THAT'S IT WITH NAVIGATION FOR 2018

It's been a great and interesting year with more kilometres of canal/river and locks than ever before. The statistics are:

Kilometres of waterways - 1659

Number of locks - 275

Number of lifting/turning bridges - 121 including 4 sea locks

Number of tunnels - 8

The magnitude of the statistics are in a large part going from Strasbourg to the DBA Rally in Gent. Over 1000km as detailed in a previous blog post. After that we have been exploring Flandres and Wallonie. On our last day of navigation the weather was dire with torrential rain and violent gusts of wind. Fortunately we only had one lock so Margaret only had to brave the elements once.

Margaret on a particularly filthy day, our last this year, in Sint-Joris lock, Nieuwport.

We are now in our winter mooring which this year is Diksmuide in Belgium south of Bruges and Gent. This year has also been one of our most social with both meeting new people at the rally and navigating with other barges. All good fun.

Soraya is all good with all systems functioning well. I invested in a new bit of kit called a Victron Colour Controller GX. Whilst the name is rather bizarre the equipment is amazing. Basically it collects all the electrical information about Soraya's electrical system - battery levels, imputs by solar, engine, shore power, generator, usage, voltages, wattages etc. and displays them in a very user friendly manner so at a glance you know what all the equipment is doing. At the press of a button graphs are produced showing usage, electrical production and all manner of technical detail some of which I have yet to fully understand. The best part is that it links to the internet and displays all the data on my mobile phone wherever I am. You can even change and set up parameters from your mobile from anywhere. It's great. It might drive Margaret mad me constantly checking Soraya's wellbeing whilst back in Bath!

Dashboard with new CCGX, it's the colourful panel in the centre.

We'll leave you with this one. We've been doing this barging stuff for a few years now and in the Musée Des Beaux-Arts de Tornai we came across a painting, or is it a photograph?

Possibly Margaret and Geoff by Edouard Manet - Argenteuill 1874.

Hopefully this won't be us in a few years time but who knows? Not sure about Margaret's dress and hat, equally not sure about what I am asking? All good fun in Europe on a Péniche.