The comfortable berths at City Marina provided a convenient base for the visit of Debbie and Della and with cold and wet weather persisting we were not tempted to move off. Our car came in handy for visits to De Efteling theme park and the Madurodam at Den Haag, a fascinating model village of the whole of the Netherlands.

On Friday we had the long awaited visit of the air conditioning engineers, who drove from Germany with our repaired set. With all the cold and wet weather we had not missed it, but fortunately the day of their visit was fine enough to actually test it out without freezing the water in the outlet pipe (a common problem.)

By Saturday we decided we really should make a move before we started to take root and set off upstream to continue from the Nieuwe Maas onto the Lek. This is a quite strongly tidal waterway, but it is wide and meandering and makes a pleasant cruise. We stopped at Schoonhoven where we had to do some emergency dinghy repairs after an unexpected barge wash sent us surging backwards into the boat behind, snapping off their ensign staff and bursting our dinghy. Our resident engineer was up to the task, although he did have to resort to butchering the older of our two inflatable seats to make a patch big enough!

The next day we continued on to Vianen, stopping at the well-equipped Passantenhaven, just south of the Merwedekanaal lock. As it was yet another Dutch bank holiday these were quite popular, probably because they are free, with unmetered water and electricity thrown in for good measure. After a look round the town in the evening we were ready to continue south in the morning to our final destination for this leg. We planned to stop at Gorinchem where the nearby train station would allow us to recover the car from Rotterdam. We found one of the only vacant spots at WV De Merwede, just south of the Grote Merwedesluis, and negotiated a handfull of free tokens for opening the car park barrier before leaving the assembled throng to their sailing competition prize giving ceremony and impromptu sing-along.

Cruising Statistics

Distance (inland): 40 nm

Total to date: 459 nm

Avg Speed: 5kn

Duration: 8:25hrs

Diesel: 50ltrs

Mooring: Free at Schoonhoven & Vianen; €13/night at Gorinchem

Electricity:
N/A at Schoonhoven;
Free at Vianen (10A);
€0,50/2kWh (10A)at Gorinchem

Water:
N/A at Schoonhoven;
Free at Vianen;
Included at Gorinchem

Charts

ANWB J Grote Rivieren West

ANWB K Grote Rivieren Midden

Locks

Grote Sluis at Vianen

Grote Merwedesluis at Gorinchem

Bridges

9 opening

6 fixed (min 7.3m)