Flat-bottomed girl Views from the canal Remembering the magic of the Scheldt Well, here we are. It’s July 2020, and we’re still in the Netherlands thanks to the pandemic. Previous summers have seen us travelling far and wide, although on canals far and wide is somewhat relative. The distance most people do in a car in a couple of hours can easily take a week to travel on a barge if we spin it out. But I digress. This year we’re not going anywhere because COVID 19 has basically scuppered all our attempts to get the engine on our little holiday barge, Hennie H, up and running in time to go faring (as I call it). So, as a result of having our wings clipped, or to put it more aptly, our propeller clamped, we can only reminisce about our former years’ travels and dream of the moment when we can cast off our ropes and go cruising once again. The memories have been flooding in recently (excuse the pun), and a recent walk along the river Scheldt in Belgium reminded me of the pleasure and excitement of experiencing it by boat in 2018. It was our last long cruise before disaster struck when our engine emptied itself of oil into the sump with somewhat terminal consequences. But that’s another story for another time. For
now, I’m going to a happier place by remembering our trip along the Scheldt again. For those who don’t know it, the Scheldt is a tidal river; it’s fast running and has an impressive rise of around ten metres at its narrowest point. The tidal section is from Ghent to Antwerp and a trip either up or downstream has to be well planned for boats that don’t have much power on board. Running with the tide is definitely a good idea if you don’t have many horses in your engine room – pushing against the current tends to be a thirsty job for the poor horses. And thirsty means expensive. Anyway, until 2018, I’d never done it, the Scheldt that is. When I heard it was going to be the first and last part of our route through Belgium, I was more than a bit nervous. The speed of the current and the risks of running aground on the silted-up banks of the river’s numerous bends set my ‘what if ’ monitor on high alert. On the morning we set out on our travels, we did the downstream run from Ghent to Dendermonde, a town about SisterShip 32
