Scheldt is in the province of Zeeland in the southwestern Netherlands and is the estuary of the Scheldt river), our challenge being the weather, tide and sharing the waterways with the larger commercial traffic heading into Antwerp.
We set off at 8.30 on Thursday 4th April, with ice on the deck but the clear blue skies looked promising. We were stalled at the first bridge and asked to wait for a couple of cruisers to catch up and by the second bridge we found that we were now leading a small convoy that followed us on to Evergem lock.
Through this lock and we were onto the Gent-Terneuzen (GT) canal heading for our hoped-for overnight mooring at Mendonk on the Moervaart canal, an exit off the GT canal. On approaching the turn we were contacted on the radio by a vessel about to exit the Moervaart and asked to slow down – we weren’t sure why until it emerged onto the main canal and we saw the size of it! Despite having AIS it hadn’t registered on our radar, and meeting it at the junction would have been a disaster in the making. After watching the ship make its manoeuvre, we hung a right onto the Moervaart looking out for the Mendock marina … to say we weren’t impressed when we finally found it doesn’t quite express what we thought, and so we carried on a little further hoping to see somewhere we could free-moor until we came upon WSV Spanjeever, which not only had space for us but turned out to be a lovely little spot with nice dog walking nearby, and at 6 euros for the night (no services) we were quite happy to settle in for the night.
Day 2 – Friday, 5th April.
Because we would need to catch the tides, we were up even earlier today and, after a well earned comfortable night’s sleep we managed to be ready to leave at 8.10. Overnight the decks had iced over a little, but we were hopeful that they would recover as the morning went on as the weather was scheduled to be nice and warm later on. Anyway, off towards the GT canal again and on to the Terneuzen lock where we had to wait quite a while for entry to the lock, during which time a rather large commercial came along with a rather angry captain – it seemed that the little cruiser in front of us and us too were occupying the moorings in such a way that he couldn’t get alongside to moor, and rather than simply ask us to alter our positions he decided to have a real rant, mostly at the guys in front of us but we think we were mentioned too. Fortunately we don’t speak dutch so it just went over our heads! But being the nice people that we were, we moved our barge a little further back, followed by the cruiser in front of us, and the commercial managed to moor up. Aaaah, we could relax for a short while before locking in …. only to be approached by some workmen on the quayside who needed us to move forward so that they could get their work barge into place to start their work. Luckily we were able to squeeze forward a little and they were more than happy. As we waited to lock in, at least six large commercial barges turned up, along with several smaller cruisers, and we wondered how we could possibly all fit in. But we did! The lock keeper radio-ed us to advise that all the commercials would enter ahead of us, then we would be seventh followed by the cruisers. OK, they know what they’re doing, so we duly followed only to find that yes, we could fit in ….. down the centre BETWEEN the commercials. Slightly nervous, we did as we were told and moored up to one of the larger barges and crossed our fingers. Happily we survived with no damage and nerves still in tact, and left the lock merging onto the Westerschelde amid lots of even larger commercials moving swiftly past the canal entrance/exit.
Commercials to the right and to the left!!
As we had planned, the tide was in our favour and we reached a massive speed of 18.3km at one point, whilst trying to stay in the shipping lanes and avoiding the various buoys that littered the way. At this point we were feeling pretty good and happy with our progress, but sadly it didn’t last. We felt a hefty bump to the boat, and another, and then realised that we had run aground on a sandbank – that definitely slowed us down for a short while, but with lots of panicky patience and lots of engine noise we managed to get underway again. We were extremely glad to reach our final lock of the day, Sluis Hansweert, pass through and out onto the Kanaal door Zuidbeveland.
Finally, after a long, long day of traveling, we arrived at our intended destination of Wemeldinge (a village in the province of Zeeland, located in the municipality of Kapelle, about 4 km northwest of Yerseke) and happily the jachthaven turned out to be a large, modern, clean marina with plenty of space for us amongst all the smart yachts and catamarans. We quickly moored up and took the dogs off for a much-needed wee break before dinner, tv and bed.
Day 3 – Saturday, 6th April.
We woke up refreshed and ready for a much more restful day doing very little, and after a brief dog walk we called into the Harbourmaster’s office to pay our dues for the night and to book in for a second night, leaving on Sunday. We were charged E39 for the two nights, which included both water and electricity, but on checking the bill later it seemed that we had only been charged for one night (thankfully, as that was quite a hefty charge for just one night!). Wemeldinge was a very small town with not much to see, so we returned to the barge for a few hours to tidy up and fill up with water etc., and sit around in the sunshine. Then it was off for another dog walk further round the harbour, only to find a lovely beach area and some nice walking areas along the coastline – where we were lucky enough to catch sight of a seal swimming along! From there it was back onto the barge and settle down for the night.
