It has been quite a few weeks since I wrote my last blog. Today I’m catching up, sitting in our sunroom in our house in Melbourne, watching the trees bend over at extraordinary angles as they weather a strong wind storm. After a few days in Delft, which was where I left my last entry we cruised to Rotterdam, a city that we have visited on many occasions. Just to prove that we are not creatures of habit we opted to stay in the historical harbour, instead of our usual mooring at Veere Haven.

The major art museum in Rotterdam is the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum. Unfortunately this museum has been closed since 2019, for major renovations. It is scheduled to reopen in 2030, so there’s a date to put in your diary! The art collection is currently housed in the Depot, which was constructed in 2017. This is the world’s first fully accessible art depot, and the building itself is a work of art. The facade is covered in different coloured glass that reflects the natural lighting. The interior features a central staircase, with landings on each floor. This open space conveys a sense of the grand size of the collection.

Another must be visit for all you literary buffs in Rotterdam is the bookshop, Donner. With a great English book section we always manage to find a few gems to while away those leisurely hours.

Our departure from Rotterdam was delayed by bad weather, but after 4 days we were on our way to Dordrecht. Since 1987, every second weekend in September in the Netherlands is devoted to Open Monument Day, when thousands of historic buildings and sites are open to the public free. In the last 2 years we had been in Zikerzee and Willemstad on this special weekend. This year it would be Dortretch, the oldest city in Holland.

A great weekend in Dortretch and Open Monument Day is certainly one not to be missed. Making our way south we still had 2 more stops before we arrived in Antwerp. With the wind increasing we made a dash into the difficult to pronounce port of Ooltengenplaats. It is on the waterway known as the Volkerak and does boast a 19th century fort built by the French. There is a supermarket in town, but with a population of only 1500 souls there is not much else. However it did provide a safe mooring for the night

As we were in the Schelde Delta we made a detour the next day to Yerseke and oysters!

Leaving the next day, it was a 5 hour journey to Antwerp, through the commercial harbour, the second largest in Europe. Not only was there commercial traffic to deal with and a large commercial lock to navigate, but with the ongoing construction there is now a one way channel that opens to traffic on the alternate hour. Of course we arrived just after our allocated time, so we had to find somewhere to tie up. Sounds easy, but in the commercial harbour you are confronted with high dock walls and mega ship size bollards to secure the lines. But with the help of my trusty boat hook and coaching from the captain I was able to overcome these difficulties and we were finally secured. Time for lunch while we waited! So, after quite a few delays we made it to Willem Dock. We decided to stay in Antwerp for a week to wait for the arrival of our next and last visitors for the season, Margaret and Martin

There was plenty of time to reacquaint ourselves with this city and also catch up with fellow DBA members, Rudiger and Anita on their boat Zorika. Rudiger is generously organising a rally to Germany in 2027, that we have signed up for. Sounds like another blog will be brewing!

We love the city of Antwerp, however with the lock that opens out onto the Schelde closed indefinitely, it does make it a difficult destination to exit. The only exit is through the commercial lock onto the open waterway of the West Schelde. This throws up another problem or rather 2 problems, the weather and the tide. We planned to travel to Ghent when Margaret and Martin arrived. The weather would be clear, so one problem was no longer a problem. Problem number 2 was also cleared . The tide would start ebbing at 8am on our nominated day to travel. The commercial lock would open at 7am so we would only have to deal with the end of the flood once we exited onto the West Schelde, which would not be very strong. Unfortunately there was a 3rd problem. The bridge that we had to go through to exit Willem Dock opened at 6am. This did not leave us enough time to motor to the exit lock and be there by 7am. The next opening would be 9am, which would mean we would lose 2 hours of the ebbing tide. Although Antwerp is surrounded by harbours the only harbour in which leisure boats can legally moor is Willem Dock But we had a solution. The local chandler had enjoyed our patronage over the week, and agreed to allow us to moor in front of their building for the night. They even recommended a local restaurant that we should visit.

We allowed Margaret and Martin 3 days to explore Ghent before we made our way back to our winter port of Brugge

We farewelled Margaret and Martin and then started winterising our boat. The weather was turning chilly so it was time for these swallows to fly home.

Finally what did our 2025 cruising season look like. Well here are the statistics

Total Kilometers 1,598

Total Engine hours 196

Locks 41 (interestingly in 2024 there was 449 locks)

Lifting bridges 219

Ports visited 59

Fuel 1,215 litres

Guests 7

We farewelled our Joie de Vivre for 4 nights in Paris before flying home to Melbourne on 15th October. See you in 2026