Diksmuide to Fortembrug
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We set off from Dirksmuide at about 10am after paying the harbour master for the night; the day seemed a bit dismal and overcast with some light rain, but we had a relaxing trip up the river. Once again, we realised we had passed the number to phone to get the next bridge opened but we did manage to get through to someone else and got that sorted. There was a little bit of a senior moment whilst we wondered if there was a commercial craft coming towards us, only to realise that it was part of the bridge support!
The lock keeper then headed off to the next lock at Fintele to set it up for us – this did not work that smoothly though as he was still 10 minutes away by the time we got there and we had to maintain a position until he arrived and we could pass through.
Unfortunately, the entry into the lock was a very sharp right hand turn from the river. Not a problem we thought, but we hadn’t taken into account the vicious cross wind that ended pinning us to the starboard bank, and whilst the bow thruster could get me away from the bank, the stern thruster was not up to it. To add to our problems, the bank was a sloping stone bank that actually prevented the rudder from turning.
So we sat pinned there until the gates opened and we could move the bow off; a little thrust got us away from the bank and we turned in nicely, only to then discover that the cycle bridge that had been opened for us does not actually go all the way up and we could not get through without dismantling the bimini! So we had to hold in the entrance whilst we quickly collapsed it. Phew.
After all that excitement, we thought we would then stop off at Fortembrug and watch the F1 qualifying, plus there seemed no point in pushing ourselves too hard as the weather was not looking great for the next few days, and tomorrow was scheduled to be a short trip to Veurne.
