7th May 2020 – My initial plan was to move her tomorrow, but  I was already thinking of moving her this evening. Just do it by myself. At the start of the Covid period I even had a plan of moving her at night.

I arrived at five o’clock in the evening, filled up the fuel tank, started the engine and unloaded my van.  I had some tools with me, but very limited. The spare battery was still on Tordino and I had no generator.  I had all the official equipment with me like lifejackets and some spare oil. A VHF, paperwork and my own documents were aboard the Watergeus. This was the first time I started a journey so badly prepared. It reminded me of the time when we moved boats with Andy.

A friend wanted to join, so I called to check if he was available and he arrived one hour later. We left Ghent at 18h30 and arrived in Beernem around 21h30. A nice trip, nearly no boats, a lovely sunset and most of all: a good running engine!  

In the old diary of the ship, they mentioned overheating of the engine. We started slowly but reved up the engine until we got a proper speed of 10km’s an hour. It was the first time I wasn’t nervous during a journey with one of my own ships.