Row, Row, Row Your Boat

On Sunday May 19th we were to continue our grand adventure bright and early.  The heater in the pilot house decided that 5:30 am would be even better than 7:30.  For the next hour it banged and clanged no matter how many times Tom got up to adjust it.  It's 7:30 and time to start the engine.  Wilco went into the engine room to check the engine and discovered we need oil!  It's Sunday!  Nothing is open on Sunday.  Tom and I walked over to the fuel dock which we were told opens at 10 am on Sundays.  The very grumpy Dutchman couldn't understand why he was working for us when we were too stupid to carry oil on board.  He doesn't sell anything but fuel on Sunday.  I looked so sad he decided to help us out.  Only problem was he carried the wrong type of oil.  So we waited.  One of Wilco's men found a place in a larger town that sells oil for old engines like ours.  Once we got the oil then we took off again.  We had a 5 hour delay that morning.  

Tom and I were able to take a nice walk.  Heusen was a charming little town with a marina full of shiny, beautiful, sometimes large, and expensive power boats.  The cheese shop was open so we bought more cheese.

100 year old Chalik's sailing on the Maas River.  They are a beautiful sight.

Mike and Dave sailed with us for a day trying to get the systems working properly in the new pilot house. Wilco has his phone in one hand.  That's Mike working on the electronics.

Another view of our pilot house looking forward.  We carry a car on board.

Here I am enjoying tea in our new pilot house.  Check out the container ship behind me.  We need to figure out tables.  It is so beautiful and open that we find ourselves taking all our meals up there.  We have wonderful views and are still protected from the elements.

Heusden, The Netherlands.  A charming town geared towards boaters and tourism  They don't even have a bank in the town.

When we were about to exit a lock these Germans couldn't start their engine. We towed them out of the lock and found them a place to tie up.  They thanked us with a couple bottles of German beer which we enjoyed.

Little did we know that the favor would be returned.  May 21st 8:30 pm while cruising along the Meuse and fighting a tremendous current for 13 hours, all of a sudden we had no steering!!!  We had lost our 24 V power.  The normally unflappable Captain Wilco was very upset as were we.  Tom was steering at the time and was able to maneuver Rabelo to a wall.  Unfortunately there was nothing for us to tie up.  The current was taking us back down towards the bridge we had just gone under.  Tom told Wilco to drop the anchor which he did immediately.  Wilco called for help and the Dutchesse (a fuel barge) came along side and tied up to us.  They were ready to tow us to a safe place.  Unfortunately, Wilco couldn't get the anchor up.  After working hard in the engine room he managed to get power to the windlass and raise the anchor.  They then towed us to a wall where we tied up for the rest of the evening.

We thanked our heroes with two bottles of champagne. 

On our walk we found fields of dandelions.

We are now in Namur, Belgium.  After all the excitement of the last few days with 14-15 hours of cruising daily we decided this is a good place to stop.  We sent Wilco home for some much needed rest.  How much rest he will get I don't know. With our starter batteries fried and in his car, he needs to figure out what went wrong, fix the problem, and make sure it doesn't happen again.

We will meet our first guests here in Namur and then travel on to France.

Be patient when you write to us as we don't always have wi-fi and replies may be a while.