Sunday 30th - Monday 31st May 2004 Veelerveen to Nieuweschans.

Sunday 30th May 2004 Veelerveen.

10.5° C overnight - getting warmer! Sunny again. After lunch Mike watched the F1 Grand Prix racing from Nurburgring in Germany. Schumacher won, Button third. Bill had been having problems with his Sterling inverter overheating, so Mike went next door to have a look at it. They took it apart, all seemed to be OK. They checked the fans, it had been getting hot and cut out. I did some more crochet and started reading a book (loaned by Bill) called “the Pursuit of Oblivion” a social history of drugs. First time for years that I’ve needed a dictionary to read a book written in English. Adumbrage? Solipsist? Uh?

Monday 31st May 2004 Veelerveen to Nieuweschans.

12.9° C and raining when we got up. Refilled the water tank and set off in the drizzle at 9.30 a.m. I walked down to Veendijksbrug and lifted it. Bill went on to get the lock ready at Vreischeloostersluis. He tied up on the left and couldn’t find the key slot. It was almost at the end of the wooden fendering between the lock and the weir, almost inaccessible from the bank! We pulled alongside and I stood on our bow and turned the key in the slot to set the lock. Down the lock, a modern concrete one, round a bend and past a windmill on to a long straight. The rain stopped. We went under a fixed bridge, past the turning on to the

Veendiep. picture by Gouwenar

Veendiep (the route we came down) and continued along the reopened section of the B.L. Tijdenskanaal. Bill stopped to operate Leidijksburg lift bridge and was having trouble with it. Mike brought our boat alongside Rosy and I went to assist. A bunch of local fishermen were offering assistance and managed to get the bridge to lift, I didn’t see how as there were people everywhere, laughing and joking and offering a clog to Bill as he took Rosy through. I said I’d lower the bridge. In the meantime a cruiser had caught us up and went through the bridge too. Mike picked me up (then I’d got both keys! ours and Bill’s) and we went through to the next bridge. The people off the cruiser had lifted Lethebrug and we all went through. Bill went on and tied up by Wymeersterbrug, a busy road bridge, but he had no key to work it. Mike dropped me off at a wooden staging and I went up to the bridge with both keys. We’d got loads of helpers again. Two guys in a car (at least they spoke English - the fishermen at the other bridge didn’t) had come to see the boats. I quickly read the instructions (in Dutch only) on the board, then I tried the button marked “doorvart”, which did nothing (the previous ones had just switched the lights on for the boats) and then “sluitend” which also did nothing. Then the bloke from the car said he’d seen someone come through earlier and he pressed the two buttons together and the barriers went down and the bridge lifted! I gave Bill his key back as he went through the bridge. The cruiser went past and off into the distance (what 6 kph speed limit?). We could see behind us there was another cruiser coming through the previous liftbridge. I lowered the bridge and got back on the boat. The navigation went through a section with no roads on the banks, not even tracks, just grazing sheep. A car had arrived at the next bridge, Booneschanskerbrug, and the driver had got out and lifted the bridge for Bill, who was some distance in front of us, then shut it again after he’d gone through. The young man lifted the bridge again for us. We thanked him, but he spoke no English, and he asked if we had a key. He stayed there and operated the bridge for the two cruisers who were following us. We turned right at the junction with the Westerwoldse Aa and the two cruisers, which had now caught us up, also followed us towards Nieuweschans. The cruiser, which had opened a

Railway at Nieuweschans - photo by Geohack

bridge for us earlier, was coming towards us - they must have been into Nieuwschans and turned round. They went off along Westerwoldsee Aa in the direction of Winschoten. Under the busy A7 motorway (which takes traffic into Germany). The motorway lifting span had an air draught of over 4m, so the cruisers followed us through, but the next bridge was a wooden, Llangollen-style lifting bridge, carrying a foot- and cycle-path, with 2.5m headroom – so they turned round and also went off towards Winschoten. We moored next to a roof-high wooden staging with two old rusty steel boats moored at one end. We had lunch, then Mike started revamping the switching device that he had made ages ago. It turned off the inverter that powered the video and satellite receiver, so that after recording things at night or when we were away from the boat it conserved the 12v power. He had decided to leave the car where it was at Veelerveen. According to our new Deel 2 almanak, the railway bridge in Nieuweschans was supposed to be closed, as it was a Bank Holiday, but during the afternoon several cruisers appeared from that direction (while it was pouring down with rain and we were both in the middle of jobs) stooged around for a while and then the crews tied on the ends of the wooden staging and left their boats there. We must have been tied up in their preferred mooring places! I made chop suey with rice noodles for dinner.