2nd March 2008 – The big day, people from Ghent and Bruges came to visit our ships, have a good meal and mainly to talk about the future of the organization and how to negotiate with the government. I learned to know a few new people, they even convinced me to move my ship in September to Ghent. I’m not sure yet, but we’ll see.
23th February 2008 – I decided not to work. Not only am I still very exhausted from the last couple of weeks, I wanted to make some time to visit all of my friends from Sluiskil, not just the skipper of my barge but also my old neighbours and a few other friends.
One of them had redone his interior, another one had dry-docked his barge. There was a lot to talk about since the last time.
22nd February 2008 – In the afternoon, I had some time left, I decided to make a walk in Ghent to see some barges and how they were changed. It had been some time since I made just a big walk through Ghent. It was becoming dark and cloudy, so I didn’t take a single picture.
19th February 2008
11th February 2008 – In the late afternoon I visited a spits barge in Ghent, not just a spits, but one with a very special engine, an ABC (Anglo Belge Corporation). These engines were very rare in these type of barges. The new owners, a young couple are converting the ship into a youth hostel. I was impressed of the size they made out of the cargo hold by just cleaning and painting the whole space. The back accommodation, still contains traces of the oldest accommodation in the back under the deck and the later built upper structure. They still have a lot of work, but as they mentioned it is always interesting to meet other boat owners and to learn. So did they, so did I!
29th January 2008 – My first of ten theoretical lessons to get my sailing license started. It was more or less for yachts, still I learned a lot of new methods and ideas I would never have thought on.
27th January 2008 – After a long time, I decided to go to Terneuzen and picture every ship that was moored in the harbour. Since the fences around the old water supply ships were gone, I had a perfect opportunity to take pictures of the Viking and Schelde, fleet mates of the Watergeus!
20th January 2008 – This evening we had a meeting about the future of our moorings and our vision to the situation. Just see it as an occasion to get drunk cheaply…
13th January 2008 – I visited Andy in Terneuzen who is converting an old tug. Once it was a tug, then a yacht and now he is making it look more original again. It was in dry-dock so I had plenty of time to take pictures of the hull and the other ships in the area.
23th December 2007 – It was less cold this night, but there was some ice on the canal, mainly because there was no wind. I went for a walk to take some pictures for the project Binnenvaarttaal.nl. Since there will be a New Year’s reception in February in Bruges for the Flemish house boat Society, I need some photos for a small exhibition as well.
In the afternoon I continued putting line oil on the roof in the cargo hold of the Watergeus. It goes quicker then expected. Only I don’t know yet what to do with the cement stuff on the side of the ship.
17th December 2007 – As an annual tradition every year I go to London to meet some people over there who have a house boat. The Brentford area is very interesting. Not only do I know most barges over there, it has a wide variation of vessels, a small yard and some (floating) relics.
I visited an old coastal ferry that was converted into a houseboat. I was surprised of the space there was aboard and the way the man managed to create a nice accommodation. Furthermore, I went to the Libra, a shortened Kempenaar. While helping the owner with a few smaller jobs, I decided to take a few detail shoots of a London Thames lighter and how it was build.
14th December 2007 – It was a month since I last went to Sluiskil, so I decided to have a go. The intention was to go and help repairing an engine for a friend of mine who recently bought a ship. In Sluiskil, we had some issues with the custom services, since my friend was driving a British car. This caused us some time. I helped for one hour on the engine and then decided to visit some friends, take a couple of pictures and drink a lot of beer.
Before I realized it was dark!
Tomorrow we are moving an Amsterdammer from the scrapyard to Terneuzen to restore it. So we made some plans and arrangements on how this will be done, since the ship has no engine.
9th December 2007 – There was a meeting with all the people of the house boats in the dock. What I found interesting was to meet the new people who bought one of the original remaining sleepspitsen from Baasrode, a well known yard for spits barges in Belgium.
25th November 2007 – Not always working, so enjoying my new office and writing some articles for the website binnenvaarttaal.nl.
In the morning I went taking pictures of a spits barge that used to be at the scrapyard, but came back to Bruges. I wrote about this ship a few months ago as well…
4th November 2007 – I paid a visit to Sluiskil in the late afternoon and discovered a lot has changed. The local government has towed away a few vessels to scrap yards. Every ship that has no paperwork and causing a risk to environment needs to go.