We were a little concerned for our cruise today, as our Navicarte indicated no bridge operation on Sundays. However, the harbour master was adamant that this was not the case, and we duly passed under the Coupure brug on the first lift of the day at 10am. We were with three other boats, but we were kept waiting at the first bridge until the arrival of three more boats from the Flandria yacht haven. Eventually we were allowed to pass and made our way through St Kruispoort bridge and then the upper bridge of the Nieuwe Damme Poort lock. This is a huge basin, with three sets of gates, one leading into a disused spur which is now a dock area. Here we took advantage of the thickest water hose ever, provided free of charge, which filled our tank in no time.

The last opening bridge on the ring canal is the Waggel rail bridge, but with a closed height of 5.5m we were able to pass underneath with just our aerials down. Two more 10m bridges and we were finally on our way on the Kanaal van Gent naar Oostende. This was not the end of the waiting though, as at Nieuwegebrug, in the middle of the countryside we were all treated to a further delay for no reason that we could identify - probably lunch. A further bridge at Stalhille was accompanied by numerous warning signs and VHF alerts, but when we arrived there was only a heap of rubble and a chain ferry where the bridge should have been!

At the junction with the Plassendale canal the rest of our convoy turned off towards Nieuwepoort whilst we continued on towards Oostende. We eventually worked out to take the left turn before the Slijkensbrug to access the dock area, the right fork being blocked by a "stuw". Thanks to our borrowed Dutch-English dictionary we were able to identify this as a weir - obviously not the main navigation. We were shepherded through three dock bridges by two bike-riding attendants and were just marvelling at their efficiency when the lock-operator asked for the €12,50 fee. It was worth it to go straight though and into the tidal harbour area. We turned left into the Montogomery dock and left again to enter the Mercator lock.

Here we were entertained by the sight of a pedestrian making a late dash across the lifting bridge, who ended up clinging to the edge of the bridge as it started to go up. A yell from the bridge operator and he went slithering back down to earth, just before the bridge got to the vertical position.

Cruising Statistics

Distance: 14 nm

Total to date: 1979 nm

Avg Speed: 6 knots

Duration: 2:15 hours

Diesel: 30 litres (est)

Mooring: €22.50/night

Electricity: €3.60/night

Locks

Nieuwe Damme Poort

Demey

Mercator

Bridges

St Kruispoort

Nieuwe Damme Poortsluis, upper & lower

Warande

Krakere

Scheepsdale

Nieuwege

Plassendale

Doksluis, upper & lower

Conterdam

Min headroom: 5.5m

Min draught: 4.7m

Charts

Navicarte 23

Geocart 1, 4