It felt like the middle of the night when Mike got up at eight. Loads of jobs to get through. He did two runs in the car to the Avis petrol station and bought 4 containers of road diesel for the boat tank, plus a bit of shopping in Lidl to get basics - milk, eggs and spuds - just to last us for the first few days (we'd brought some stuff with us from the UK but not much). I carried on packing stuff away, pausing to hold the brolly while he put the first load of diesel into the boat tank as it was pouring down with rain. He left two bottles of wine on Wandering Snail for Wim and Hendrik as thanks for our stay. I collected my poor orchid off the bows of WS (and forgot my ivy plant) two of the miniature trees in the big pot on the roof were dead, but things (possibly the seeds I planted ages ago, but more likely spreading sedums) were sprouting in the little pots. Paused to make sandwiches for lunch. Mum was getting stuck into her puzzle books. Finished packing the rest of the stuff away and helped Mike move the boat so he could stand on WS’s stern and bend the trim tab on the rudder a bit(since the dock the boat had a tendancy to the right), then we moved down to Wim’s mooring (half of which had been occupied overnight by a large cruiser) and refilled our water tank with 200 litres of water, very slowly. Winded and set off down to the first swingbridge around 2.15 p.m. It was drizzling, but warm. Tied on the landing stage to wait for the team at 4.00 p.m. Mike ‘phoned just to make sure; the guy told him there was another boat coming through with us. The keeper arrived as the bow wave of a small wedge shaped cruiser banged the boat against the wooden staging at 3.40 p.m. We followed the cruiser through the first bridge, then he was gone as we went round all the tight bendy bits, which knocks our speed down considerably. The distance to the next bridge was quite a long one and when we arrived the crew of the cruiser were out on the bank having a picnic! They all piled back on board and followed us through the bridge and overtook us minutes later. I steered while Mike did some checks. All OK. We had cleg (horsefly) attacks and had a merry time swatting them, none managed to bite us fortunately. Mike went in to make a cuppa as the sun came out for the first time today. We arrived at Wachtebeke at 6.20 p.m, the cruiser sailed off to his moorings at the end of the canal and we moored on the staging (for waiting for the bridge keeper) after telling the last keeper what we were doing. He thanked us for visiting the Moervaart, which was nice of him. Moved the moped off the front deck and up on to the roof, then Mike sorted the rest of the stuff on the front deck seat – putting the BBQ and charcoal away under the seat and my wellies back in the front locker.
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