Friday, 26th June
Chris wasn’t too well in the night, so our sleep was a bit broken. However, it didn’t stop us getting up and underway by 9 am. We found we were travelling in company with Bob and Joke on their boat, Estime. Once away from Gouda’s bridges and lock we made good progress to Dordrecht, with just one long wait at the bridge at Alblasserdam. There were no obvious waiting places here, but we followed Estime and another boat into a place where we could moor up to wait. As there were only two spaces, Bob and Joke held back to let us moor on the pontoon and they then rafted on to us and came aboard for a very pleasant English cuppa and chat. Bob then showed us some of the photos he had taken of Seaduction and later in the marina at Dordrecht he would share them with Chris electronically.
We kept an eye on the time as we didn’t want to miss the bridge’s opening. Once through the bridge we motored on until we reached the small marina in Dordrecht where we would be staying the night. We had a short wait for the small bridge to be raised letting us into the marina and then the Harbour Master directed us to our spot for the night. The marina was quite compact and Chris did really well in turning the boat round and getting her into her space on the first attempt without too much fuss. Once settled, we visited the facilities for a nice hot shower, although the actual cubicles were the smallest we have showered in on our trip.
We took a short walk and sat in the sunshine with an ice cream. On our return to the boat, Carole cooked a nice chilli (Chris was impressed) and we sat on deck with dinner and a drink listening to the Mexican restaurant’s music for appropriate atmosphere. Unfortunately, when bedtime came, the restaurant was in full party mood and this, added to the creaking of our lines from the wash coming in from the main river, meant a very unsettled night’s sleep, to say the least.
We were told a few days ago that the large Dordrecht Brug would be closed for urgent maintenance on Sunday and will not open until Monday at 08:00. The Harbour Master did not know anything about this so he checked with the bridge which they confirmed, so only one night here.