Thursday 7 May 2015
Coming back to the marina: The infrastructure is lovely from afar but is starting to seriously deteriorate which is such a pity as it is at such a key boating location. Perhaps the problem is that it is probably a bit small to make it commercially viable without state aid but boy, I would love to run a place like this:
We decided to take the trip south to Armentieres to
enquire about long term summer mooring and quite an eventful day it turned out
to be...
...and one I would prefer to forget.
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| "Sailing down the river, tra la lah" |
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| Courtesy flag change again. |
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| A French lock again - so cute. |
...and one I would prefer to forget.
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After driving 26kms to the marina in
Armentieres, the harbourmaster was not in and his return was uncertain
according to a South African lady we bumped into there and who had just paid
for her year’s mooring. But we did get our French ‘Fiche de reference d’un
bateau’ with which allows us to travel in Wallonia (I think) with its M.E.T (whatever
that is) number
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I got us stuck in the mud entering the marina
which is what made up our minds not to use Armentieres as a summer long term option. Pity as it is just where we would like to be.
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Stuck in the mud again at the confluence of the
Lys (we are in France now) river and the canalised Leie (that part is in
Belgium) just where the dredger was working. A bit tense as we were in the
middle of the main channel on a busy commercial waterway. Using Lynn's idea we wiggled our way into clear water with the bow thruster. Relief!
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Hung up in the Sluis Menen: Not funny but we managed to cut the line in time giving us a ½ meter drop back into the water.
By fluke the line which was attached to the bollard on the lock wall somehow managed to
cleat itself between the line which Lynn was holding and the 'ear' of our mooring bollard to which it was attached on the deck, and
jammed fast. Despite trying to kick it free (Note: Soft soled Croc’s are not
very good rope ‘unhookers’) did not budge it – fortunately the handmade
Tinus Oelofse (Land Cruiser Club Southern Africa Club member) hunting knife was
to hand in the main saloon and short shrift was made of the line which parted
like a snapped violin string.
We were very happy to be back at our lovely Kortrijk
mooring after 9.5 hours and 69 kilometres.
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