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| Starting to refill the dock |
8.7°
C Sunny spells, lots of clouds (some grey but only a tiny light shower of rain)
chilly wind. After a week of solid hard work we were ready to refloat the boat.
Our SPW men arrived early at 8.40am. Rushed around to finish off the odds and
ends. Mike had decided to make sure the echo sounder would come out of its tube
and pushed it up from underneath (we’d made the tube smaller by painting it
with Comastic, it had been a loose fit, now it was tight) so he added a layer
of
Vaseline to lubricate it so it would come out from the top more easily. He
put two long ropes out off the bow to a stake he’d knocked into the bank and
tightened up using a sheeting knot. It was my job to take photos and remove the
ropes when the dock was refilled. The crows were a bit miffed that we’d hidden
all the rotting mussels that they had been feeding on as the whole area became
a little lake again. Mike went out first while I was gathering up ropes with
the
assistance of the apprentice, then Graham followed and reversed MR through
the bridge to tie up alongside us to get water from the club. I had to walk up
to the club carrying three big sodden ropes plus the mooring pin, hammer and
plastic cover for the mooring pin. G had a keycard (they’d used the showers and
toilets in the club) so he put money on it to get some water then went in the
Capitainerie to get his 15€ deposit back. We set off at 10.45am really glad to
be afloat
again. Mike was annoyed that he’d put too much of a bend on the
leading edge of the rudder trim tab; so the boat, instead of wanting to turn
right all the time, now wanted to do a hard turn left. I had to lean bodily
against the tiller all the time to keep it in a straight(ish) line while he was
doing other odd jobs. A big boat called Demis (80m x 8.2m 1082T - ex-CBR11
embossed on its bows) was being loaded with rocks at the quay by the first road
bridge. A Dutch cruiser called Danny
went past in the opposite direction, then
by the big stop gate at the beginning of the new canal we passed Alph, a loaded
cement carrier. Sanderos, Belvona and two others whose names I couldn’t see
were loading/unloading at the container port in the start of the arm leading to
the top of the old lifts. The wind was getting fierce so we put fleeces on and
I added my waterproof as it’s also windproof. Trip boat Scaldis was winding
above the big lift at Strèpy-Thieu and so
we thought we would be able to follow
it into the lift. Mike called the lift on VHF and they told us we’d be second
locking in about fifty minutes. Scaldis had moored on the right above the lift
and disembarked his passengers, who set off across the aqueduct in two little
tourist trains. The skipper was driving the first one, waving very
enthusiastically to us as we passed him. G went on the left and we went on the
low quay on the right as Mike wanted to bend the rudder back a bit
using his
(slightly modified) UK swingbridge pinch bar. It seemed much better as we moved
across the canal to the left to moor in front of MR by the traffic lights. I
made some lunch which we managed to eat before loaded 80m boat L’Equinoxe came
up and cleared the lift. We still had a red light. Not many minutes passed
before Eragon, loaded with scrap, came past us and into the lift. Mike had
tried asking on VHF if we could follow Eragon and got no answer, but the
skipper waved
us to follow him. There were no dimensions written on his
coamings but he must have been around 85m as there was not a lot of leftover
space for us. Mike checked with the keeper, the lift is 112m long. The big boat
kept his engines running and boy was there a load of very smelly exhaust coming
out the back of it, right in front of me! We were soon down and out of the
lift. More scrap metal went past on loaded boat Loky – off into the lift
caisson we’d just vacated - and he was followed by 72m loaded boat Neophyte.
A
short distance to the new lock at Thieu. My turn to lift the bar this time and
I couldn’t shove it up high enough, neither could Mike – he ended up getting up
on the roof to lift it, then it worked and the lock emptied. We went in first
and stayed on the left, G brought MR in on the right. Mike lifted the blue rod
(hard to operate as the bars are so long in the deep lock. Then we rose
ropeless. MR winded and went to moor on the quay overnight and we found the
caisson in lift four was ready for
us so we went straight into the left hand
tank. Then we had a short wait while trip boat Peterborough came into the right
hand tank up above us. I made a cuppa and remarked to Mike that there were lots
of big baulks of timber ling across the bars in the supporting towers and
wondered if they’d been left there by painters. As the lift started to move the
railings on our tank lifted two of the timbers which eventually slid off and
went crashing down to the bottom and lay across the edge where the right hand
tank was going down. 800 tonnes of tank descending and the huge piece of wood
had to break, making a horrific cracking sound as it did so. It made the
hostess on the tripper stop her commentary! Hope that incident
won’t cause us
any problems. The guillotine opened to let the tripper out, but then the new
Thieu lock decided to go “en panne” ie broke down, so the repair team had to
set to work. (It did that to us when we went down last time). We waited again
for our guillotine to lift before we could proceed along the canal. We went
slowly along the canal towards the liftbridge, no signs of a keeper to operate
it speeding up the towpath in his van. Mike said G would be there before us – as
he’d said he would cycle up to us because Mike was going to give him a lift to
move his car on to Cambrai. We tied to a canoe stop over, a mini floating
pontoon made up of inflated cubes of rubber and I called the office again. It
caused me to smile when the guy who answered said Yes Missus (trying out his
best English, bless him!), when I asked if there would be a bridge keeper to
wind the liftbridge for us. A few minutes later G & J came up the towpath
walking the dogs. We chatted for a few minutes, Jill said we didn’t get chance
for a hug and a kiss goodbye as we didn’t stop on the quay by them at all. The
men in a van (the repair team) went whizzing past and worked the bridge. We
winded and tied to the quay while G & J sat on the grassy bank and waited.
Had our hugs and kisses and Mike walked with them to our car which was by the
liftbridge. I said I would set up the TV etc. I spent twenty minutes trying to
get satellite TV, no way would it work, so there must be a tree in the way. When
Mike returned we moved the boat further up the quay as the tree was definitely
in the way.
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| Water cascading over the wooden bostocks |
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| Filling up slowly |
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| Crows looking on - where's me dinner gone?? |
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| The extent of the dry dock, quite a little lake |
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| A short pause at Seneffe BC for water |
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| Going down again in the big lift at Strepy-Thieu |
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| Big smelly exhausts, wonder my smoke alarms didn't go off |
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| Lift 4 Thieu, right hand caisson coming down |
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| As the right hand one went down we went up in the left caisson Trip boat Peterborough |
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| Peterborough heading for the new lock at Thieu Matilda Rose on the quay. |
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