Friday 12th June 2015 Seneffe to the dock in the Bellecourt arm. 1km

Our mooring at Seneffe BC on DB Geeske's mooring

10.6° C Sunny with distant thunderstorms. Prepared everything for the dock and set off about 8.20am to go to the arm where Seneffe boat club have their main moorings and a dry dock. Nobody about, so we winded and tied in a space to wait. About 9.30am Christian arrived and his boss from Service Public Wallonie (SPW) and topped up the dock (which resembles an old-style turf sided lock except it has a set of big timbers (called bostocks in English dry docks) for the boats to sit on when the water is

The dry dock gates from the canal arm at Bellecourt

emptied out) then they opened the gates. We went in first and I hopped off with a long rope for our bows and Graham reversed MR in alongside us. Mike put our quant poles out down our port side to keep the boat in the right place and put a stern line to a bollard by the gates, then we added an extra rope to a long rope off the bows, but there was nothing to tie it to, so Mike chucked me a short pin and the small lump hammer so I could put bang a pin in the bank to tie the bows to and try

Christian pressure washing MR

to keep it in a straight line down the dock, but I just could not remember how to tie a sheeting knot to tension up the rope even though I’ve done it hundreds of times before.  There are just two posts marking the left hand edge of the dock in the very large puddle of water. The SPW guys took ropes from MR to the right hand side of the dock and Jill and Graham held MR about a metre away from our starboard side. Christian had donned his wetsuit (he’s a scaphandrier, or professional diver) and he went

The dock emptying paddle - water goes into a stream

round checking the boats were both in the right place before they wound open a paddle by the lock gates and started letting the water out. It took just over an hour from going in to being settled on the bostocks. I collected up all our ropes plus the mooring pin and hammer, while Mike fetched the quant poles in, then I paddled across the wet grass to the boat. Christian and his boss set up a powerful jet washer and he pressure washed both boat’s hulls. They were finished around 12.30pm and Mike and

Sitting on the bostocks

Graham paid 160€ each for the hull cleaning. It saved us having to hire a machine and the time to collect it and take it back,. One big disadvantage of this dock is the height of the bostocks, too low to get at the bottom of the boat effectively, but an advantage for the ease of cleaning down and painting without having to use ladders and planks. We had lunch, Graham went for chips as Christian had recommended the local chippy (fritterie) right next to the dock. He was right,

Just to show the size of the dock, photo taken when refilling it

they were excellent. After lunch we set to work with wire brushes. We cleaned around the bows and as far back as the start of the cabin on each side before putting a first coat of Comastic paint on as we’d seen the weather forecasts were predicting thunderstorms and heavy rain. Thunderstorms rattled around all evening but none came close to us - we did get some rain but not until early the following morning.