Day out in Bruges

A non-sea day today, with pretty much the whole WOA crew on a trip to Bruges - by coach, as it was worth it with 32 of us.

Last time Sam & I went to Bruges was before we were married, when we met my sister Lucilla to bring some of her possessions home after she lived in Germany for a year. Bruges hasn't changed much but it has an awful lot of cobbles, which are uncomfortable for anyone sitting in a wheelchair and very hard work for anyone pushing - mostly the heroic Ben, in our case. We had a two-hour guided tour, which was interesting although the guide was quite hard to hear, then lunch at a little restaurant up a side street which somehow managed to attract at least a dozen WOA crew, a wander around some shops and then coffee plus outrageously vast waffles for Ben and Sam, then back to the boat.

Tomorrow we head into the Kanaal door Walcheren and up to Middelburg. We have done this a number of times before and never realised there is a thing called a "blue wave" - if you turn up at the right time, all the bridges are opened for you. However, to get there for the last blue wave means pushing the tide for around three hours from Zeebrugge to Vlissingen, and we are quite sure we would rather spend less time in the horrible  North Sea even if we spend more time in the canal waiting for bridges. So we will not be pushing the tide but will be leaving at 1300 and hoping the forecast 1.2m waves with a 5sec gap between them will not actually materialise.