Wandering
the Canals & Rivers of Europe
T H E C
R O S S I N G
by R.K. Swanby
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a sense of relief as we approached the white cliffs of the english
coastline, having just crossed the rolling waters of the English Channel
from Calais, France.on our 38' steel cruiser "Wanderer"..we had managed
to make the 6hr crossing without mishap, and that, given the circumstances,
was a big accomplishment... but the worse was yet to come. We were following
a British sailboat under power (masts on deck) named "Rolling Stone". I
had met Paul, the skipper, & his wife at the dock in Calais where we
were both waiting for the right tide & wind conditions to make the
crossing. He was just returning from spending the past few years in the
Med. Since I had been traveling the canals in countries where I couldn't
speak the language I had not put a VHF radio onboard, and since I had been
on the inland waterways, had not needed GPS.. (Global positioning system)
but now, faced with crossing ocean waters, I had to reconsider putting
these items on the boat...As it turned out, Paul was headed for Ramsgate,
the same small coastal port in England as I, and he had both a radio &
GPS onboard. I asked if I could follow him across and if we had any problems
we could assist each other..he said "fine, let's do it"... and that solved
my need for navigational equipment. It is required that you cross the shipping
lanes in the Channel at a 90 degree angle to minimize the time in the shipping
lanes, so we ended up on the coast of England a few miles west of Ramsgate,
and had to motor up along the coastline to reach the entrance of the harbor.
I began to fall quite aways behind Paul as we made our way to the entrance,
so at a curve in the coastline, I decided to cut the corner and shorten
the distance between us.. a BAD decision.! Before long I found myself on
top of a sandbar. Suddenly, my depth sounder was reading less than a meter...
and Wanderer draws a meter... and I was breaking out in a cold sweat..
The problem was that we had to leave Calais at high tide and by the time
we reached the English coast I was dealing with a low tide... Paul was
following a channel which I had deviated from and now I was in deep s___!
I held my breath as the boat slowed to a crawl...my keel was in the sand
but we were still moving...I steered back toward the channel and intensely
watched the depth sounder... gradually... gradually, we were finding
more depth... inch by inch... finally, what seemed like forever...
we slipped from the grip of the sand and found over 3 meters of water depth...
back in the channel... I could breath again... it was a very close call
with running aground! |
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Tunnels
In France
The good ship
"Wanderer" is now back in the Shepperton marina proudly displaying
a For Sale sign...so if anyone would like to acquire a great comfortable,
fully equipped canal cruiser (memory maker), to see Europe...off the beaten
track...contact me at: Rkwander@hotmail.com
and I'll make you a deal you can't pass up! I'll even throw in a sample
indoctrination cruise as your skipper. |
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| Editors
Note: Europe has a finely-meshed network of navigable waterways. It
is difficult to think of a destination in Europe that cannot be reached
by water. In addition, many adventuresome souls live on boats
and barges in Europe, in cities like Amsterdam and Paris. I asked
an associate what it would cost to tie up a barge in Paris and live there.
He replied, "It's too late to simply show up and tie up a barge or
boat and live in Paris, you have to buy an existing barge or boat that
is already moored there. Figure on between 1.7 to 3 m francs to buy. If
you've got the money, the patience, and a keen sense of esthetic
(commingled with handyman fever and a love of being interrupted for godknows
how many things), it is the finest way to live money can buy. |
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A Tale Of
Waterway Wanderings
This is a report of our 2nd summer
wandering / cruising the canals & rivers of Europe on our 38' steel
Dutch motorcruiser. My 1st year report can be found in Vol.
2, issue 5, of the archives of the Escape From America Magazine.
Last year we traveled from northern Holland through Belgium to France,
to just south of Dijon.
I flew into Paris from Seattle by
way of Toronto on an Air Canada flight. Not only did Air Canada have the
cheapest fare but they allowed me to bring my bicycle as part of my baggage
allowance at no additional cost. It was quite a struggle lugging
my bags and the bicycle from the airport into downtown Paris to catch the
metro and then the train for my trip to Dijon. From Dijon I had to catch
a commuter train for a 40 min ride to the village of St. Jean de Losne,
located at the confluence of the River Saone and the Bourgogne canal, where
I had left the boat in a marina for the winter. When I arrived at the SJdL
station, I unpacked my bike and was able to ride the remaining 2km to the
boat with my bags strapped over the rear wheel. During the winterisation
of the boat the marina staff had discovered the end of my crankshaft was
worn to an oval shape and that my bow thruster pulley had a crack
in it. I called my friend Peter Bottema, the mechanic in Holland
that had rebuilt the engine the year before, and asked if he could go down
and take a look at the boat and maybe do the repairs. Peter teaches diesel
mechanics at a college in Holland so he had to wait for a school break
in March to make the 8hr trip down to SJdL.
Locks In
England
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He determined
that it was better to replace the crankshaft than try to repair it and
we might as well replace the camshaft too...a replacement pulley &
coupling for the bow thruster assembly was needed also. So Peter had the
marina lift the engine out of the boat and he took it back to Holland in
his van where it's easier to find parts and an expert machine shop. So
when I arrived at the boat the end of May, Peter had returned with the
engine & had just finished reinstalling it. We took "Wanderer"
for a trial run up to the next lock along the Bourgogne canal. The
engine performed perfectly so we returned to the wharf & had a toast
to a successful repair with some vintage local red wine. Many foreign boat
owners use SJdL as a central base to cruise out of since the location
offers a variety of summer trips that will take you up one canal and back
on another...besides it's a good safe marina with very reasonable rates.
3km up the Saone from SJdL, just through the first lock on the canal du
Rhone au Rhin, is a winter "colony" of foreign owned barges at a British
operated moorage. I had met some of these fellow adventurers on the
canals last year as we wandered our way through France. So when I met one
of them unexpectedly in the SJdL supermarket one day, I got invited to
a BBQ they were having the following weekend. It was a great, "come as
you are", affair held under the trees along the bank of the canal with
local red wine flowing from bulk containers that were filled from bargain
barrels at the nearby wine merchant's shop. Everyone was in a mood of great
expectations for another summer of canal adventure so the air was charged
with anticipation and a need to get moving again..A lot of cruising information
was shared, past experiences related, and plans for the summer were exchanged. |
The middle
of June I took the train up to Paris to meet my teenage daughter, Stacey,
that was coming in on her flight from Seattle. The previous 2 weeks I had
been preparing "Wanderer" for departure the day after Stacey's arrival.
I had scrubbed the teak decks, the cabin & hull, even hauled the boat
out and spent 4 days scrapping, grinding, undercoating, and then applied
a new coat of tar to the bottom... a really dirty job that Iwouldn't want
to do again. Then a few trips on my bike to the supermarket to provision.
I settled my account with the marina after struggling on the phone for
4 hours with my bank in Holland for a funds transfer to the marina owner's
account Traded in my travelers checks for French francs at one of the local
agricultural banks that was offering a good rate. Visited the canal authority's
local office to obtain my 30 day cruising permit, paid the $205 fee, and
then affixed it to the right front windshield as directed. As per last
year, the days only count when you are moving, no days are assessed when
moored...so even though it took me 31 days to get up to Calais, I
had only used 23 days of actual travel time on the permit.
| I had originally
planned to cruise north up through NE France to Germany and then cross
back over into Holland and take the boat into a marina just south of Amsterdam
and list it for sale. I am a single parent, and my teenage daughter had
said this would be her last summer to come on the boat so I was being forced
into a sale...I couldn't leave her home alone and go off cruising Europe.
I couldn't find any charts or cruising guides for Germany that are written
in English so I decided the prudent thing to do was reroute.
My new plan
was to go up through NE France and Belgium taking the Meuse/Maas
into Holland. But a couple of days before leaving SJdL I bought a USA Today
and noticed that the US dollar had got so strong against the Dutch Guilder
that to sell the boat in Holland would mean at least a $10,000 loss since
I would have to sell Guilders to buy US Dollars. It was time to reconsider
again...the British pound was pretty much holding it's own against the
USD so England looked like a good destination option...but I would have
to cross the Channel...a risky deal with only one engine, no radio, and
no navigational aids. |
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With further
consideration, I became confident I could find someone to follow across
the channel that would put the risk vs. reward on balance. So I began
to plot the shortest route to the north coast of France. It was not a route
that many boaters travel because it goes through mostly rural agricultural
areas and doesn't offer much in the way of sightseeing opportunities...it
is a route the commercial bargers travel. It was day after day of farmland
and very small villages with few shops, if any...and very limited places
to moor along the way. My daughter became very bored with the trip and
wanted me to send her back home... by the time we got to Calais she had
read & reread every book on the boat. There were delays after delays
at the locks, waiting for the barges to transit...commercial barges have
priority at the locks, even if I arrived hours before they did, they were
given preferential treatment...so some days were very long with little
forward progress. Also we had to go through a number of tunnels...the longest
at 3 1/2 miles that took well over an hour behind a very slow moving stinky
barge. The highlight of the trip was revisiting the city of Reims which
not only has a great marina but a beautiful cathedral...plus ATMs and an
internet terminal in the post office...and large supermarkets to restock
provisions. While in the marina I met an english boater guy that told me
about a yachtbroker on the River Thames that specializes in selling steel
boats..so I now had a real destination! Some of the canals north of Reims
were totally covered with algae & debris from plants & trees so
my water intake/filters got plugged up from time to time and it required
shutting the engine down and taking the system apart to clear the pipes/hoses...a
real hassle.
England
It was so good
to again be in a country that speaks English...I headed for the nearest
pub so I could have a conversation with someone in English, other than
my daughter. I must say, the English were very friendly, and I had a hard
time paying for an ale. It took a few days searching the docks in Ramsgate
Harbor to find a boat going up the River Thames that I could follow to
the marina beyond London that was my destination. From my charts of the
river I could see many sandbars that needed to be avoided in the estuary
and the skipper of the boat I was to follow reassured me that they had
made this trip many times before and knew how to stay out of trouble...which
turned out to be true! I was surprised however, to see how poorly marked
the river was...the buoys/markers were difficult to find, poorly labeled
and very far apart...the rivers in Europe are much better marked. But that
is true even on land in England, where there is an amazing lack of good
road singe. We had to leave with the low tide from Ramsgate so we
could pick up the incoming tide going up the estuary. The tide turned on
us short of London so we had to put into a nearby yacht club and tie up
to one of the floating buoys out front...to continue would have been useless
since the outgoing tide was so strong we would not have made any headway.
The next day we continued upriver past London and into the marina at Shepperton.
Just beyond London proper I was stopped in the Teddington lock and
required to buy a one day license ($27) for the two hour trip up to Shepperton.
A few days later a friend from the States joined me for a trip further
upriver to Oxford. I had to buy a two week license this time ($123).
Our mission was to visit every pub within sight of the river, but it was
not long before we expanded our mission to include any pub within walking
distance. It was great fun and we met a whole world of friendly people
that welcomed us into their neighbor pubs...again it was almost impossible
to buy a beer due to the hospitality that we were shown. Sometimes we were
able to literally moor at the front door of a pub...this was very convenient
if we were shown an abundance of english hospitality. In between
pub calls, we explored the historic villages and towns, festivals, fairs,
open air farmer's markets, shops, restaurants, etc. and also did some midnight
skinny dipping in the river with new friends! We toured Windsor Castle
and roamed around Henley but were too late for the rowing events. We visited
Oxford University with it's outstanding museum, even were taught how to
play skittles in a 300 yr old pub next to the canal..so many wonderful
memories and photos to look back on..All and all, the best memories
of our wanderings on the canals are of the friendly, helpful, hospitable,
people we met along the way..now maybe I'll write a book of our adventures.
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The
good ship "Wanderer" is now back in the Shepperton marina proudly displaying
a For Sale sign...so if anyone would like to acquire a great comfortable,
fully equipped canal cruiser (memory maker), to see Europe...off the beaten
track...contact me at: Rkwander@hotmail.com
and I'll make you a deal you can't pass up! I'll even throw in a sample
indoctrination cruise as your skipper.s |
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