mainshiptom
Well-Known Member
I always wanted to do the European canals so 2020 was going to be the year... not so it was 2022
Left Faversham with the wife early July morning after heat wave for Ramsgate 5 hours really pleasant trip into Ramsgate with Sailing week in progress.
refuel in Ramsgate(oouch) lucky i do displacement speed
Change of crew so wife gets off and a mate from abroad arrives.
try and leave the next morning but sea is rough F4-6 on the side so turn back and moor in Ramsgate for 3 nights till forecast is good, plenty of quality restaurants and bars to keep us happy even good places for breakfast. Meet a few locals so a joy.
Early Saturday morning F1 4 -5 am speed around 8 knots 7 hours and we are in Nieuwpoort Belgium.
Stop at a large Marina and search for police to stamp our passports.
Police station near by intercom advise us that the office will be manned by 5PM
We are back all goes well And even lock will open by 7PM
A quick dinner on board (Tesco Indian for two) and we are in the first lock towards Brugge.
Speed limit in canals is about 10KM so two hours later we stop in a nice quay on canals start the generator make dinner and go to sleep,
wake up quick coffee and two hours later we are in Brugge.
Public mooring in middle of town (been before) really nice mooring but not many facilities but water and electricity.
more crew join us and off we go to Amsterdam first night in a beautiful marina called Wemeldinge, we were quite late to enter so ran up to the resturents which were 2 , one was closing but the scond agreed to serve us as long as we order Mussles, we agreed.
Quite night on the boat and off we went again towards Amsterdam , we were in a rush since we wanted to join a friend for a birthday meal.
The next night we spent in Gouda moored a long an other boat in a very narrow canal in town, Generator on and dinner is served, we typically underestimated the distance we were travelling in slow speed so long days of 10 hours were the norm.
on Leaving Gouda we had to pull our mast down Typically we are about 5 meter headroom, we manage to reduce to 4.2 meter, after that most bridges were above 4.5 meters.
The next day we changed tact at first we thought that approaching Amsterdam from south and stopping will be good but then found out that you can only cross Amsterdam canals at night so we went east on the hope of getting closer to Amsterdam (very little research.)
we got very close and a large Bridge was under constriction so we had to stop for lunch at a beautiful river side restaurant with moorings (what a life) the sun was shinning and the food was very good and reasonable price too.
we carried on and very tired now and Distension in sight we arrived at a large marina but it was a day boats marina, we approached the visitor mooring and the harbour master arrived and not very keen on us staying, we asked for a week she agreed on one night.
The next day the harbour master agreed on a week and gave us one free night too.
My friends and I had a good few days celebrating and then they left and my wife retuned via Eurostar.
Left Faversham with the wife early July morning after heat wave for Ramsgate 5 hours really pleasant trip into Ramsgate with Sailing week in progress.
refuel in Ramsgate(oouch) lucky i do displacement speed
Change of crew so wife gets off and a mate from abroad arrives.
try and leave the next morning but sea is rough F4-6 on the side so turn back and moor in Ramsgate for 3 nights till forecast is good, plenty of quality restaurants and bars to keep us happy even good places for breakfast. Meet a few locals so a joy.
Early Saturday morning F1 4 -5 am speed around 8 knots 7 hours and we are in Nieuwpoort Belgium.
Stop at a large Marina and search for police to stamp our passports.
Police station near by intercom advise us that the office will be manned by 5PM
We are back all goes well And even lock will open by 7PM
A quick dinner on board (Tesco Indian for two) and we are in the first lock towards Brugge.
Speed limit in canals is about 10KM so two hours later we stop in a nice quay on canals start the generator make dinner and go to sleep,
wake up quick coffee and two hours later we are in Brugge.
Public mooring in middle of town (been before) really nice mooring but not many facilities but water and electricity.
more crew join us and off we go to Amsterdam first night in a beautiful marina called Wemeldinge, we were quite late to enter so ran up to the resturents which were 2 , one was closing but the scond agreed to serve us as long as we order Mussles, we agreed.
Quite night on the boat and off we went again towards Amsterdam , we were in a rush since we wanted to join a friend for a birthday meal.
The next night we spent in Gouda moored a long an other boat in a very narrow canal in town, Generator on and dinner is served, we typically underestimated the distance we were travelling in slow speed so long days of 10 hours were the norm.
on Leaving Gouda we had to pull our mast down Typically we are about 5 meter headroom, we manage to reduce to 4.2 meter, after that most bridges were above 4.5 meters.
The next day we changed tact at first we thought that approaching Amsterdam from south and stopping will be good but then found out that you can only cross Amsterdam canals at night so we went east on the hope of getting closer to Amsterdam (very little research.)
we got very close and a large Bridge was under constriction so we had to stop for lunch at a beautiful river side restaurant with moorings (what a life) the sun was shinning and the food was very good and reasonable price too.
we carried on and very tired now and Distension in sight we arrived at a large marina but it was a day boats marina, we approached the visitor mooring and the harbour master arrived and not very keen on us staying, we asked for a week she agreed on one night.
The next day the harbour master agreed on a week and gave us one free night too.
My friends and I had a good few days celebrating and then they left and my wife retuned via Eurostar.
