barge1914
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Anyone been to Bruges? It's a b****r finding somewhere to stay in a van, we've done that once or twice, but our first visit was somewhat more eventful, it was all to do with that big round canal lock on the eastern side of the city.
Continuing with my effort to distract for a few minutes from the Virus of Doom, I'll relate it...(extract from my article in 2008) and a few images of Bruges...do you recognise where they are?
<<The Round Lock
The trip from Nieuwpoort to Bruges was not without its frustrations. The hour’s wait for St. Joris Sluis, yes booked for 9am but “no that must have been with the ‘Sunday’ man”. Yes the bridges would all be expecting us. Oh no they weren’t!
At the lock in Ypres we had queried about the ‘silence of the Belgians’, which as far as VHF was concerned had been very much in evidence since entering the Kingdom. Was it to do with our lack of ATIS?* “ATIS? What?” came the quizzical reply, “Er, my VHF is broke, has been for a long time”. Did this explain it all, oh no it didn’t!
Emerging from Plassendale Sluis onto the Kanal van Gent naar Ostende, a pleasant surprise. Not as our Geocart had implied a dull straight industrial concrete trench, but a quiet meandering tree lined rural waterway almost devoid of traffic. Did this bode well…oh no it did not? At Bruges the first bridge swung open as we arrived, “this is good…Oops”, as the crack widened a large black steel prow plugged the opposite end of the bridge hole. An ungainly shuffle backwards and as Avontuur attempted an unmaidenly scrabble up the bank the first of the days monsters slid by. Traffic growled impatiently either side as she gathered herself and erratically shuffled through the bridge hole. Grinning sheepishly, “At least the next one should know we are coming”. Oh no it didn’t…surely we should have learnt the rules of this pantomime by now?
Krakele Brug is not blessed with the usual sign saying which VHF channel to use or which phone number to ring, Geocart professed ignorance. VHF 18, 20, 22? All the usual culprits tried, the ether hissed inscrutably; an hour passed, heads scratched, lunch munched, traffic watched. A last desperate attempt…we tried the phone number for Verbinding Sluis on the Zeebrugge branch, not on our route but at least visible towering afar. “What, yes, ring St. Kruispoort Brug”. On the city’s circular map we are at ‘five to’, several bridges away St. Kruispoort is at ‘quarter past Bruges’, of course we should have known this! And so now in possession of the magic number we rang, a familiar voice indeed, apparently even the bridge halfway from Passendale is controlled from here.
Warende Brug, next, opened amazingly without incident, “Oh well nearly there”. A large basin funnels narrowly into a sharp bend just before Niewe Dammepoort Sluis… The Big Round Lock from which branches the now unnavigable Kanal Brugge-Sluis. No hint of what lay around the bend, Avontuur entered nervously. The lock? But it’s not a lock gate. The great black steel cliff face, 10m wide and 4m high filling the channel, inclining towards us at 45°, and peering askance with one Cyclops CCTV eye… was moving… ponderously… towards us! Avontuur, a timid shrew before a charging rhino retreated in disarray around the bend…to find that in the interim Verbinding Sluis had spewed forth a container-bedecked leviathan accompanied by a loaded Freycinet péniche, a coracle beside a Titanic, blocking off further escape. Elbows tucked, buttocks clenched, we squeezed to the side; a rope snaked thankfully onto a bollard, and then with a somewhat premature sigh of relief into the lock.
Imagine what happens when a very large plug is pulled out of a hole located just to one side of a large circular drum? Yes indeed, the waters inside the lock were emulating with some success the contents of a washing machine. In we went…and round we went, and for good measure the breeze freshened. At ‘quarter-to’ of the lockside circle the keeper gestured, “get over the other side” he flapped. Fingers raised; “there’s two big barges coming in” they enumerated, at least decency insisted that’s what they said. However, Avontuur does not willing go sideways. The water swirled; as her bows drew closer the lockkeeper hopped up and down with increasing animation like a clockwork frog, croaking in guttural Flemish. The crew returned her perfectly executed Gallic shrug, much perfected after years in France.
Angled by now far enough around the lockside-clock Avontuur was able to reveal her cunning plan and reverse pointedly back over to ‘ten-past’ in the far corner…as our first large new neighbours nudged past our bows stirring the waters anew. Our second neighbour arrived, “tie alongside us” he invited but the backwash of his churning prop pushing him against the quay rendered this manoeuvre virtually impossible. Our side of the lock was completely devoid of bollards save one perched at ‘twenty-past’ some 30m ahead and 4 m above, high on the street side. A ladder below looked much more hopeful. Avontuur lurched towards the ladder. At this moment a kind passer-by standing near the lonely bollard gestured to the crew to chuck the rope up to her. ”You’ll never make it, use the ladderrrr” wafted away in the breeze. The kind lady flapped her arms frantically behind the railings; the rope plopped unceremoniously in the water…churning ever more by now as the lockkeeper had opened the sluices. Once more round, now on the ‘rinse cycle’, a rope finally entangled itself on the ladder and the crew clung on like grim death.
Peace reigned but a short time, gates opened, our neighbours ‘pulled the plug’ once more sucking the lock now into its ‘spin cycle’, Avontuur made her bid for escape. This was not easy; but at ‘twenty-five-to’ with a deft flick of the tail, and with great amazement and satisfaction Avontuur finally lurched out through the gate and past the unforgiving concrete of the bridge. Ah yes, the bridge! Our being ‘taken to the cleaners’ had not gone entirely unnoticed, owing to the considerable size of our neighbours the main road bridges at both ends of the locks had had to stay raised throughout the entire episode and a not insubstantial audience had assembled. How embarrassing!
Thank God we won’t have to go that way again”, says the crew with great conviction and relief… Little did we know!
When we arrived at our mooring Mevrouw Havenmeester impressed on us the imperative that our New Zealander friends on Renaissance should get there soon, before she went away on holiday leaving the entrance bridge firmly closed for the winter. Time passed…and passed. No Renaissance, deadline nearly expired. Contact established at last… “Barbara has fallen of the barge and broken her leg, stuck at Diksmuide up the Ijser, what to do?” says Ted glumly. Next day off we went on a mission of rescue…”Oh no, The Round Lock again!”.
We planned to intercept Renaissance at St. Joris Sluis, we could do it all in a day. “Ah here they come, dead on time!”. But not so the lock, true to form; the skipper of the crane barge stuck inside explained that the lockkeeper was “at a meeting’, back in an hour”. Renaissance traced question marks in the harbour for an hour and a half. At long last…into the lock, “It may go a bit slowly” explained the newly arrived keeper…and so it did. Two men stood atop the guillotine exit gate slowly painting grease onto the cables as the gate crept ever so slooowly aloft, a good two hours and a half late we escaped at last. Our nightmare that we would arrive in Bruges for rush hour when the locks and bridges all close could very well now be realised. We related our tale of delay and disruption and prognosticated more of the same. We mused upon when the sun would set. Fate, out of a sense of pure perversity guaranteed otherwise…. There’s simply no justice! Ted greased the palms of the Gods with silver (well the mobile phone company actually) we supplied the magic numbers and all went too smoothly all the way to Bruges. No more delays at all, but then came The Round Lock!
The obligatory two big barges were already inside and waiting. We hastened inside; thanks to the washtub effect Renaissance first attempted this up the rear quarters of a waiting barge. Dignity retrieved she slurped in, moored alongside in a flurry of ropes, and clung on desperately whilst the water spiralled out and away. Rush hour descended, the bridges closed all about us, for half an hour traffic roared, thumbs twiddled, fingers clung. At last, once more the plug was pulled, ropes off, and round went the waters… and so did we. F***, f***, b***** and f***! Chaucer’s finest Anglo-Saxon prose translated itself loosely into antipodean. Clutching a tyre fender and feigning nonchalance I shuffled along the side deck, borne downwind by the verbal torrent, to arrive at the prow just as it squeaked by with inches to spare through the unyielding bridge hole…”phew!”. The Round Lock glowered at our departing stern. Didn’t we do well? …Oh no we didn’t!
*ATIS: Automatic Transmission Identification System>>
Continuing with my effort to distract for a few minutes from the Virus of Doom, I'll relate it...(extract from my article in 2008) and a few images of Bruges...do you recognise where they are?
<<The Round Lock
The trip from Nieuwpoort to Bruges was not without its frustrations. The hour’s wait for St. Joris Sluis, yes booked for 9am but “no that must have been with the ‘Sunday’ man”. Yes the bridges would all be expecting us. Oh no they weren’t!
At the lock in Ypres we had queried about the ‘silence of the Belgians’, which as far as VHF was concerned had been very much in evidence since entering the Kingdom. Was it to do with our lack of ATIS?* “ATIS? What?” came the quizzical reply, “Er, my VHF is broke, has been for a long time”. Did this explain it all, oh no it didn’t!
Emerging from Plassendale Sluis onto the Kanal van Gent naar Ostende, a pleasant surprise. Not as our Geocart had implied a dull straight industrial concrete trench, but a quiet meandering tree lined rural waterway almost devoid of traffic. Did this bode well…oh no it did not? At Bruges the first bridge swung open as we arrived, “this is good…Oops”, as the crack widened a large black steel prow plugged the opposite end of the bridge hole. An ungainly shuffle backwards and as Avontuur attempted an unmaidenly scrabble up the bank the first of the days monsters slid by. Traffic growled impatiently either side as she gathered herself and erratically shuffled through the bridge hole. Grinning sheepishly, “At least the next one should know we are coming”. Oh no it didn’t…surely we should have learnt the rules of this pantomime by now?
Krakele Brug is not blessed with the usual sign saying which VHF channel to use or which phone number to ring, Geocart professed ignorance. VHF 18, 20, 22? All the usual culprits tried, the ether hissed inscrutably; an hour passed, heads scratched, lunch munched, traffic watched. A last desperate attempt…we tried the phone number for Verbinding Sluis on the Zeebrugge branch, not on our route but at least visible towering afar. “What, yes, ring St. Kruispoort Brug”. On the city’s circular map we are at ‘five to’, several bridges away St. Kruispoort is at ‘quarter past Bruges’, of course we should have known this! And so now in possession of the magic number we rang, a familiar voice indeed, apparently even the bridge halfway from Passendale is controlled from here.
Warende Brug, next, opened amazingly without incident, “Oh well nearly there”. A large basin funnels narrowly into a sharp bend just before Niewe Dammepoort Sluis… The Big Round Lock from which branches the now unnavigable Kanal Brugge-Sluis. No hint of what lay around the bend, Avontuur entered nervously. The lock? But it’s not a lock gate. The great black steel cliff face, 10m wide and 4m high filling the channel, inclining towards us at 45°, and peering askance with one Cyclops CCTV eye… was moving… ponderously… towards us! Avontuur, a timid shrew before a charging rhino retreated in disarray around the bend…to find that in the interim Verbinding Sluis had spewed forth a container-bedecked leviathan accompanied by a loaded Freycinet péniche, a coracle beside a Titanic, blocking off further escape. Elbows tucked, buttocks clenched, we squeezed to the side; a rope snaked thankfully onto a bollard, and then with a somewhat premature sigh of relief into the lock.
Imagine what happens when a very large plug is pulled out of a hole located just to one side of a large circular drum? Yes indeed, the waters inside the lock were emulating with some success the contents of a washing machine. In we went…and round we went, and for good measure the breeze freshened. At ‘quarter-to’ of the lockside circle the keeper gestured, “get over the other side” he flapped. Fingers raised; “there’s two big barges coming in” they enumerated, at least decency insisted that’s what they said. However, Avontuur does not willing go sideways. The water swirled; as her bows drew closer the lockkeeper hopped up and down with increasing animation like a clockwork frog, croaking in guttural Flemish. The crew returned her perfectly executed Gallic shrug, much perfected after years in France.
Angled by now far enough around the lockside-clock Avontuur was able to reveal her cunning plan and reverse pointedly back over to ‘ten-past’ in the far corner…as our first large new neighbours nudged past our bows stirring the waters anew. Our second neighbour arrived, “tie alongside us” he invited but the backwash of his churning prop pushing him against the quay rendered this manoeuvre virtually impossible. Our side of the lock was completely devoid of bollards save one perched at ‘twenty-past’ some 30m ahead and 4 m above, high on the street side. A ladder below looked much more hopeful. Avontuur lurched towards the ladder. At this moment a kind passer-by standing near the lonely bollard gestured to the crew to chuck the rope up to her. ”You’ll never make it, use the ladderrrr” wafted away in the breeze. The kind lady flapped her arms frantically behind the railings; the rope plopped unceremoniously in the water…churning ever more by now as the lockkeeper had opened the sluices. Once more round, now on the ‘rinse cycle’, a rope finally entangled itself on the ladder and the crew clung on like grim death.
Peace reigned but a short time, gates opened, our neighbours ‘pulled the plug’ once more sucking the lock now into its ‘spin cycle’, Avontuur made her bid for escape. This was not easy; but at ‘twenty-five-to’ with a deft flick of the tail, and with great amazement and satisfaction Avontuur finally lurched out through the gate and past the unforgiving concrete of the bridge. Ah yes, the bridge! Our being ‘taken to the cleaners’ had not gone entirely unnoticed, owing to the considerable size of our neighbours the main road bridges at both ends of the locks had had to stay raised throughout the entire episode and a not insubstantial audience had assembled. How embarrassing!
Thank God we won’t have to go that way again”, says the crew with great conviction and relief… Little did we know!
When we arrived at our mooring Mevrouw Havenmeester impressed on us the imperative that our New Zealander friends on Renaissance should get there soon, before she went away on holiday leaving the entrance bridge firmly closed for the winter. Time passed…and passed. No Renaissance, deadline nearly expired. Contact established at last… “Barbara has fallen of the barge and broken her leg, stuck at Diksmuide up the Ijser, what to do?” says Ted glumly. Next day off we went on a mission of rescue…”Oh no, The Round Lock again!”.
We planned to intercept Renaissance at St. Joris Sluis, we could do it all in a day. “Ah here they come, dead on time!”. But not so the lock, true to form; the skipper of the crane barge stuck inside explained that the lockkeeper was “at a meeting’, back in an hour”. Renaissance traced question marks in the harbour for an hour and a half. At long last…into the lock, “It may go a bit slowly” explained the newly arrived keeper…and so it did. Two men stood atop the guillotine exit gate slowly painting grease onto the cables as the gate crept ever so slooowly aloft, a good two hours and a half late we escaped at last. Our nightmare that we would arrive in Bruges for rush hour when the locks and bridges all close could very well now be realised. We related our tale of delay and disruption and prognosticated more of the same. We mused upon when the sun would set. Fate, out of a sense of pure perversity guaranteed otherwise…. There’s simply no justice! Ted greased the palms of the Gods with silver (well the mobile phone company actually) we supplied the magic numbers and all went too smoothly all the way to Bruges. No more delays at all, but then came The Round Lock!
The obligatory two big barges were already inside and waiting. We hastened inside; thanks to the washtub effect Renaissance first attempted this up the rear quarters of a waiting barge. Dignity retrieved she slurped in, moored alongside in a flurry of ropes, and clung on desperately whilst the water spiralled out and away. Rush hour descended, the bridges closed all about us, for half an hour traffic roared, thumbs twiddled, fingers clung. At last, once more the plug was pulled, ropes off, and round went the waters… and so did we. F***, f***, b***** and f***! Chaucer’s finest Anglo-Saxon prose translated itself loosely into antipodean. Clutching a tyre fender and feigning nonchalance I shuffled along the side deck, borne downwind by the verbal torrent, to arrive at the prow just as it squeaked by with inches to spare through the unyielding bridge hole…”phew!”. The Round Lock glowered at our departing stern. Didn’t we do well? …Oh no we didn’t!
*ATIS: Automatic Transmission Identification System>>
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