It was a frustrating week. Very frustrating. We had a leak in our engine water pump when we started the engine up after the long winter. The mechanic diagnosed it as a faulty seal so on Monday one was ordered. When it arrived the pump was reassembled and low and behold things were worse than before. So the mechanic thought about it and diagnosed another seal and when it arrived the pump was reinstalled. At idle there was no leak but at cruising speed it continued to leak. The mechanic thought about it some more and diagnosed a faulty drive shaft. Now hen to get one of those? Fortunately the mechanic had a similar pump to our one at his home, but unfortunately the next day was Wednesday and the boatyard was closed. So Thursday arrived (6 days after arriving at the boatyard) and in came the pump. Rather than taking the drive shaft from it, the mechanic took the impellor and new seal from our one and out it onto his pump and the pump was duly installed again. This time it worked 100%. So we lost no time and cast off to head South.
The previous 5 days had been quite wintry with a maximum of 13c and a cold North wind. The forecast was changing for sunny warm weather so off we headed through the deepest lock in Holland (12.5m or 40ft) and onto the Juliana canal.
The Juliana canal goes to Maastricht and is 100m wide, 5m deep and 50 km long. A motorway of canals. We arrived in Maastricht and tied up at our usual place in mid river by the old stone bridge. No facilities but free. After dinner we went for a walk through the old cobbled streets of the town. It was Thursday night late shopping and it was full of people sitting outside at cafes, shopping and just strolling. Maastricht is a very pretty town but having been held up for almost a week we couldn’t spare the time to stay another day. We did however goto the weekly market the next morning and
bought some lovely freshly smoked mackerel and vegetables. Then it was off to the third city of Belgium – Leige. A lovely old university city it too has lovely squares and a friendly ambience. We wandered around the streets until we were exhausted and headed back to the boat for a nice smoked mackerel fish pie.
The weather is sunny and warm and today we headed into the very picturesque part of the River Meuse to Namur. All of this route an next weeks as well we covered last year so it may sound familiar to you.
We moored under the huge citadel that towers over the town and sat outside in the warm sunshine with a g&t watching the scenery and boats. This week we head South into France on our way to Paris which will take another 20 days or so.
