Thursday 29th April 2004 Viannen to Utrecht.

View down the arm at Viannen. (Picture from Sep 2005)

Grey and overcast, colder and windy after a mild 12° C overnight. Refilled the water tank and Mike took the cheque we’d done for the VNF to post it (23 Eu to pay for our trip through the St Quentin tunnel) while Bill filled up. Winded and set off at 9.40 a.m. pausing at the junction with the main canal then followed an empty 50m called Wilhelmein into the Grote sluis Viannen and dropped down 1.5m on to the tidal Lek (the northern branch of the Rhine). We followed the commercial out of the lock. He turned right, heading upriver and we went directly across the river to the Merwede Kanal. We sat on the steigers below Koninginnensluis and Mike climbed the ladder and went to see the keeper, as there were two red lights showing on the lock. It was 10.30 a.m. The keeper said OK at 11 a.m. he didn’t speak any English, so Mike couldn’t find out why we had to wait - there was enough water over the sill - the electronic board said 1.7m. 

In the Grote Sluis (Picture from Sep 2005) 

Traffic on the Lek was busy and the water was very choppy from their wash. Two cruisers arrived and joined us. The skipper off the larger boat, called Quo Vadis, went up to see the keeper. 11.30 and still no signs of the lock being worked. Then one red light went off and a green one joined it. The outer flood gates opened and the lock started to empty. Then another red light came on, so now we’d got two reds and a green - we’d never seen that before! The lock was empty, but the gates didn’t open. The man on Quo Vadis got on his ‘phone. He’d already untied when he’d seen the lights change to red/green and had been hovering in the middle. He turned round and went off back towards the Lek indicating that the lock was broken. We untied and followed suit, heading for the Prinses Beatrixsluis on the Lek Kanaal which leads on to the Amsterdam-Rijn Kanaal. The other smaller cruiser, called Caprice, came with us, but Quo Vadis remained hovering in the middle of the river. A lockful had just entered the left hand chamber and the gate had dropped behind them, so we went to wait on the right hand side behind a loaded petrol tanker ship. Rosy came alongside while we waited. A couple of boats came out of the lock and then we followed the tanker into the lock, 

The Lek (Picture from Sep 2005)

Bill went alongside it and almost down to the far end gates before he stopped (where he’d been directed by the keeper). We stayed at the back of the chamber, as did the cruiser. The lock dropped us down about 75 cms, then Bill was out first to get out of the way of the tanker and the other boats heading for the lock. An 80m empty called Copain, a small tug called Ara and a loaded French 85m (1235 tonnes) boat called Phocea from St Pol-sur-Mer were all heading for the lock as we left it and a small sailing botter called Bree 14 was racing to get in with them. Rosy was way off in front. The canal was bouncy from all the traffic as was the Amsterdam-Rijn Kanaal. I made a sandwich for lunch and we had just enough time to eat it before we came to the junction with the Merwede Kanaal (where we should have been going straight across if we’d managed to get through Koninginnensluis) and we turned right for the Noordersluis. A commercial had just come out from the canal and turned on to the ARK heading north. 

The Lek (Picture from Sep 2005)

A hireboat! (Cor, when did we last see one of those??) A small pénichette, called Woerden from Loosdrechtseplaassen, came from the left and joined us to bob around in the wash of passing traffic while the keeper got the small lock ready for us. Needless to say the hireboat got in the way, right in front of our bows, then went into the lock following Bill and the keeper was frantically trying to get them to keep right (they did eventually) while we hung on the left wall behind Rosy. We rose about half a metre, then all went out together and under the vertical lift bridge after a couple of cruisers had cleared it. A large derelict factory had Draadindustrie written in bricks on the walls, (a wire works). A couple of rowing skiffs were in the middle beyond the motorway bridge, but they soon moved out of the way. We went straight on for the Vaartse Rijn, following the hireboat. It tied up just before the first liftbridge, Zuiderbrug. The keeper let us through and we went on past lots of moored boats while the keeper cycled up to let us through Oranjebrug and Vondelbrug. There was a cruiser turning round beyond the last liftbridge, he was having trouble with the wind, the keeper let him through first,  then us. As we went through the bridge we told him we were going to do a circuit of the city and come back. We turned right into the easterly route around the city of Utrecht called the Stadsbuiten Gracht, the lowest route with arched bridges having only 1.9m headroom. The moped’s handlebars were 1.87m above the water. Took the mast down and the red ensign’s mast off the tiller. We went very carefully and slowly around the very sharp bends as we followed the old ramparts. Turned left when we came to the Oude Gracht and went back south through the city centre on the route with triple arched (but much higher, 3.5m) bridges. 

Vartse Rijn leading into Utrecht (Picture from Sep 2005)

The trip boat we’d followed round the eastern route (he’d entered it just a few minutes before us) had already tied up and disembarked all his passengers - what 4.5 kph speed limit! The shops were decorating their frontages with orange garlands and festooning great bunches of orange or red, white and blue balloons around their windows ready for tomorrow’s holiday, the Queen’s birthday. There were lots of people about and the cafés and coffee shops were doing a good trade even though the weather wasn’t too brilliant. As we waited for Vondelbrug to lift again, a council workboat went past us, he was low enough to get under all the bridges. We waited at Oranjebrug for the bridge to lift. There was a small Dutch barge and a large hire boat coming in the opposite direction, but the keeper let us through first. We told him what we were going to do, stay there overnight and start again at 9 a.m. next day after he’d told us said the bridges were working the next day. We moored between Oranjebrug and Zuiderbrug, opposite some new houses on the far bank and a road backed by new flats on the side we’d tied to. It was 4.00 p.m. Mike and I unloaded the moped and he went off at 4.30 p.m. to retrieve the car from Viannen, he was back at 6 p.m. There were lots of small boats running up and down the canal all evening.