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| Mooring at Jutphaas |
Pouring with rain all of the day. Intended just to go into
Utrecht, so we had a late start at ten. The cruiser moored behind us winded and
headed back towards Nieuwegein, another untied and followed us. We waited for
the remotely-operated Nieuwe Rijnhuizerbrug to lift and the red and green
lights to change to green. The cruiser behind us started hooting at us because
we didn’t start moving when the lights were on red and green. He got a few
words back from Oll.
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| Blauwebrug Jutphaas |
The next bridge, Blauwebrug (a new one and not on our old
ANWB chart, also remotely operated) lifted and the cruiser roared
past, then had to wait while Zuidersluis refilled as another boat had just gone
down. When the lock was ready we followed him into the chamber and I held the
rope while Mike went on our fore end and had a few words with the skipper. He
maintained that in the Netherlands they always go on red/green so as not to
hinder the road traffic any longer than necessary. Mike pointed out that some
of the bridges don’t safely “latch” in the
upright position until the deck is vertical and THEN the green light comes on;
so should there be an hydraulic failure and the bridge comes down on your boat
your insurance wouldn’t pay out if you “jumped” the lights.
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| Amsterdam-Rijn kanaal |
(If the lights are
“jumped” in France the automatics will sometimes fail to work correctly, in
Belgium and Germany the skipper could be liable to a fine.) The lady lock keeper left the top end controls and as
she passed us Mike asked her the rules and she said you must wait for a green
light. Then she had words with the skipper off the cruiser, but in Dutch so
Mike didn’t understand it all. When the lock emptied, the cruiser shot off and
turned left heading up the Amsterdam-Rijn Kanaal; we went carefully to the
junction to make sure nothing was coming and nipped across to the Nordersluizen
where the smaller chamber on the left was empty, ready for us.
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| Lock keeper's shelter. Noordersluizen |
The keeper was
very pleasant, even though the rain continued to bucket down and after swilling
about a bit from the wash of passing traffic on the big canal behind us
everything calmed down once he’d closed the bottom end gates behind us. We were
soon leaving the lock and on our way again. Down the arm to the left of the two
locks there were now moored houseboats. A short wait for the new remotely
operated vertical liftbridge to operate and then we were on our way into
Utrecht. A 5 kms stretch of the Merwede Kanal went off to our left, past
industrial quays on its way to rejoin the Amesterdam-Rijn Kanaal as we headed
into the city.
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| Vertical liftbridge above Noorder sluis |
There was a keeper to operate Zuiderbrug, as usual (we thought
the three liftbridges into the town may have been automated) and I told him we
would stay on the left beyond his bridge – he said we couldn’t stay there, it
wasn’t allowed and we must carry on into the town. Mike decided to stop and go
back to have a word with him. Before our ropes were round the bollards the keeper
arrived on a motor scooter to insist we moved on into the (pay) Passantenhaven,
as we hadn’t got a mooring permit so we couldn’t stay even though there was
plenty of space.
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| Tangling with hired canoes in Utrecht's tiny canal |
Mike offered him beer to let us stay overnight, but he said he
wasn’t allowed to drink and refused. He reached for his mobile phone and we
suspect he would have called the police. Nothing for it, we continued. Followed
the Snail into the city under two more liftbridges, Oranjebrug and Vondelbrug
then through the narrow winding canal between the shops and cafés in the city
centre, passing the cathedral and getting tangled up with hired canoes and
plastic motor boats, then two trip boats and hire boats before we arrived at
the Weerdsluis. Closed for lunch as it had just gone midday, until 1 pm. I made
some lunch.
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| Leaving Weerdsluis. Utrecht |
We had to wait after one o’clock for about another half an hour
while the keeper and his assistants worked the big, manually-operated lock and
brought three cruisers up, one of which was a Le Boat hireboat. I asked the
keeper if the lock was originally two chambers side by side - he said no and he
would tell me more about it later (he didn’t so the odd shape still remains a
mystery). Two more keepers went off on motor scooters to work the electrically
operated liftbridges. The last one wished us a good trip on the beautiful river
Vecht. I said we’d been before but had trouble finding moorings. He said three
miles and there was a good mooring for us.
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| Utrecht's red light district. R. Vecht |
We pushed on in the pouring rain,
past the floating wooden sheds that were Utrect’s red light district (twice the
number that we saw the previous time), then more houseboats and moored boats.
We spotted a three-day mooring on some steigers (wooden posts) with a gap to
the bank that would need a very long plank. The Snail had a look at that and we
went to have a look at some posts we could see in the distance before the next
liftbridge in Oud-Zuilen. The latter was a better mooring but we were on the
bottom and not close to the bank. The Snail came to join us and was also on the
bottom, we kept our fingers crossed that no one would come to collect money
(they didn’t and we were still amazed that the Werdsluis was now free). We were
soaked.
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