Bethune

Left Calais mooring at 7am to go through sea lock at high tide and enter the canal system. An other lock and 5 swing bridges later we left the Calais canal and entered the River Aa which links with a series of canals known as the grand gabarit. This is used by commercial traffic between France and Belgium and we met our first (suitably named) big barge.

 

Moored at Watten for a couple of nights to recover.












Flanders Lock near St. Omer, a little larger than we were used to on the Thames.

Fontinettes Boat lift at Arques, no longer in use, instead we go through a very big lock!

Moored up this evening by Bethune. It was very windy and we were grateful for the help of two burley fishermen.