Hunter’s first cruise of the season

[Alicatt]

Set off on Wed to go fill the tanks with diesel, the tank station is just over the border in The Netherlands. Was thinking around 700 litres, a 36km sail in the wrong direction for our cruise though. We got to the filling station just after it closed but the owner opened the pump for us and we took on 618litres, negotiated a price and, well I wish I could fill the car for as little as that! We saved €247 compared with diesel for the car, and €494 cheaper than the marina!


Left heading back the way we came and went to Bocholt to overnight.
Left Thursday morning for Lier, 72km away.
Wife did not want to do the 11 locks along the Bocholt Herentals Kanaal so we turned off at Mol to go down the Dessel kanaal
A chance to open the throttles a bit and burn off some of that weight we had taken on

https://imgur.com/NvxpaVb

Then on down to the Albert Kanal where the wife got a bit of a shock at the size of thel locks and that we would have to share with large barges

Kara with whom we moved up along the canal, she was allowed to go faster than us 15km/h compared with us at 13km/h but there were sections of high speed where we could catch up on Kara, at the next Sluis Olen we were called in behind a push barge in the great lock, one barge was already in, it was over 250m long and almost filled the whole Sluis. So there was 2 push boats and us in this huge lock chamber, going down about 12m

Going down…


The large boat let us out 2nd

https://imgur.com/FCdZ419

It was getting late and today was a holiday so the next lock we had to do was closed before we got to it so it is spend the night in a haven with a loud party going on and the pontoons are locked off from the club house so no party for us just the bunks bonka music still going on.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

Looks like a great start to you season, weather was superb here too,

 

[roa312]

Thanks for taking the time to post this! Not too often we get to see canal trips.

 

[Alicatt]

Weather has been great here too, yesterday we went for a cycle run with the club to a micro brewery near Mechlen about 23km along the Nette canal and then the Nette river, which is very tidal, when we left it was just coming up to low water and the fall was nearly 10meters, on the way back it was getting close to high water and the river was just about full, the Nette joins the Scheld and that is where it gets some of it's tidal flow. At the Duffel Sluis there was a barge waiting for highwater to use the flow to get to Ghent.
Today was market day in Lier and a bit of shopping for tonight's BBQ, Lier was very busy and we had a good time there.

We have 7 boats and 14 people from the club here

 

[Alicatt]

Today in Lier:



Baguettes for the BBQ tonight

 

[Alicatt]

Thanks for taking the time to post this! Not too often we get to see canal trips.

Put some of the videos I took together for this

 

[Bouba]

Big deep locks are very scary....sharing a lock with a big vessel...or even sharing a river with a ship is scary

 

[Alicatt]

Big deep locks are very scary....sharing a lock with a big vessel...or even sharing a river with a ship is scary

My wife was freaking out just before we went into the lock with Kara but once in and she seen how the floating bollards worked she relaxed a lot, then going in with the two push barges that was a bit intimidating, we were let out second, the water was a bit turbulent from the first push boat leaving but Hunter coped with it easily, we pulled aside and let the big barge overtake us as it was faster than us due to the respective speed limits we had.