Thursday 9th June 2016 Pont-de-Loup. At last! Off the dry dock.

Opening the gate valves to re-fill the dock

12.4° C. Sunny with white clouds. Mike was up early. Nobody about until two men cleared the dock of wooden boards left by the welders before opening the two gate valves to refill the dock. It was 8am. It filled slowly, at 11am they brought the big crane to lift the gates and the bridge out. We backed out first – the big pump that empties the dock was on and was trying to pump the canal out! Mike shouted to then to tell them and he’d just got our stern to the far canal

Filling up

bank when loaded boat Dependant came round the bend. We shouted to tell the crew of Vage to stay put as they were just about to back out and follow us – why did nobody think to call on VHF to say we were coming out of the dock?! Turned into the basin and moored along the end wall by the slipway again. L’Imprevu, on the slipway, was still undergoing stretching, gunwales being fitted on the port side, starboard side was already done so they’ll soon be

Pont-de-Loup dry dock

back in the water and back to work. Started cleaning down. Buckets and bowls, the shower, the toilet – all needed scrubbing to get rid of the mud, river water wasn’t at all clean but it improved them. Lunch. Mike went to see Sandrine for our receipts and went out in the car to Carrefour Market to get some bread and buns and take back an empty bottle that I’d bought which had a refund of 20c – it had contained lambic cherry beer, sour isn’t the word for the stuff (looked it up and found it’s a very rare beer, only made in a small area of Belgium near Brussels, sorry not really a big fan). I scrubbed

Getting there - it takes three hours to fill

the front deck and put the paint, brushes, rollers and trays away until next time…..

Tuesday 17th May 2016 Pont-de-Loup. On to the dry dock

I know this is out of order but FB picks the first picture I post!
The dock, empty.

9.6° C Sunshine and grey clouds. Mike went for a look around the yard. While he was out a young man came and knocked on the cabin roof, time to go on the dock. I told him Mike was somewhere by the dock. He was back not long after and we moved round to the dock. The péniche that was on the dock had refloated and moved out and another one had just gone in. Vage from Gent looked like it had been retired a long time and was well in need of a hose down and paint, its prop was still turning and they

Our neighbour peniche Vage tying up

were just tying up as we went in. There were metal stanchions around the wall with welded-on bits to put ropes on. The two guys who were doing the docking wanted our boat on the bostocks nearest the gate. OK. Mike had already told the Vankerkoven siblings that the boat was flat-bottomed but we needed to be careful with the stern end gear as we have a skeg (a narrow flat bar supporting the rudder. No problem, but the men kept

Metal bits to tie to.

asking to make sure that the bottom didn’t slope up at the bows. Nope, completely flat. The dock slopes slightly. Once we were settled they craned the gate back in – it was in two parts and slotted into the gap, then they put the metal bridge back in place over it. Interestingly they use the same method here of stopping gates from leaking that was used in the UK when we first went boating. Called racking in the UK, it simply consisted of pouring shovelfuls of ash or dirt into the water around the gates

First section of gate going back in

edges to stop up the gaps. I took some interesting photos, especially liked the slinger hitching a lift back from the gate on to dry land on the crane hook! The péniche grounded first, on at the bows. Water was pumped out of the dock as it is next to a river and can’t be drained out like the ones we were used to on canals. Took quite some time to empty the whole swimming pool! Nothing else to be done today.

Riding the crane hook back to dry land

Second section of gate going back in

The bridge over the dock gate being craned into place

Gates in and bridge back in place

Weed growing on the waterline