Journey's End

Well, our cruising "quest" for the season has been reached--we moored in Maasbracht on Tuesday, August 31. The shipyard that was our destination in Maasbracht--Tinneman's Floating Solutions--has us moored to a very secure floating "dock", an 80 m x 8.2 m 1205-ton commercial barge whose owners are currently on vacation.

We're moored just downstream from the last lock
we passed through on the Juliana Canal, rafting on a barge
4 times our length. It's really good exercise just
making the trek to go ashore. 

As we are now in the Netherlands, the Meuse River has become the Maas River, and has lent its name to the two Dutch towns we have stopped in.

While we feel very secure here, and we are even able to plug into power onshore, we are exposed to all manner of boats passing us by on the canal. After all, Maasbracht is the largest inland port in the Netherlands. The wake created by the passing boats sometimes has us bobbing up and down a little more than we would like. It's not usually the 110-meter or 135-meter behemoths that give us the most problems, it's the small pleasure cruisers that plow the most water and create the biggest waves.

It's boat-watcher heaven. This bad boy is 135 meters long and
15 meters wide, yet his wake is negligible. These commercial barges
are often a family affair. The living quarters in the rear look quite nice
(at least from the outside) and it's usual to see a car on deck that can
be hoisted ashore.

Today is finally sunny and warm, but the days we spent in Maastricht were not quite so summery. Still, we found Maastricht to be a lovely small city. It's a university town at the southern tip of the Netherlands whose history as a settlement goes back at least to the Roman era and possibly earlier. It was an important trade, manufacturing, and cultural center in the Middle Ages; a fortified city in the 16th to 18th centuries; and an industrial center in the 19th century. It has, at various times, been under the control of the Spanish, the Dutch, the French, and finally, the Dutch again (since the 1830's).

Our mooring (at left) in the old port on the fringe of the
historic center. As in Huy, an interesting pivot was needed 
to position ourselves for the exit.

The port was full of panhandlers who had no shame in
approaching us for a handout.

It was very busy in the historic center of the city on Saturday, August 28, and Sunday showed every indication that it would get busy in the afternoon. Between open air markets, shopping (lots of stores), and cafes, the pedestrians were out in force.

The outdoor eating area of this café was packed on Saturday. When we walked
by on Sunday (late morning), it was getting prepped for crowds.

What was interesting for us to note was that--unlike in France and Belgium--the use of face masks as a covid preventive measure was not much in evidence. In the Netherlands face masks are not required to be used in public buildings indoors. Honestly, this did--and still does--make us a bit uncomfortable because of what we have been reading about the spread of the Delta variant. We have to take a covid test before we can board our plane back to the U.S. on September 12 and, vaccination status notwithstanding, we are trying to minimize our risk of infection as much as possible. So we cut our sightseeing short on Saturday and resumed it on Sunday morning when it was less crowded in town.

It looks like a fortress, but it's one of the oldest
churches in the Netherlands. The Basilica of Our 
Lady was built before 1000 AD, with several
parts (nave and Romanesque choir) dating
to the 12th century.

The Gothic Church of St John, dating
back to the 14th century. 

There are still quite a few remnants of the old city fortifications.

Wall built in 1229 as part of the first medieval 
city wall.

Lon at the Helpoort gate, the oldest city gate in the Netherlands.

Lunch on Sunday was at this small cafe in the shadow of
the Pater Vincktoren and portions of the first and second
city walls.

We crossed the historic 13th century Sint Servaasbrug.

On the side of the Maas opposite the historic center, a portion
of the Sint Servaasbrug has been removed to install a lift bridge
to accommodate commercial boat traffic.

A great-looking combination of buildings. The building with the red
 lighting is a 1786 guardhouse repurposed for commercial uses, 
and behind it, the eastern aspect of the Basilica of Our Lady. 

Proof that you sometimes have to look down, not just
up. This was a commemorative metal plaque in the sidewalk
in front of the house pictured below:
"Here lived Marcelle Antoinette Devries, born 1906,
Murdered 8/31/1942 Auschwitz".

When we left Maastricht on August 31, we passed into the Juliana Canal. Named after Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, it provides a bypass for an unnavigable section of the Meuse/Maas River.

Soon after leaving Maastricht, we passed into the Juliana Canal.
We passed under this floodgate, which can be dropped in times of
flooding to mitigate high water from the Maas.

Since our arrival in  Maasbracht on August 31 we've met from time to time with various reps from the shipyard--the owner gave us a tour the evening of the 31st, and we met with an electrician on Sept. 1 and with the interior carpentry expert today. Other than some evening walks and a trip to the supermarket, we haven't done a whole lot of exploration of the town or the surrounding area. Hopefully, that will change over the next few days. We have to wait until Tuesday, September 7, to speak with someone about installing a bimini on the boat, so we will be in Maasbracht until at least Wednesday the 8th. We're already prepping the boat for potential work to be done, but will not have made any firm decisions about scope of work (exterior painting, galley reconfiguration, etc.) by the time we leave. We will use the next few days to continue our end-of-season cleaning, but we're also going to break out the bicycles and make our way to some of the neighboring villages.

And what could be more appropriate for the end-of-cruising-season than to give a few statistics.

This shows, in red, the route we covered this summer. Auxonne
is the red flag at the bottom, Maasbracht the green flag at the top.
The yellow flags are waypoints to make sure the route is correct.

And here we are, at the topographical low point of the season.
From an emotional standpoint we are riding high and thrilled to be here.

961 kilometers (577 miles), 297 locks, 215 engine hours. Whew!!!!