A LOGISTICAL CHALLENGE LOOMS - TUESDAY 29TH JULY - DORDRECHT

In a strange way, one of us going to miss the Dordrecht hospital, with it’s various buildings and their decor reflecting the architectural themes and colour palettes of the old town, and it’s foyer like a grand waiting room with people lolling around and eating ice cream and drinking coffee.  It’s the kind of public space that his old architect self knows is easy to talk about and very difficult to reproduce.

The absence of “don’t get angry” signs, and sticky taped memos on bare columns is a symptom of a place that is working as it should. Having spent no small part of the past week visiting it’s various departments, it’s decor served as a gentle reminder of much that was on offer in the town for those with multiple working limbs, or in their absence, the means to get around.

With a few screws, some sticky tape, staples and a bit of plaster now holding her foot together, as long as she doesn’t move it or put any weight on it for the next six weeks we are assured that all will eventually be almost as good as new.  

The means to get around while that happens is our next challenge, and of course where “around to” may be in the short term.  

Crutches are all very well to assist with taking a few short hops, but how we can commence travelling further afield than to the loo in the harbour wheelchair, is something we need to address.  

For the time being, it’s “foot up” for the next week until no doubt some sort of clear direction will just fall from the sky, and we’ll follow it.

DOUBLE TROUBLE - MONDAY 28TH JULY - DORDRECHT

When the best of friends travel across an entire country, even one as small as the Netherlands just to provide support in one’s time of “trouble”, the least one can do is prepare a meal for them.

Therein lies a dilemma.  Even for those of us not practiced in the culinary arts, there’s a tendency to show-off, to attempt to cook up a storm just to demonstrate that we’re doing perfectly well by ourselves thanks very much, we love you to bits and greatly appreciate the company so why not sit back and relax and enjoy yourselves?   After all, how hard can it be to roast a chook with a few herbs and spices and do one of those “warm salads”, and make a special dessert?

That of course when one thinks about it, would be silly. We can’t have them enjoying it too much.  

Far, far better to find the line between “appalling” and “ohh that’s quite nice” and leave them thinking politely that perhaps it would be better if someone else took over the galley duties for a bit   So a simple green curry it was, although worryingly there was none left in their bowls at the end of the evening, which was not a good sign.  We’ll see what happens when we offer the. left overs around this evening.

One would think of course that life on board with this abundance of helping hands would be nothing short of a doddle, but that’s because one had presumed that Robin, after a lifetime living on boats, wouldn’t slip and do herself a (small) injury within five minutes of coming aboard.   It’s not serious thankfully, nothing a couple of bandaids can’t fix but just enough to have her leg sharing the seat with the properly injured one while overseeing the washing up.

It seems the writer’s lot has gone from not too bad to ever so slightly worse.

He now has TWO bosses.  One to issue orders, and the other to ensure they are carried out to a tee.

When either says “Jump”, the only question he can ask is “how high”, on the way up!

It’s definitely time for left-over curry for tea tomorrow!

DUST NEVER SLEEPS - SUNDAY 27TH JULY - DORDRECHT

 

Yesterday, I do recall implying that we were ready for visitors, everything having been tidied and cleaned to within an inch of its life.

Apparently, when I said that I was mistaken.   

Happy with the way things were, and with an hour or two to kill before Marty and Ness arrived with their tiny troupe, I had just surrounded myself with a collection of dismantled stove parts and was happily readying them for reassembly, when from somewhere behind me I heard the distinctive clunk, clunk, thud of someone ineptly manoeuvring her crutches and plaster cast through a doorway barely designed for half a person to fit through.  

Apparently, (and she knows a lot about this stuff), a new layer of dust and crumbs and non-shininess had appeared while we slept and needed to be dealt with.   Worse, I have been informed that an even newer layer will have arrived tomorrow and we will have to repeat the process again.  

This second dusting had barely been completed when our guests, no doubt wary of the menial offerings of sustenance aboard, had arrived with what seemed like a delivery van full special treats to share.  Marty settled himself into the galley, with Louie’s expert help, while Leo was content to bounce from lap to lap or to climb steps and windows and generally be unsuccessful at finding one speck of dust to wipe on his Sunday best.  All the while the others played a kind of musical chairs albeit with one of us permanently seated in the same spot, propped into place and anchored by her cast.   All of this mayhem and the wonderful meal that followed, played to the accompaniment of that sort of frantic conversation conducted by people who have been apart too long and have too little time to catch up on everything, but they do their best anyway.

As soon as they had arrived, it seemed they were gone, leaving the boat not feeling hollow and empty as sometimes happens after a crowd departs, but filled with happy memories and unfinished conversation, glowing in the way the ashes of a fire do when they are poked one more time before bed.  

Enough of this, there’s dusting to do. 

  

ALL IS CALM, ALL IS BRIGHT - SATURDAY 26TH JULY - DORDRECHT

There’s a distinct shortage of adrenaline as well as tidiness aboard, with both of us obviously having somewhat depleted our energy and dare I say it, taken the edge off our emotional stocks as well over the course of the last couple of days. With a couple of days off between medical appointments, neither of us seemed particularly interested in the tasks in hand whether that be doing stuff, or patiently prodding him on. Thankfully what prodding there there has been was quite effective even without the usual full weight of authority behind it.

It’s surprising what sort of a mess one of us can make of an entire boat when she’s confined to a bunk in one corner of it.    

It’s even more surprising that no matter how many loads of washing one puts into our poor indefatigable little machine there’s always one thing left unwashed at the end of the day.

Although technically it hasn’t quite been quite a week since the Bed Making Police ran off with the Cleaning Fairy and neither have been seen since, the time had come when something has to be done about the chaos that their absence has apparently created.  There’s even the slightest whiff of urgency in the air because Maarty and Vanessa are popping down for a visit tomorrow with their minions, and it would appear that everything has to be spic and spec for that.   One can’t be sure why they would be checking the amount of frost in the back of the freezer or the crumbs left over in the griller, but if they do they will find nothing but reflections of themselves.

With just a little luck it will still be in that condition when Ron and Robin arrive on Monday to add a little horsepower to the management team. 

Rest assured, what seems like procrastination from the outside (and from the other side of this table as well) is an example of ‘just in time’ management at its finest. 

Tonight it’s Chicken with tomato and mozzarella sauce.   Move over Nigella, there’s a new Domestic Goddess in town!

ONE MORE RIVER TO CROSS - FRIDAY 25TH JULY - DORDRECHT

Usually we avoid bringing repair parts for the boat from home, preferring to source things locally even if there’s a small premium to pay.   This year was different.

Having discovered some suitable modern in an eighties kind of way LED lights for the princely sum of very nearly free, we bought enough to replace all of the original, barely functioning ones on the boat.  Actually after testing them in our garage, which has considerably more volume than our boat, we were a little apprehensive about the amount of light they produced so bought another eight so we could double them up if we had to.

When came time to try them in-situ, our apprehension was completely misplaced.  They were so bright that with a bit of ingenuity, the light from them could be concentrated and used to destroy enemy space craft at a pinch.  To bring this down to a dull roar and minimise the risk of permanent eye damage we’ve used some white insulation tape across the diffuser until we can think of a more permanent solution.  Of course this is mostly an academic exercise as we are in the habit of going to be as soon as it’s dark - somewhere around eleven at the moment and they are therefore mostly just for appearance.

Today started somewhat earlier than we imagined it might, when at two, one of us woke with a start to remind the other that he’d forgotten to give her the jab.   At that time of the morning with eyes barely registering the fact that they were open, and brain definitely sending and receiving intermittent signals to all parts of the body, he inadvertently switched on the light.

Until just a few days ago, administering injections was not something that could be found on his CV.  It was no small achievement, after a bit of a kerfuffle with eyes involuntarily closed to unpack the tiny thingamajig, pull off the whatsit on the end, and then to search for a likely stomach on which to begin ministrations, all the while with flashing alternate red and green stripes burnt into his retinas by the LED’s.  

Thankfully said stomach, not having yet felt the impact of the diminished quality of product from the galley, offered a much more generous target than other body parts might have, and apart from noting slightly more sting than previously, all was soon well with the world.

Worry is a funny thing, it’s pointless and cannot change the outcome of anything, but we were both slightly apprehensive as the day dawned too soon. Between us we had heard every one of the hourly church bells between two and eight, thinking of the logistical exercise that was to come.  Of course this was another wasted worry as hospital interviews and tests were concluded like clockwork, administration attended to and what seemed like an endless queue of delightful people lining up to help.   

Another set of boxes ticked, another bridge crossed.

ROUTINE - THURSDAY 24TH JULY - DORDRECHT

It’s as if every fast food establishment is somehow aware that there’s a certain lack of competence in the culinary department.   Each time the one with both of his legs mostly working ventures out to forage for sustenance it’s like running some sort of fast-food gauntlet.  Ghostly apparitions seem to be peering out through every window eerily curious as to how long he can keep up these daily trips for a slice of lettuce and a bit of cheese for his lady’s dinner, confident that they’ll get him in the end.   

As each day passes though, his determination, to say nothing of his skill level (which is to describe his skill level really) increases to the extent that we think we might actually survive this thing with our body mass indices intact.

One might think that after four days, we might have settled into some sort of routine, and we might have too, had the other not woken up this morning so bright and perky, like a somewhat less mobile version of her former self.

Instructions started coming thick and fast, and at some point in the morning when he disappeared to take care of a load of washing she’d somehow made it to the saloon table unassisted, apparently all the better to oversee proceedings aboard.

It’s probably just as well, because stuff that normally just happens silently and invisibly aboard, is presently not happening or at least not in a manner which she would consider to be timely.  Apart from significant disarray and a few more crumbs on the floor than usual, who would ever know?  

Well, for starters there’s Rob, the Harbour Master who looked in at the forest of hanging laundry within this afternoon and asked if we were trying to make the place more homely, followed by a perfectly sound question that was something along the lines of “wouldn’t it be easier just to use the free driers we have in our laundry?”.

This was not the time to admit that having just successfully disentangled the medical insurance forms in Dutch, a similar engagement with a machine speaking the same language could quite possibly be the end. 

“Oh thanks, we prefer things to dry naturally over the course of three or four days”…

THE TRIALS OF AN N.D.S - WEDNESDAY 23RD JULY - DORDRECHT

 

Those who know us well, and many who don’t, may well have heard one of us referred to as her “NDS”.   Her "Non - Drinking/Dancing/Domesticated - Spouse".  

In a relationship that’s evolved over half a century, we have each taken certain responsibilities that may appear from the outside to have been divided along traditional gender lines, but in reality are more randomly aligned with our likes and skills.  This works splendidly until as the saying goes “someone loses an eye”,  like now, particularly if that someone has asserted her authority in the culinary domain to the extent that the other, at a stretch, is allowed to put the fizz in a soda bottle and even then under careful supervision.

Some of our offspring, no mean hands in the galley themselves often marvel at their Mother’s ability to know when things are cooked without the aid of a timer.  It’s some sort of sixth sense (they call it a super-power)  which the other of us does not possess. He does however possess a perfectly good timer which had less than two minutes to run last night when she called “it’s probably ready to come out of the oven about now”, and it was.   She can be assured that this intrusion into her territory is very temporary!

Oddly enough we are mostly ambidextrous in these allocations of roles and space.  Some of our self-assumed roles flip when we are travelling, and we haven’t worked out why.  While the accounts department at home is a girls-only space, for instance, it is the NDS who makes the travel reservations, takes care of the paperwork while away, the banking, the insurances, the medical appointments, the wheelchair and crutches hire, and dare we mention the daily injections of anti coagulant into his needle-phobic dearest. 

Shopping for food is a very strange overlap, he makes an excellent “gofer” in unfamiliar territory and rather enjoys the fact that “capers” can be found on the “kappertjes” shelf,  but on the home front is very happy to let her forage alone, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Thankfully the boat is of such a scale that it would technically be almost possible to cook a sausage while sitting on the toilet and having a conversation with others on the bed and in the saloon, perhaps while washing up with the other hand.   Therefore, supervision of domestic proceedings is one of the lesser difficulties for the indisposed, even from a position out of sight.  There’s simply nowhere to hide!   

So here we are, day three of the strangest of times, becoming  aficionados of all kinds of randomly selected raw food, one of us adjusting to having a slightly more dishevelled boat than is her norm, the other, hypodermic medicine in hand, confident that he’ll no longer wear the moniker “Non-Doctoring-Spouse”

CONFINED - TUESDAY 22ND JULY - DORDRECHT

 

Things aboard may (or may not) be in their normal ship-shape state of being at the moment.   

One of us reasoned that as long as stuff is tucked away by the time the Captain does her inspection when she regains her feet,  then who is to know?  It came as yet another small surprise to discover that with the shock of yesterday wearing off ever so slightly, along with her confined state, came a heightened awareness of her surroundings.  

Perhaps the kids were right, perhaps she CAN see through walls.

We needed the day to think, and arrange as best we can, the next week of our lives and generally regroup, which when there are only two of us was not a terribly arduous task.

The nautical term for our emotional state, albeit still tempered slightly by disappointment and bewilderment, is “bouyed” by all of the offers of help, the well wishes, and the downright amazing assistance provided by hospital staff, fellow harbour residents and Rob, the Harbour Master who made it his special task to find a wheelchair that we could use, to say nothing of finding us a berth right outside his office to ensure we had easy access to the harbour facilities particularly those designed for the benefit of disabled people which have not previously been used.

This latter kindness meant that we were obliged to move of course.  Given that our original decision regarding staying here was in part made to avoid moving on a day when substantial wind gusts were forecast, and subsequently brought to bear, this put us in something of a quandary.  Thankfully with all the time in the world to wait for the gusts to subside before making the twenty metre crossing of the harbour, in what must be something of a personal best, we made it without incident, with an audience watching no less.

The hospital meanwhile, not worried about any crosswind are completely ahead of us in this game.  In one day they have completed the paperwork, the online pre-op interview, arranged appointments with specialists on Friday and Monday next, and have done their utmost to make it easy for us. Despite our government’s reciprocal Health Care agreements, we are from so far outside of their system that we may as well be from another galaxy.  If numbers are missing, they seem to just make some up and press a button and make the question go away.

With the exception of one errant foot and the other ankle well on its way to recovery, and perhaps a spot of general untidiness, things aboard seem to be close to as best can be, so tomorrow we might just see if that wheelchair works, and attempt to get out and about for a bit.  

A NEW PLAN - MONDAY 21ST JULY - DORDRECHT

This morning we sat down quietly and mapped out a plan of roughly where we would go, how we would get there and when we would do it.   

This was a mistake.

We even went as far as giving a couple of people a loose idea of when we might see them along our way, and, with a plan as firmly made as ever it was, we set off happily to explore whatever Dordrecht could offer.  Barely half an hour into our morning stroll, we’d seen the big church but not taken any photos, been past the town hall, and had just admired the library, when one of us decided that the road seemed like a great place to rest for a bit. 

It seems she’d taken a slight depression in the paving to be something other than a slight depression, had rolled her ankle and fallen, using her previously uninjured foot to break her fall.   

This in retrospect was also a mistake.  

Downtown Dordrecht on a Monday morning is barely more alive than it is on Sunday morning yet a couple of kindly souls arrived from nowhere, helped us to the cafe across the road, organised ice and generally made a splendid fuss.

After not very much time at all, the barely injured (relatively) ankle was looking a little swollen despite the ice, while the other foot even to the untrained eye looked like a bit of a basket case.  The fact that the front half of it was pointing in a different direction to the back half was possibly a clue.

Thanks to the miracle of the modern gig economy, a friendly Uber driver had us to the hospital lickety split, where a bystander fetched a wheelchair, the admissions people pulled every required string to expedite our passage through the big electric door, and a young nurse who might have been good looking enough in a stereotypical kind of way to play the part of a doctor in a mini series, suggested the foot looked like a bit of a basket case, arranged for some x-rays and expedited our way through to see a doctor.

The bright young doctor who might  in a few more years be old enough to play a female Doogie Houser in the next series, offered hope but thought CT scans would be advisable in case it was actually a basket case.  

Happily the orthopaedic surgeon, saw hope in those scans, and pronounced that with a few screws and a bit of metal, it will probably be starting to look a bit more like a foot again before we know it.

This week, it’s plaster and crutches while we wait till the swelling subsides.  Next week we’ll see if she’s good to her word.   In the meantime, we’re not making any more plans! 

A TURNIP FOR THE BOOKS - SUNDAY 20TH JULY - WILLEMSTAD TO DORDRECHT

"Early morning starts can be fun", I’ve heard it said, and with a bit of rain and a bit of wind apparently set to fill in later in the day, we thought we might give it a bit of a try.   

It wasn’t spectacularly early of course, just enough to have breakfast underway, but it was very pleasant, drifting along in a blanket of grey with only a hundred ships to keep us company going every which way, and the AIS happily ensuring that they knew we were there.  It was looking as though we’d be in Dordrecht comfortably in time for morning tea, when we received a call from the Harbour Master, asking if we’d terribly mind being a little later.

Slowing down, is something we’ve had a lot of experience with, so we assured him it wouldn’t be a problem, and that is precisely when things began to go awry.

After days of struggling with currents at speeds as low as five kilometres per hour, we quite suddenly found ourselves doing twelve.   Even with Mr P on tickover we could barely keep things below ten, so despite our assurances to the contrary we arrived early.  Thankfully someone had departed early leaving a spot just for us so all was well with the world.  After completing the necessary formalities we wandered off for a quick exploration of the deadest, quietest old town we’ve seen since the last time we walked through a graveyard. 

With our hearts set on a simple lunch, we stumbled on a cafe which did not appear to be open, despite it being ten minutes till early lunch o’clock, but the friendly staff helped us with a disappointingly insufficient snack menu and we set about enjoying our solitude, wondering how they could justify even opening.   While nibbling and sipping and generally breathing happily, we noticed the tables gradually filling, and shockingly massive piles of food that was certainly not on our menu, being delivered to them.   It seems that at lunch o’clock an entirely new menu magically appears, and had the friendly young lady known we wanted to eat, well she would have happily brought it out for us!

As we meandered our way back to the boat, we couldn’t help but notice that the streets were suddenly mysteriously almost teeming with people heading towards the centre of town, the cafes, closed thirty minutes before were abuzz, the transformation remarkable, as though we’d been the victim of some sort of practical joke.  

Much later, we read the tourist brochure “On Sunday, the shops begin to open at midday, and the town comes to life….” ahh.

So we’ve tried “early”, it didn’t work that well, tomorrow we’ll rise at a sensible hour and see if there's an improvement.

LIKE A SORE THUMB - SATURDAY 19TH JULY - WILLEMSTAD

Even fleet of motor cruises, we are something of an oddity.  Our Joyeux is awkwardly different with a number of redeeming features, none of them aesthetically pleasing.  She is just not the way people build boats, unless those people live on the Norfolk Broads in which case she’s exactly how people build boats. 

Our “always-on-the-cusp-of-coming-back-into-fashion” swimming pool blue cabin tops never seem to compliment any background, yet more and more it is attracting compliments for its retro 80’s chic, by those confirming their doubtful expertise in fashion,

To be fair, fashion is said to run in forty year cycles so we are right at the top of the cycle for reasons that seem completely inexplicable.

Quite near the absolute limit of our attention spans when we arrived yesterday, and unaware that there were three separate harbours in town under one management, we logically chose the wrong one, the one principally for sailing yachts, and quickly found what we thought was our allocated berth, to be occupied.   

We squeezed into a handy spot temporarily, which might have been three sizes too small, and after a very friendly chat with the harbour master, to our great relief were given permission to remain where we’d settled.

Fortunately for the adoring public, this put us on full view of anyone promenading between the public carpark and the old town.  Willemstad is a beautiful village with a rich history and fortifications to underline that, and of course a windmill which seems to be trying to peek over the hedge, calling us into town whenever it thinks we are looking too relaxed, which seems to have been most of the day.

It did not take a very long time at all to explore the perimeter of the town and all it contains this morning.  Of course we were being careful not to be drawn into too many museums and places of historic interest  for fear of overtaxing ourselves, so it’s been a perfect place to spend a completely free day, 

We’ll probably go back for a walk in the evening, even if only because that gives us an excuse to go back onto the walkway and view our little boat standing like a rose among thorns, and it will make the windmill happy.

IN THE DOLDRUMS - FRIDAY 18TH JULY - WEMELDINGE TO WILLEMSTAD

 

Dave and Ria’s advice is usually without fault, so when they suggested that we spend a few days exploring the natural attractions of region we were in, we gave it serious thought.  Then we thought about how it will take another day to cross another estuary and the forecast for a marked deterioration in the weather on its way, and we decided with mixed feelings to continue our run north.  

When the time came to depart, we were still tempted to turn left and procrastinate, but faced with a glassy calm sea on a day,which they had warned would be long and hard, decided to stick with our decision.  On this particular topic we took so little notice of them they could have been mistaken for our parents, but we were keen to get on.

We pressed on into the wild grey yonder.   

Over the course of the morning we did not notice any change in the conditions.  Little did we know, we were frogs in a pot, and we were being slowly brought up to temperature!

The beauty of the greys and stillness of the water kept us transfixed, and keeping an eye out for seals was a novel distraction as we moved ever onwards against the tide at a steady six kilometres per hour, saluted byrather than waved at by hundreds of wind turbines lining our route standing patiently immobile.   

By the third hour of the morning with the hint of frustration creeping in, barely fifteen enjoyable kilometres had gone by, barely one third of the way to our destination, the temperature began to increase, the wind did not, the world began to melt into a kind of uniform grey splodge.   Not that there is anything wrong with grey splodge, but it’s a dish best served cold, and as the temperature reached the mid thirties on board we were beyond caring whether it came in any other shade.

Shade was what we longed for actually, or perhaps an air conditioner, but even if we had one, with not one wind turbine in the country able to turn even slightly there was probably not enough power to go round anyway.

Still, in the absence of any alternative we pressed on, pressing cool drinks into each other’s hands as we went along, wishing for the shade of a tree.  Oddly in our discomfort, we were passed by a continuous procession of speedier boats than ours laden with near naked, bright red people apparently enjoying the novelty of being dry roasted, admittedly in their cases with the benefit of significant apparent breeze.

Yes, the day was very long, and yes we had some mixed feelings about “missing” that south western corner of the country, and yes we had certainly had enough by the end of it, but two days later we are still slightly euphoric, pinching ourselves at the luck that the weather has brought, ready to make some plans.

A TOUCH OF THE BLUES - THURSDAY 17TH JULY - SAS VAN GENT TO WEMELDINGE

We have a friend who accidentally sailed around the world, and today is a perfect example of how that can happen to anyone.

Completely in line with the forecast we had a nice day ahead of us, perfect weather, twelve kilometres and a sea lock filled with big ships to go until our destination, so there was no sense in starting early, after all that’s our plan for tomorrow to catch the incoming tide.   

There were only a few butterflies at the great lock at Terneuzen while we worked out how to fit six ships and four pleasure boats in it when clearly it was only designed for six ships and two pleasure boats, but the friendly skipper of one of the ships took our lines and we had a four thousand ton floating bollard and not a care in the world while the lock did it’s thing.

Sticking to our plan, we departed the lock and choofed off for a few kilometres toward our destination to get some sort of idea what we might be in for in the morning into the startling blue stillness.  We’d arrived a bit early to catch the tide so progress was slow, but when not one of the hazards we’d been concerned about presented themselves, and with the tide slowly turning in our favour, we simply kept going.   

To be clear, if millponds had ships passing at thirty kilometres an hour, this was a millpond.   To be even clearer, even on a millpond it’s not particularly easy to estimate how quickly ships travelling at four times our speed, are closing and while there was never a chance of an accident, it was reassuring to hear Shipping Control calling a tanker to enquire whether they’d seen us crossing their track, through the magic of AIS referring to us by name to be perfectly clear.  

Dave and Ria, utilising the same magic were watching our progress live on the internet from somewhere in the north, hilariously updating us on our progress presumably in case we weren’t paying attention, capturing screen shots of each near death experience for the benefit of future generations.   

Now, here we are, on the other side of the Schelde quite accidentally weeks from where we thought we’d be, in a bit of a daze as we contemplate what our next move might be.

WELCOME TO THE NETHERLANDS - WEDNESDAY 16TH JULY - SAS VAN GENT

 

The evening calm belies the day and night that preceded it.

With squalls throughout the early part of the day, and a constant wind strong enough to blow a dog off its chain, conditions were perfect for doing a nice spot of not much.   

There’s a supermarket just across the road, so it was an easy exercise to stock up on provisions between the squalls, but given that simple mechanical jobs can become complicated in a short period of time, we chose to let Mr Perkins slumber in his box until the weather had cleared completely.   No doubt because of this precaution, the simple adjustments when we did get to them, did not bring any great complication, although there are still one or two little unsolved mysteries which will need monitoring.

Tomorrow the forecast is for near perfect conditions, which has done nothing at all to solve our dilemma of where we will go next.   To our north, the Scheldt Estuary is all that lies between us and the rest of the Netherlands, but it does present challenges at the best of times, which are the only times crossing it should be contemplated in our boat at least.  Fortunately a window of opportunity appears to be opening later in the week, and we are in a bit of a bind as to whether we should take it.  

The estuary is shallow and has strong currents which kick up short steep waves in even a small amount of wind and the huge number of ocean going ships travelling at many times the speed we are capable of, create awkward cross chop adding to the discomfort and in some conditions, the dangers associated with dropping off a near vertical wave.   

Short, light, flat bottomed boats such as ours are not designed to cope with waves and chop and wind, so it would be foolish to contemplate in anything but perfect conditions with a favourable tide, even then the wash from container ships could provide significant challenges at least to the contents of our cupboards.

We are a little nervous, perhaps more than a little, and perhaps unnecessarily so, but having waited for the weather to settle tomorrow we’ll go down to the sea in our ship,  gently poke around to see if we are comfortable enough to proceed, or whether a much more cocnservative new plan will unfold.  

Today, we’ll just enjoy the conditions we have.

THE FIRST TEST - TUESDAY 15TH JULY - BRUGES TO SAS VAN GENT

“Sas van Gent” in the header, will tell those who have an atlas to hand, that suddenly we are in the Netherlands, and from that one could easily draw a conclusion that all is well with the world.  

Of course it is, even if travelling seventy miles in a day does take its toll.

As is our way, we decided enough was enough this morning, gave Mr P a wake up tickle, turned right out of the port this morning with only the vaguest of destinations in mind, then we turned left before Gent in the direction of the Netherlands where once again we found ourselves playing with the really really big boys.

To emphasise the scale of our fellow waterway users, in the image above, if the wind turbines and nuclear reactor are not a giveaway, the tiny ship moored against the bigger one in this photo is about one and a half times as wide as we are long, it’s around 120 metres long too, or three times the length of the allotment on which our house is built.   The big one?  Well there’s a point where size really doesn’t matter, if one was to get hit by one of those, one would probably stay hit!

Sharing a lock when the time comes, will be a new and perhaps character building experience.

Our new AIS (Automatic Identification System) passed its shakedown with flying colours.  It is not compulsory to have one fitted, and in truth it’s the kind of luxury that active cruise control is in a car, it’s easily done without but it makes life easier.  The big locks and bridges appreciate knowing where we are, and we like the fact that the ships can see us too.  From our perspective one would think they would be easy to spot in a relatively small crowded waterway, and of course mostly they are, but they typically travel at more than twice our speed and have a nasty habit of springing out from hidden docks just to test our mettle.  We were surprised at how much easier avoiding them was now that we are able to read their speed and direction in real time from five kilometres away. 

As for Mr P, well he seemed keen to get on with, and we pushed him rather harder than normal for eight or nine hours, as we need to get a gauge on which direction we might head over the coming days, and we need to be sure he can be counted on.   We aren’t sure yet.  There’s some water mysteriously appearing in his drip tray that might be a sign of impending doom, and one of the fuel lines has a misty leak which may or may not be a portent of more trouble, but we’ll check it out before we move.

The weather forecast for the next day or two says something like “best to stay in port and read a book” so in the name of good seamanship we might just do that.  

LIFE IS A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT - MONDAY 14TH JULY - BRUGES

Like static on the dial, a look comes back in style.  Mr Perkins he just lost it for a while.

Quite a while.

When Franky came back (which is not the lyric from yet another song), it was quarter to lunchtime so our hopes of a long relaxing meal on a shady square in a little back corner of town were dashed.   He figured that it would only be fifteen minutes or so and he’d be on his way, but it wasn’t terribly long before in the great country and western tradition, the tears once again began to flow.  

The brand new filter housing fitted like a glove, but the fittings didn’t match the old odd Perkins ones, as we worked along the fuel line, every thing we touched needed modification or repair before it could be reassembled.  While Franky went off to have some hydraulic lines made, one of us sat quietly honing the faces of all the brass fittings.   At ten minutes to tea time, he came after all that kicking and screaming, into the world once more.

There he sat, purring like a kitten, running as close to Swiss watch-like as any Perkins ever has, with shiny new bits and polished old bits and with a little luck that’s the way he will remain for some time to come.

Strange though it may seem, it took something to break to finally make the repairs we’d been trying to arrange for years.  The problem seems to have been that in the absence of a breakdown, everyone we spoke with has a sense of foreboding about “touching anything that’s not broken”.  We’ve been warned for ever about opening cans of worms, and have always been disappointed in our ability to arrange suitable pre-emptive repair.

It’s not that we have anything but affection for our dear old MrP, heaven knows, we’ve given him enough attention, but if we may finish on the song we began this post with:-

If he takes us back to where it started, we will melt his heart of steel!

INFORMATION OVERLOAD - SUNDAY 13TH JULY - BRUGES

Yesterday, through experimentation we reached an antenna conclusion that perhaps didn’t align with all or even any of the published pseudo science we’d read.  Not wishing to add anything else to the already muddied water that comprises the compendium of online knowledge of the subject, we fiddled a bit more to make where we got to yesterday look as though it will still be there tomorrow.

The world of VHF antenna is, like the world of everything else, awash with lies, damned lies and statistics and it’s getting quite difficult to know which bits one could usefully commit to memory and which bits to dispose of thoughtfully.   We once again wrote to the supplier’s helpful support team setting out where we’d got to, and put the whole thing all more or less out of mind pending their reply during normal working hours tomorrow.

Don’t blame the internet though, disinformation used to happen long before “on the line” was a twinkle in its parent’s eyes.  

Jacques once famously told us of his time running cruise barges, that his passengers didn’t want to know answers, they just wanted to ask questions, which is why, if asked every crop they passed became "Mustard of Dijon"   

We feel a bit lazy and even a teensy bit guilty but can we be excused from joining the walking tour this afternoon?  

We are pretty much questioned out, and informationed out as well for now, for what it’s worth.  

How, we wondered, can knowing that in the twelfth century, someone living in any given house made candles for a living, or that someone else was imprisoned in the tower for twenty something years, possibly affect our lives going forward?   It certainly isn’t likely to improve our VHF reception.

On another day, of course the guide’s banter would be entertaining, informative and even enriching.  If we could remember any of it we’d be a certain favourite on a trivia night, but today it would have just made our heads hurt.

TRIAL AND TRIBULATION - SATURDAY 12TH JULY - BRUGES

Another day dawned, filled with promise and grand ideas.  Oddly enough the AIS unit worked perfectly (well there’s no harm in trying), until it didn’t, so with hopes up, then dashed again, we started work on plan B.

We could raise the antenna if only we had a bit of threaded rod, some plastic pipe and a bit of chewing gum, and with a large hardware store just a few kilometres away, raising the antenna should be a lot easier than raising say, the Titanic.  

For reasons that are hard to explain we decided to walk rather than get the bikes out, which in retrospect,  given the state of the knees of one of us after another round of knees versus cobbles yesterday, might not have been the smartest decision we’ve made.  None the less we walked there, and hobbled happily back with our bags full of promise.

"Pleasant" describes whiling away the afternoon with bits of home made Meccano, fiddling and fussing until we found a solution with indifferent results, but which might make a workable compromise.

Then Franky arrived as arranged, to finish the work on Mr Perkins and all seemed well with the world.

As things turned out, Mr P was not in the mood for being finished with.  To Franky’s great disappointment and in some ways to our tragic amusement, a tiny part in the fuel system, with a hidden, dodgy repair made decades ago would turn his slumber into something more akin to a coma from which there was no awakening.   It’s not the end, not by a long chalk, but between him sitting in his little black hole immovable until the tiny part arrives next week, and our AIS not yet proven, perhaps Antwerp can wait a few more days.

For the first time in a very long time, we sit, unable to move even if we wanted to, by no means discouraged, thankful that none of this came to light on one of the tidal races, or when manoeuvring in close quarters with a container ship.  We're waiting lazily for the weekend to pass, ready to perhaps make plans to move.

ALL FOR SHOW - FRIDAY 11TH JULY - BRUGES

 

The reply from customer support that “Everything looks good in terms of installation and settings, perhaps you could try relocating the antenna”.  This was at once a confirmation that I had not made a mistake, but also that I had.   

The number of places an antenna can be located on this boat can be counted on the fingers of one thumb, and the solution we had, we thought was quite clever.  It had taken a couple of hours to route the cable invisibly, so  even if there was an alternative location which would not offend our aesthetic sensitivities, the prospect of moving it was not a happy one.

We did what most would do when faced with a problem of this magnitude.  

We ignored it and took a long walk through the backstreets of Bruges, pausing only for waffle and coffee, except instead of waffle we shared a rather large and delectable slice of apricot cake, while we considered our next move.   Perhaps sleeping on it would fix the problem?

By the time we’d done that, and with no solution in sight, Tony and Amber had arrived, berthed directly behind us.  Before we could say “that’s after our bedtime” we’d made arrangements to visit the light and sound show in the market square late in the evening.   Very late, of course, because it requires an absence of sunlight to be seen at its best, or perhaps to be seen at all, and the sun does not make itself absent until almost tomorrow.

Light shows are a curious thing, always spectacular but in differing degrees.   We’ve seen a few, or perhaps many, in all sorts of places, so we think we know about this stuff.  The one that started them all, projected onto three sides of Place Stanislas in Nancy has set a bar so high that thus far none have matched.   

It might have been the cobbles on which we were sitting that added to our discomfort, it might have been the nagging thought about relocating antenna or it might have been that we were looking through tired eyes, but we left what was undoubtedly a clever production feeling that bar had not been reached.  

The subtitles played live in one's choice of language on one's own phone were a nice touch, but impossible to follow and watch the screen contemporaneously.  The action on the tall narrow screen was remarkable, but it was so narrow that the scenes had gone before they arrived. It was worth the cost of admission of course, but we couldn’t help but feel that someone was just trying to be a bit too clever, just as perhaps they had with the antenna location on our boat.

LOVE’S LABOUR MISPLACED - THURSDAY 10TH JULY - BRUGES

 

Today will go down in history as the day Mr Perkins received his new injector studs.   He didn’t have much fight in him to be fair, just enough so that Franky will have to come back in a day or two to finish the job,  but the damage that the years of running with parts that did not quite do the job have extracted a toll.   It seems for now he’s dodged a bullet once again, but we’ve put up posters of recycling plants in his engine bay as a reminder of what happens to old horses that give up.

I do know how he feels though.  All of the fancy new electrical things arrived at the parcel pickup point yesterday, which in itself was fantastic, but an extra five thousand steps on cobbles felt like a million the next day to aged knees.

Those same knees doth protest a bit when told to invert themselves and haul a near two metre long body with gangly arms into a cupboard for the day to get on with the installation of all those shiny parts.  They sent messages to elbows and fingers to try to convince them that enough was enough, but the brain to which it sends those messages refused to play their silly games until the job was done.   This was a little foolish, but a paracetamol sandwich for lunch did it's bit towards getting the job done.

In the afternoon, the body and it’s attached brain which when all is said and done is twice the age of Mr Perkins, (and we all know what allowances we make for him) was greatly tired, but looked on in self admiration at the tidiness, yea, inventiveness of the day’s labour.  Will anyone else marvel at that bracket carved out of a scrap of metal that conceals the wiring within the spotlight?   Of course they will, he’ll tell the internet!

It is splendid it thinks, quite satisfying, or as Shakespeare might say, honorificabilitudintatibus even.

Now we wait for the response from customer support to figure out why it doesn’t work, and whether we’ve overdone that thing that comes before a fall.

THE MONSTER THEY CREATED - WEDNESDAY 9TH JULY - BRUGES

When we bought our present house it’s fair to say that there weren’t too many features which were in line with our own particularly eccentric tastes.   As some said, it had good “bones” and there was much that could be done to build on them.

The garden however, much to the dismay of its former custodians who it seemed were quite fond of their collection of exotica, was not in our opinion, in a state deemed worthy of preservation.  Our thoughts were confirmed not long after we’d contracted to buy the place, when we visited a “landcare” exhibition and to our horror found an example of every plant in our garden in the display of “noxious, listed and undesirable plants”.   All of that of course is in the dim dark past, with almost no trace of that miscreant vegetation remaining.   The hardy remnants even after a decade, are regularly castigated by means chemical, mechanical and in recent times pyrotechnical.

Ahh, the pyrotechnics.  The other of us was given one of those propane blowtorch things by her daughters, for Mother’s Day.  These are things they use to take the life of anything green or its progeny for doing no more than say, trying to grow between the cobbles on a footpath.  Suffice to say that things have never looked more pristine in our gravel paving edges ever since.

All of which brings me to the little florist shop we passed today, proudly displaying little buckets of exactly the sort exotica she takes such joy in incinerating.

As we stopped to inspect the display, she developed a twitch in her propane burner finger.  Actually it was worse than a twitch.

We had to move on quickly, had there been even a stray box of matches within reach there was a very real risk of conflagration!

FOUR KINDS OF PEOPLE - TUESDAY 8TH JULY - BRUGES

There were four kinds of people down in the heart of town today.

There were people queueing for a ride on the tour boats, people already on the tour boats, people who, having completed their ride on the tour boats were drinking coffee and eating waffles, and finally there were people walking back to their boat with their new vacuum cleaner.

We mostly tend to stay away from the parts of town where the other kinds of boat people are when they are running rampant, but we do admit that we just might have been tempted to join the coffee and waffle set had we been there before the crowd, which is actually not joining them at all when we think about it.   

While normally being there before them would not be a problem, our body clocks are set in “super cruise” mode at the moment while we wait a few more days for the collection of radio and fuel injector bits to arrive.  We’ve not just lost track of the days, but also the hours in them it would seem.

“It’s good to be out earlier” one of us was heard to remark as we happily zigged and zagged through the throng in the bright sunshine carrying our shiny new box. 

At midday. 

THE FORCE JUST MIGHT BE WITH US - MONDAY 7TH JULY - BRUGES

We slept so late this morning that when we woke it felt like a public holiday, so we had a vote and unanimously decided to have the rest of the day off.

Admittedly this is becoming a bit of a habit, so we did pretend to attend to some outstanding paperwork over our morning coffee, but became distracted when to our astonishment we discovered a note in our email inbox confirming that following receipt of our application yesterday (Sunday) our Ship’s Radio License has been approved and the original is already in the mail to our home address!  

Sadly with no digital copy, we did not have access to the information we required, so we replied, pointing out our situation and asking if it would be too much trouble to send us a copy by email.   There wasn’t even time to take another bite of biscuit when the reply arrived complete with the requested attachment.  

My wish it seems, is someone’s command!

This of course leaves us in a quite pleasant quandary.   Not wishing to outlay significant sums of money on equipment in the absence of a license, we may have perhaps mistaken on the application form, the words “installed in your ship” for “will buy one shortly if this application is approved”.   

We’d better get shopping then, lest our friend arrives in his uniform and discovers that our vintage VHF radio does not do the things the license says it does!

REGULATION - SUNDAY 6TH JULY - BRUGES

 

If there’s a greater oxymoron than “European Union” then I’d like to know what it is.

Far be it for me, a guest in any one of its member states at any particular time, to criticise the well meaning bureaucrats who have to administer any regulation across any of its borders, nor anyone at all who speaks to me in my language rather than their own.  On this rainy Sunday, we were expecting a knock on the side of the cabin from our friendly waterways inspector, who each year turns a blind eye to the fact that we don’t have a proper ship station license for our radio.

Over a coffee and cake we usually regale him with the impossibility of being Australians with a French vessel plying the waters of Belgium (or whichever other country we may visit), and he very kindly skips the box that is supposed to have a tick in it.   

After contacting the communications departments from several countries in “the Union”, we thought the latest letter from one of the French Authorities might provide him with at least a giggle.

“Dear Sir,” the letter began kindly, in English. 

So far so good, but then in the very next line we had the old sinking feeling.

“Unfortunately this Office does not have competency for riverboats.”

Perhaps it could have been left there, but sadly it went further to elaborate on this lack of “competency”, setting out in some detail and an enormous number of acronyms, that while a riverboat is required in some jurisdictions to have a VHF with ATIS, in France it is not, and unless you have an MMIS you can’t have an ATIS.  Furthermore a riverboat can’t be issued with an MMIS unless it has an AIS and it certainly can’t have a VHF with DCS.   It concluded with the hope this has been helpful and provided details of how we can make an application should any of the above make sense.

It didn’t, but we did make the application.  They are going to mail their response to our home address and we have forty days from the date of the decision to appeal it, which we suspect will be about seven days fewer than the delivery will take, but at least we have another piece of paper which may stop that little box from being ticked for one more year.

OUR VIEW FOR THE DAY - SATURDAY 5TH JULY - BRUGES

When we opened the curtains in the galley this morning it was vaguely reassuring in an “I need coffee” sort of way to note that we were still in Brugge.   

It’s still out there waiting, and if the lack of change in our view is anything to go by, it will be there tomorrow too.

With that in mind we thought a bit of housekeeping might be in order.  Then we thought that housekeeping will still be there tomorrow as well, so in the absence of a phone call telling us our vacuum cleaner had arrived, we picked up our books and decided to be retired for a day.

Fred and Els had kept us up a bit late last night, catching up on each other’s headlines from the past year even if in just one night we didn’t have time to get into terribly much of the finer detail, but they had to be off today with the nine o’clock flotilla so we had to cover as many bases as we could.  

The least we could do was wave them off, which of course we did with all the aplomb we could muster then retired to do so much nothing for the rest of the day that we didn’t even have time to have a nap.

HOME IS WHERE - FRIDAY 4TH JULY - JABBEKE TO BRUGES

Twenty-nine thousand tourists visit the Market Square in Bruges every day.   That’s fifty percent more than the total population of the town, and yes, it can be a little overwhelming to be among them in the middle of the day.

They are easy to spot.   They are the people forming the queues outside the waffle shops, across the cobbled streets, oblivious to the trotting horses and carriages bearing down.   They are oblivious also to the cyclists struggling to make their way through laneways meant for cars but filled with pedestrians.  They are in groups of walking tours, headphones sprouting commentary in seven languages.  They seem to be pretty much oblivious to everything other than their relentless pursuit of something to remember about the place.

They queue to board sight seeing buses, boats, carriages, to meet their guides, to eat ice-cream and buy lace souvenirs from China.   They stand in gaggles around the square, just generally getting in the way of anyone foolish enough to have some normal day to day business to attend to.

“Them”, not “us”, because for now we live here.  

We are visitors, but we are not tourists.  We don’t take the place for granted, neither are we blasè about it’s undoubted attractions, but our home is here, just a few blocks from the square.

We are shopping in the Market Square too, but we are buying a vacuum cleaner.

BIG MARKS WHERE THEY’VE BEEN - THURSDAY 3RD JULY - LEFFINGE TO JABBEKE

It’s seventy-something kilometres from Diksmuide to Bruges, and last year (twice) we travelled that distance in a day.  To achieve that requires stamina, persistence beyond doggedness, a bit of luck, and all that the spirit of cruising is not.

We are not of a mind to demonstrate any of those qualities at the moment. With the throttle stuck in “C” for “cruising”, the three hours and thirty-three minutes that it took to cover seventeen kilometres today seemed about right to us, the delays merely served as practice for all we had planned for this afternoon.  

Our intention was to spend some time lazing around in a tea house we’ve passed many times, always noting it as a “place we should stop one day”,

It’s exactly opposite a public mooring where one is able to stay for a maximum of twelve hours per day, connected by a giant lifting footbridge.   By arriving just after midday, with something less than twelve hours to run this day, we figured that tomorrow’s clock will start again at midnight, so we should be sweet to stay the night if we work our shifts back to back.  

To our astonishment, there was a vacant berth exactly where we had hoped to stay barely fifty metres from the establishment in question, and even more astonishingly against all odds the place was open for business.   

That sadly is where fine sunny glorious day took a turn for the worse.  

The “foot” and “bridge” parts of the structure connecting the two canal banks were missing in their entirety, after what a local resident described as a catastrophic structural failure.  The swing mechanisms stand on each side as a reminder of what once was, and what will be again at some time in the future, but for now they simply taunt, and pointing two fingers at the sky as if to tell us in no uncertain terms that we can go anywhere but across the river.

Yes, it’s only a few kilometres to walk around the long way, and it might have been a lovely gentle exercise with an indulgent reward at the end, but when we thought about it, no part of the few kilometres that we would have to walk back seemed consistent with anything we had a desire to do.  

So we stayed home, had a day off, and lazily dreamed of what might have been. 

COOL! - WEDNESDAY 2ND JULY - DIKSMUIDE TO LEFFINGE

 

There are two ways of telling when we are finally on our way.

The first is pretty obvious, we wake tomorrow morning and we have new neighbours in an entirely different neighbourhood to the one we woke up in today.  Secondly we can be certain that everything in town will be closed on account of our presence.

We didn’t really have an early start, unless you count early afternoon, and in a completely uncharacteristic move, decided to press on anyway despite the forecast for rain and other inclemencies.  

With one of summer’s extraordinarily long pleasant evenings ahead, we thought we could make some gentle miles once the heat of the day had been spent.  At that point we hadn’t really come to terms with the fact that the heat of the day had actually been spent yesterday and today we were facing a twenty something degree reduction in temperature with more than enough wind chill and rain to make things feel a bit as one imagines one might feel if one is silly enough to jump from a sauna into fresh snow.

No more than a few minutes before we cast of our lines, our friendly harbour master arrived with the news that all the lifting bridges on our route were closing today between 18:00 and 21:00 for maintenance.  A quick calculation said that we could get as far as the Leffinge Bridge, which probably not coincidentally bisects the lovely little village of Leffinge, twenty or so kilometres away, and by way of consolation for the shortened journey there is a waterfront pub right beside the bridge, where long pleasant evenings can be spent.

All went swimmingly.  The lock and bridgekeepers to a man were extraordinarily chipper, the rain just enough to make us grateful for when it doesn’t,  the chill enough to warrant long trousers and even socks, the wind not enough to cause any harsh words when docking.

But it turns out the pub is closed on Wednesdays.  So is the Bakery, and in case we had any ideas of actually buying fresh bread in the morning before setting off, it closes Thursdays as well for good measure.    

So here we are, all dressed up and nowhere to go, finally on our way.

MELTDOWN - TUESDAY 1ST JULY - DIKSMUIDE

When the cool of the evening finally made its presence felt last night it was almost midnight, and even at that time, the radiant glow of the heat still rising off the land sent a crystal clear message.

“It’s going to be a warm one tomorrow!”

Let’s not beat about the bush. In a country designed to allow it’s inhabitants as much direct access to the sun’s warmth as possible, opportunities for discovering cool shady spots on the few days when it’s sweltering, are, not to make too fine a point of it, limited.  Thirty-eight degrees inside makes the boat a tad uncomfortable too, but with almost no humidity, the fan and a couple of wet towels keep things manageable if not pleasant.

With that in mind, we decided we’d stay here, where there is electricity to power the fan.  We’d taken care of the remaining “fixes” before morning tea, almost had the boat ship shape before lunch, but then took the rest of the day off to laze around and moan about the heat.

TOMORROW IS A BRAND NEW DAY - MONDAY 30TH JUNE - DIKSMUIDE

 

Franky came earlier than expected which was nice, and although he didn’t say so I think he was quite taken by my Sonic the Hedgehog pyjamas, or perhaps it was that I was still in them at eight thirty.

In any case Mr P seems to like him, and in not very much time at all, he’d made friends and taken away some parts to make sure he ordered the correct ones.  Things became a little confusing after that because he discovered they were the wrong ones, so he ordered the correct ones, returned to refit the wrong ones and will return again when the correct ones arrive.  After a coffee and a biscuit and a lovely chat, we decided we’d mooch off and meet him in Bruges next week once all the parts arrive, to see if actually having the correct studs holding down fuel injectors will make any difference at all to what has been a bit of a trial over many many years.

The other trial we are dealing with is having half the boats contents and ex contents and all of our tools scattered about our living space.  It’s worse than it looks.  Every time we put something down it shuffles itself mysteriously under something of similar texture or colour and we spend more time looking for stuff than actually fixing.  Don’t get me started about the bright green string on my spectacles that melts perfectly into the piles of discarded wiring we have around the place, or that should read “had” because as you read this we almost have a tidy boat again.   

We dream of waking up to a tidy boat with everything that works.  

Tomorrow we’ll certainly have a tidy boat, but one in which neither bilge pump works of it’s own accord, which is an unfortunate state when there’s a slight crack in a brand new part in the toilet setup, which lets an annoying amount of water in.  Any water coming into a boat is quite annoying but when the bilge pumps only work manually it’s really really annoying.    

Perhaps I’ll enlarge the hole I drilled in the hull to let it out faster.