Karen’s Travel Blog

I crowed a little early in boasting that all the systems on Joie de Vivre were shipshape and tickety boo. On the contrary into our third morning the sensor in the grey water tank fused resulting in a backup in the showers and sinks and a flood in the bilge. But don’t despair dear reader, the crew was on hand to deal with the clean up and after consultation with the captain the failure was diagnosed and the replacement spare part was on its way.

This enforced layover allowed for a few trips into the old centre of Brugge. As Australians trained to be crowd adverse for the past 18 months we were horrified. The town was packed with tourists, admitably non of our oriental brethren who usually pack the streets, but Europeans from each corner of the continent.

With our new sensor installed and the boat cleaned (I’m still chasing away spiders), a week since our arrival and we were finally ready to depart Coupure and adventures further afield. With a fond farewell to our harbour master Steve and his wife Nell, we headed to Ghent to have some repairs done on the heat exchanger system and the instrument panel, which was meant to be fixed a few months ago.