Week 254: A cruisy week
A trip up the busy shipping canal to Terneuzen to have our AIS installed, then a weekend with Henk-Jan of Lady Liselot who came to visit us in Gent.
It was a slow start. After a break the week before, we were still in holiday mode come Monday morning! When we got back out to Delfine, we took the time to collect our thoughts and plan the week ahead. A little bit of "What are we doing here again?"
The task list had a major rework, and we recategorised and reprioritised things. With the big goal of getting ready for Ella and Inge now met, what is next? There's plenty still to do! There are building and builder-related tasks that take priority. Shipyard tasks that are things (like sanding) that can only really be done in the shipyard. Then there's a long list of "quick wins", small jobs that we can fill in thirty minutes with here and there when we're waiting for something else.
The new glass for the cabinets under the stairs has been installed. I've been playing with magnets, and found a way to hold down the carpets, even in stormy weather!
Our big goal this week was to travel to Terneuzen and get the AIS installed. That meant a bit of admin. Karina had a series of back-and-forth emails with the Waterways Permit officials to update the name on the records to Delfine, which prompted some reinvestigation into who we are and what we are doing.
The builders returned for half a day to tackle some projects, but it turns out the new location of Delfine slowed them down, and not much was achieved. We need them to come back for two more days, end-to-end, and they should be done. We caught up with Kristof, and the stainless steel countertops in the kitchen are ready for installation this week.
Wednesday afternoon, we set off for our cruise to Terneuzen. It would take around 5 hours – a lot slower than other vessels, but we're running in the new prop shaft and have to keep our RPMs low for a while.
Destination Terneuzen
We set off confidently and headed north from Gent for the first time. The scenery quickly became increasingly industrial as we entered the port area. Big piles of scrap metal. Lots of container ships. Ferries that run up the canal, out to the North Sea and up to Sweden.
To date, being on the canals has (generally) been a doddle compared to the challenges of the Mediterranean, but this was something new. We're used to seeing big ships 250 meters long, cruising by on the open sea. If we got within 500 meters of them, we'd inevitably feel that was way too close. So it comes as a bit of a shock to be overtaken by a 250-meter-long ferry, cruising past you on the canal, only 20 - 30 meters off to your side.
The canal is wide, probably around 100 meters, but with big barges and ships going in and out all the time, it's a very intimidating place for a tiny 27-meter boat like us to be, especially when we are travelling slower than everyone else.
It's a bustling canal with a lot of industry and heavy traffic
With a high volume of ship traffic, it's also heavily regulated. One of the requirements is AIS. Automatic Identification System. It allows other boats to see you on their chart plotter, and ground stations to pick you up and follow you. Which, of course, we didn't have because we were heading to have it installed!
As we finally passed through the main port, the Rijkswater Police came over to investigate us. "Why don't you have AIS?"
"We're going to Navimar to have it installed."
"Ok, thank you."
Then they followed us across the harbour and when we tried to dock, thinking we were in the right place. "You can't stop there, it is forbidden for small boat – Navimar is there."
"Ok, thank you."
There was some confusion as to exactly where they meant and when we finally figured it out, we'd gone a little too far to dock easily, so we pulled out, turned around, went back up the canal again and came in to dock more easily on a better approach.
The friendly and efficient Rijkswater Police
As soon as we pulled up, they came and tied along side.
"You know you need a license to drive a barge this long?"
"Yes, we have that."
"Show me."
We invited them in, sat them down in the wheelhouse, pulled out all the paperwork (neatly ordered) and had a lovely chat with them. They were satisfied everything was in order, and we gave them a tour of Delfine, and they wished us a safe journey.
The canal never stops, not even at night.
Thursday morning at 8AM, a knock comes on the door. I'm still in bed, with my coffee, thinking that perhaps I should get up to see what time Navimar open, and there they were. "Good morning Delfine, we are your early morning wakeup call."
They came into the wheelhouse with armloads of gear, and dropped it all off on the table. "You're going to need this, this, maybe this... we've opened an account for you at the store, just pop by if you need anything. If you don't need something, return it, and we'll be back after lunch to complete the installation."
Installation under way! GPS puck, AIS, drilling and cutting the console for the VHF.
To save money, we'd arranged for me to run the cables, position the antennas, and install the hardware. Then, they'd come to inspect it, plug it in, and test it so they could certify it. I had a lovely morning figuring out where everything went, running cables, and getting ready. Then, when they returned after lunch, it was a straightforward exercise to get everything installed. Martin from ElektroZeeland has done an excellent job on his installation; the cabling is very organised, so extending and adding new components is not that difficult at all.
All done!
With our AIS checked off, we forwarded that to the surveyor, the last item for our new ESTRIN (we hope) and then decided to stay in Terneuzen one more night and ride our bikes over the dike, past the huge lock that opens to the sea and head into town. Terneuzen feels a bit like an industrial relic that's been abandoned by people – all the shops were shut down, there was few young people around and it seems to exist primarily to run the huge locks and manage the sea traffic.
Bikes on Dikes as we ride over the lock and into Terneuzen
For Belgium, Gent is a major port and as well as all the traffic for Gent, there's a lot of cargo barges that head around the Ringvaart Canal in Gent, down the Schelde and into France.
We found a great spot to eat, "The Spareribbery", that had excellent spare ribs and enjoyed chatting to the locals. Karina's ear is more attuned to Dutch than mine, she said she could notice the difference between Belgium and the Netherlands, and that the locals sounded more like her Oma.
Delicious! Advocaat on ice cream for dessert.
While we were there, a fellow boater, Henk-Jan, messaged. We've been in contact for several years since we purchased Matilda. He said he wasn't too far away, and decided he'd like to bring his boat, MV Lady Liselot, to come and visit us. Unfortunately, we were heading back down to Gent. No matter he says, I'll come to Gent.
We arrived back on Friday and, after docking Delfine, spent the afternoon chasing all the deliveries that had arrived in the apartment and the various drop-off points while we were away. We slept in on Saturday, then piled all our new toys onto the bikes, packed a change of clothes and headed back to Delfine.
Henk-Jan messaged and arrived, exactly as scheduled, at 3pm on Saturday. We helped him tie along side and then we sat up in the wheelhouse and chatted until late. We've communicated off and on so much over the years and he's read Footloose and promoted it, that we felt like we already knew a lot about each other.
He asked if he could video us to tell our story. He's interested in how we make decisions and move from Australia, to the US, to Greece and then to Belgium. On Sunday morning, he popped by to Delfine, setup his cameras and we had a lovely couple of hours chatting and telling stories. We probably spoke too much! He's going to have a lot of work to edit it down.
Lady Liselot arrives and setting up for filming
That interrupted the regular blog writing. Afterwards, we rode our bikes into Gent and enjoyed a delicious waffle lunch, then we practiced our tour guide skills, showing him around the historic center.
Touring Gent
If feels like things aboard Delfine are taking a different pace now. There's a few more items to complete, but overall, it's, not quite slowing, but easing off. By the end of this week, we should be largely done with the external contractors. The danger then becomes that we won't have others driving us, but instead, it's all completely in our control to when and how things get done. After the big push of the last few months, it's tempting to ease off a bit, but we're so close to the finish line that really, we need to keep focused on grinding through the last little bits to get things done and then we can relax and enjoy Delfine.
Until next time,
Tim & Karina
PS If you've been interested in reading our story in the book I wrote, "Footloose, or how to run away to sea", it's currently on promotion for free on Amazon.
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