Friday 13th May 2011 Tournai - Antoing. 5.5kms no locks

Hiroshima loading at Vaulx

Warm and sunny, lots of white clouds. The DB Parelion left, they’d had enough of the wash of passing commercials swinging their boat about. Mike and Olly went to see Marjorie and quiz her about what was going on as we couldn’t use the slip until the 30th. Turned out the work on the tjalk wasn’t finished and that was how long it would take. The DB was due to come out on the Friday, 27th but she said she didn’t want us to go on for a few days after that just to make sure the work was OK and the barge had no leaks. Soon after they came back a commercial went past so fast it put water over our gunwales and back deck and slammed the cruiser Musia against the pontoon so hard that it bent one of their air intake pipes. That was when everyone decided they’d had enough and set off – except us as we had a few jobs to do. Part filled the water tank with 50c worth of water (350 litres), then connected the electricity and did some washing. I made lunch then did the ironing. The washing finished and the electricity ran out (0.8KwH) with three items left to iron – they’ll have to wait until after we’re on the dock. At 3.15 p.m. after Antalya had gone past heading upriver empty, we untied and winded just after two large replica DBs went steaming past, Ebenhäuser and Hilde, heading upriver in the same direction as us. We had a guess where they were going and hoped there would be enough room left for us, confirmed when we heard them talking on VHF. At Vaulx on our left, the river wharves were as busy as usual, Elan (a former Rhur boat with its previous name and port in raised lettering that couldn’t be removed) was unloading pre-fabricated concrete sections of what may have been a wind generator tower. Also on the quay were a pusher pair called Elodie and Alexis waiting to be loaded. On the right, péniche Isabelle was being loaded with grain from tipper lorries. Back on the Vaulx quay, pusher pair of péniches Es-Vie and Houari were being loaded with aggregate by a digger. An empty péniche called Pamy came downriver, winded and tied on the quay to wait for loading. At the end of the Vaulx quay under a loading ramp, 67m Hiroshima was being loaded with more aggregate from tipper lorries. 

Mooring in the old weirstream at Antoing

On the quays at Antoing an 80m+ boat called Zijpe was being loaded with stone. Further down the quay by the cement works, a loaded 80m+ boat called Shenandoah was either setting off or just arriving, reversing slowly down the quay. A lad on a bike arrived and started shouting and whistling; he dropped his bike on the quay and leapt on to the fore end of the barge – a drop of around ten feet on to hard metal, we were surprised he didn’t break his legs! As we went past the first of the moored péniches by Neptunia, two cruisers were fast catching up. Typical, we’d seen very few private traffic on the river (or canals) and as soon as we decide to move there were four more boats heading for the same place as us and three already there (DB Johanna was already moored in the arm with Musia and the Snail!) The largest, a Dutch boat called Cycloon overtook us in the middle of the river, right in the face of an oncoming empty 80m barge. It slipped around the bows of the empty boat while the one behind it had had the sense to hang back. As soon as the big barge had gone past the other Dutch cruiser, called Elan, also overtook just as we were about to swing into the arm on the left and moor next to the Snail. The two cruisers were in the way but we squeezed past and moored alongside Wandering Snail as the smaller cruiser moored on the end wall, where it was very shallow; then the larger cruiser attempted to go alongside it and grounded - so they both left. The two new DBs were moored side by side beyond Musia and Johanna. Anne and Olly came and sat on our very cluttered front deck and had a beer. 

Mooring in the old weirstream at Antoing

We’d had an invite to go on Musia later so we got on with the chores. Anne said there was film on BBC2 that they wanted to watch but would miss because we were going to visit Sue and Andy on Musia, so we volunteered to record it for her. Anne said Friday the 13th had struck all at once for them – she’d been to the boulangerie which was closed but it had a bread dispensing machine outside so she came back to get the right change, walked back only to find that it only had sugar bread. Next, when she took a lasagne out of the ‘fridge to cook it, even though it was nowhere near its use-by date, it had gone mouldy; undaunted she took one from the freezer but said now that would takes ages to defrost and cook. At 8.30 p.m. we all went on Musia for a drink and a chat. It was a very pleasant evening drinking wine and chatting; almost 1.00 a.m. when we returned to the boats.