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The left photo is of Lorna and Tilly in June preparing mentally for the trauma of dry dock in the early summer, they are on the back deck under the new parasol with a beautiful blue sky! On the right is local English youth Chris, seeing us off with a pressure wash, Chris and Sheila managed to get to take their barge 'Mooi Aak' to dry dock and back in April when we were supposed to go with them, unfortunately work got in the way for us.
We have been working towards getting a European certificate (TRIWV) for Waterdog during the last 2 summers and the final requirement was a dry docking to have a hull thickness survey. This has been obstructed for a while by lock closures (stopping us getting there) and by Lawrence's work schedule which has been irregular enough to stop us organising our leave periods sufficiently. In July 2011 we decided to just go to dry dock even though Lawrence only had 2 weeks leave, this would be our third attempt so we didn't want to put off the booking for dry dock and the ship surveyor again. Sods law dictated that Lawrence was 2 days late home from his trip offshore which meant that we had to leave a couple of days later than intended, but otherwise things came together well.
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Lawrence's Dad, Derek, arrived, driven by cousin Brian, on the same day that Lawrence arrived home. Waterdog was mostly ready to go so we were able to cast off and go down the Sambre in the afternoon. We had planned to be dried out on this day but consoled ourselves by reasoning that we would get some nice cruising days with Derek and Brian.
The cruise down the Sambre was very nice and the only problems were with sleepy lock keepers not having the locks ready, despite the fact that we were one of the few boats to be moving on this summer Friday. They must have so little to do that they end up trying to do nothing. We steamed to Thuin for the Friday night and then Marchienne-au-Pont for the second night. Derek and Brian had never seen Waterdog on the move before so we were very happy that they could witness our chosen lifestyle and sample some French/Belgian cuisine. They also had not seen any of the changes we had made in the last 10 years!
