From the Mediterranean to the English Channel by boat - Episode 11

GLORIOUS GHENT

Simon Jenkins is bringing his first historic barge from the Mediterranean to Belgium, and now onto the Channel coast. Last time Ambiorix travelled in a boat lift to end all boat lifts. Now Simon and Amanda face a stoppage. This is his story, in his own words.

Monday we got up early as usual and as the mist was lifting off the canal very slowly indeed. We had breakfast and waited for the mist to start to clear. It was too dangerous to navigate on a commercial waterway in the mist in my opinion.

Commercial barges in the mist

As we prepared the boat to depart, on my AIS I could see commercial barge loaded approaching from behind on the main canal. I did the decent thing and let him pass, I could have pulled out in front and been much quicker but that’s not the done thing in my opinion.

Good thing as it turned out. Even though he was slower than us, when we reached the next lock it was closed, and would be all day as the next lock on to the river Schelde was broken. We put our feet up and by the end of the day there were 20 commercial boats all waiting to go through the locks.

Barges queuing for the locks

The lock keeper announced that the lock was fixed and they could start letting boats through, but it was getting dark, so we decided to let them go through and then we would pass the next day.

Big mistake that was, as we had been the third boat to pull up we were in the queue but we relinquished our turn, so, the next morning we had to wait for all of the other boats that hadn't made it through to go first.

It was lunch time by the time we got through the two locks and out on to the busiest water way that we had seen so far. Commercial boats were everywhere loaded, unloaded, being loaded or unloaded  waiting at locks. It made for very slow progress, even though this was a high speed waterway in sections. The exceptions were the one-way sections, controlled by traffic lights so lots of waiting around.

It took a couple of days to clear the river Schelde and, if I'm honest, I was glad to be off it. It took some serious concentration to navigate it with 2,000 ton loaded barges taking up the middle of the navigation and not leaving a lot of room for us. The draw of the water from these big boats in a restricted water way didn't leave a lot of water underneath us, which made steering hard work too.

They did not slow down at all on their approach and you could see the water level on the banks dropping by a good 18 inches as they passed. You actually felt our boat go down hill in to the hole where that water used to be, and then go uphill as we passed the boat.

Water levels drop as boats pass

Even though we slowed our speed on approach to these big boats we couldn’t go too slow or we would loose steerage, so as soon as we started to cross it was back on with the power to give us increased wash past the rudder to give better steering.

The river crosses over in to the Flanders region of Belgium, where they speak English as well as Dutch. This, too, was a welcome change. At this point we had to stop at the control lock, take all of our paperwork to the office and purchase a permit. Until now, in Wallonia, we had not had to have a permit and it was free to navigate, but in Flanders we had to pay. Can’t really moan as it was about €75 and wasn’t going to break the bank.

The river ends for this section on the Ringvaart in Ghent. The Ringvaart is like a water ring road and goes right around Ghent, but at the junction there is a smaller waterway that meanders towards the centre of Ghent and this was our destination for now, with a couple of days off exploring the city.

We crossed the Ringvaart in timely fashion and entered this lovely, shallow, windy, narrow canal meandering its way towards the centre. As we approached the centre it became very twisty indeed, and narrow, and it took some skill to get around the tight bends; slowly I might add - very slowly through narrow sections, and small bridges.

Approaching a narrow bridge

We passed restaurant barges, cafe barges, a few house boats, some boats that were clearly dossing on restricted moorings (nothing changes anywhere) and then we emerged in to the centre of Ghent and at the Yacht-haven, well that’s what its called-in reality its just some pontoons with water and electricity.

The moorings charged us the princely sum of €60 for two nights stay - I didn't mind too much as it was a couple of days off. We tied up to another Brit, someone who has crossed our path before, on the South coast of England. Terry is a lovely chap who had sailed his barge over to the continent earlier in the year to go cruising.

Ghent is a beautiful city with the canal at the heart of it. It is not navigable for large boats any more and, to be honest, it would be a pain as there are a lot of manually operated bridges. It has some stunning properties along the canal, these used to be warehouses, pubs, toll houses, captains houses and even a brothel.

Glorious Ghent

We did some sight seeing - the first time whilst on this trip we had been able to do so. We even took a guided boat trip along the sections of canal that weren’t open to other traffic. Fascinating place and we could have spent more time there. However, we had to get en route once more, off on the last few legs of the journey, with the end is almost in sight. 

In the next episode: The end is in sight – via lift bridges and tidal junctions.