After a peaceful and undisturbed night at our unconventional mooring at Pont de la Petite Ile, we decided to look in on the Brussel Royal Yacht Club, if only to have a squirt of their electricity and water. The cruise through the centre of the city is not the most scenic and there are few other mooring opportunities on route. An interesting development at the Quai des Peniches was Bruxelles les Bains, a beach resort with pool, volleyball, music and bars - mooring was possible alongside but it was unclear if it was permitted, and it would certainly be rather noisy and exposed.

We had planned to make the yacht club a lunch stop, but on hearing the downstream bridges were closed on a Sunday we had little choice but to stay overnight. There is no food at the clubhouse on Sunday evenings but there were still plenty of members and visitors enjoying the bar.

On Monday we made an early start downstream for Antwerp, through a series of lift bridges. Some were high enough to pass under with our mast lowered, but the rest responded on Channel 20 and opened to let us through. The locks on this section cater for very large barges making the trip between Belgium and Holland, but there were plenty of floating bollards to make our life straightforward. Once through the lock at Zemst we had to rush to keep up with the barges in order to stay with them for the next one - and just caught them up at the approach to Wintam sea lock.

The trip down the tidal Schelde river passed quickly with the help of an ebb tide and we were soon outside the Royersluis, hoping to enter the dock complex. Unfortunately the next locking could not be for two hours, so we had little choice but to tie up to the inside of the ferry jetty opposite and sit out the wait. By the time we had locked through the huge basin, we had missed the afternoon opening period of the Siberia bridge into the yacht haven, and had to wait till 1715 to enter the Willemdok. The concept of synchronizing these openings does not seem to have occured, but we were advised later that the downstream Boudewijn and Van Cauwelaert locks sometimes offer a more convenient alternative.

A full day exploring Antwerp included a cycle tour of the historical centre, a visit to the maritime museum, lunch in the Grote Markt, and the world's largest diamond museum (museum shop strictly off limits).

Cruising Statistics

Distance: 29 nm

Total to date: 1891 nm

Avg Speed: 8 knots

Duration: 6 hours

Diesel: 40 litres (est)

Mooring
BRYC:€20/night
Electricity: Free

Willemdok: €19/night
Electricity: €2,50/night

Locks

Molenbeek

Zemst

Wintam

Royersluis

Min headroom: 4.45m

Min draught: 3m

Charts

Navicarte 23

Geocart 2