Aliens and Blues

We're still in Belgium, spending a few nights in Blankenberge which is next door to Zeebrugge.

Leaving Nieuwpoort - note motoring cone, the use of which is enforced in these parts 

Blankenberge is a large yachting harbour which regularly silts up and requires annual dredging to maintain a reasonable depth. Naturally it is being dredged during our stay!

On entry, we had to negotiate the ship in the channel (see below) which is presumably being fed silt from the working dredger via the long line of floating pipework shown in the second picture.

Receiving ship, which presumably takes the silt off and dumps it at sea

Floating pipeline from dredger.

You can go between yellow floats, so presumably the pipe is weighted down at that point. We didn't know that on arrival, of course, so were pleased to be overtaken by another boat and to follow that in!

Working dredger. To RYA students, all those black balls and red lights must mean don't pass on any side!

A stroll around the town revealed little of particular interest other than some aliens.

Aliens

Blankenberge seems typical of the Belgian coast from what we've seen; huge expanses of sandy beach dominated by massive, multi-storey apartment blocks. No doubt the latter are great when you're inside looking out!

Blankenberge beach

We managed to find some live music to entertain us after dinner on Saturday and Jo made friends with the very, very drunk lead guitarist of the band (he didn't get a note wrong that I could tell though).....

Phill Jupitus 2nd from right? 

......as evidenced by the dedication on our souvenir CD below!

For "Yo" (Jo presumably) with love

We expect to move on on Tuesday when, weather permitting, we'll head north to Scheveningen in the Netherlands.