The First Leg - Ternuzen to Ghent

I twiddled around at Ternuzen for a few days, doing a bit more wood-work, organizing a mast, replacing some fluorescent lights with some halogens, and removing (and disposing of) the big four-burner plus oven plus grill gas cooker.  As it happens, this turned out to be a bit of a bugger, as the connectors that I had brought with me couldn't connect my new, small (two burners and a grill) cooker to the gas pipe in the boat.  It took a couple of days to solve this problem.

I finally left Ternuzen on Sunday 18 June 2000, and set off up the Ternuzen - Ghent Canal to ... well, Ghent.  The canal is a full scale ship canal, which carries inter-continental container ships and big barges - hence my decision to travel on a quiet Sunday.  Even so there were some big ships around.

Ghent, of course is in Belgium, but the border is pretty much invisible.  At Ghent, I turned right, off the big ship canal to a smaller one, to work down the east side of Ghent.  Here I met my first lock - big, but not very deep.  Us half-dozen yachts ('Rosy' is classed as a yacht) were lost in it!  I finally got round to the little River Lie, and found a mooring in a yacht club in the yacht haven.  It seems that most folk moor in the clubs in the havens.  Prices vary from £1.50 to £6.00 a night (though I hear that some charge by the metre length), but this usually includes electricity, water, showers and, maybe, a washing machine.

I've now made arrangements to stay here until 8 August.

Ghent is a gorgeous city.  The centre is quite spectacular - 3 medieval churches/cathedrals, one containing the van Eyck 'Adoration of the Lamb', an altar piece painted in the 1400s, and one of the earliest known surviving oil paintings.  A lot of the shops are a bit twee.  Many are owned by people with names like 'Sofie', offering interior designing services.  Fortunately there is one excellent travel book shop (they had a complete set of UK Ordnance Survey Maps) from which I got the pricey (£40+) but definitive 'Guide to the Belgian Rivers' by Ludo de Clercq (ISBN 90-83714-1-6).  It also covers the canals, and is in Dutch, French, English and German.

There are a few British boats around, though I was most surprised to see Chris Coburn on 'Progress' motoring past.  What is he doing? Where is he bound for now?

The bad news is that the Belgians seem to have put 21% tax onto their tax-free red diesel.

I'm thinking of over-wintering in Ghent.  The River Lie very rarely freezes over, the city feels very comfortable and has excellent cheese and bread shops.  Oh! And I've fallen in love with the girl on the cold meat counter in the local SPAR supermarket (though, of course, I haven't spoken to her yet!).

I've been doing some re-painting, and still have a bit more woodwork to do.  I've still not decided what to do with the floor.

Today I went to the Wasscentre (laundrette).  Having nothing better to do, I looked at the local paper.  Three adverts on the front page for the repair of false teeth.  There are also big adverts (both in the paper and elsewhere) for hi-tech stainless steel, Swedish scooters.  Very smart looking, they can be folded up and carried under the arm.  But they have small wheels which will check at every rut, ridge and pebble - eny fule kno that.  There was also a bit of hollow plastic, shaped like a dog, with a tube in his back.  The dog can be filled with water, and is for use as a beach-umbrella-stand.  Every home should have one!