Meuse River at 5 knots - Part 2

Mooring on the river is a little different from coastal anchorage. The boat came equipped with two steel spikes (half-meter lengths of re-bar with one end ground into a point), a hammer, and a gangplank. The idea is to find a nice patch of riverbank that isn't totally covered in blackberry bush and stinging nettle, gently nudge the boat into the bank, and deploy a crew member ashore with hammer and spikes to set up fore and aft moorings.

As a result it became quite common to wake up to the sound of cattle grazing alongside the boat, peering in through the galley window at us while we prepared breakfast. Fortunately for the rather tasty looking Belgian Blues who joined us for breakfast, the boat came with a very small fridge, and there was no way the two of us could get through so much beef in one week!


The downside of mooring to the banks is the amount of wildlife that comes aboard. Within hours of mooring, we'd find half a dozen spiders (just harmless little European spiders) busy spinning their webs on the handrails and windows. Combined with the mud that inevitably comes aboard from the cow paddocks during mooring procedures and shoreside excursions, we soon gave up trying to keep the decks looking clean.

Meuse River at 5 knots - Part 1

I'm back in Tuebingen again after a couple of weeks exploring Belgium and France. We chartered a canal boat in Dinant (a little way outside Liege), and spent a week working our way upstream to Pont a Bar, a bridge in the middle of nowhere on the Canal d'Ardennes, just outside Sedan.

Dinant is a very beautiful old town, and a perfect starting point for a trip like this. Gabi and Karlheinz (Rhea's aunt and uncle) very generously drove us down to the Dinant from family's holiday home in Hauset. Gabi and Karlheinz were a tremendous help to us, particularly with Karlheinz interpreting the briefing by the Frenchman from the charter company who spoke only French, after which Karlheinz and Gabi made a last minute dash to the local supermarket to buy essential items like towels, soap, toilet paper, etc. which our information pack clearly indicated were part of the package, but were nowhere to be seen. Our questions about their whereabouts were met with a very frustrating French shrug....

After getting everything squared away, we said our "goodbyes" and nudged the good ship Cheval Bayart out of the marina in search of the first night's anchorage. (According to Gabi, Cheval Bayart is a reference to a legendary horse, however, I think it actually translates literally as "horses bathtub", which is exactly how this little boat handled).