Flecknoe (home two days early)

 FRIDAY 13 SEPTEMBER

With commercial traffic no longer using the canal de la Sarre, the locks are only open from 8.30 to 18.30 and, as I was only 15 minutes from the first lock of the day, there was no point leaving until soon after 8.00.  It was very misty when I first got up and I was a little concerned about whether it would lift enough before leaving; however, it started clearing while I was having breakfast, so I felt it was safe to leave.

Misty clearing

I arrived at the first lock at 8.20 so had to wait 10 minutes before the lights came on indicating it was ready for use.  By the time I was through the lock the sun had started to show itself and on the approach to Mittersheim the mist had disappeared completely.  I was accompanied by at least 50 swallows for some distance as I neared the town and wondered if I was disturbing insects as I went along. 

Sun and swallows

In the middle of Mittersheim I passed a junction with a disused canal, the Embranchement de Loudrefing, the first 100 metres or so of which are now used as a boat yard.  

Passing the junction

At the beginning of the 1800s there was a plan to build a canal linking the rivers Moselle and Saar.  Its purpose was to bring coal into France from the Saarland collieries and take French salt up to Germany in the opposite direction.  This led to the name of canal des Salines de l’Est.  The disused arm I passed was built to provide a link from Mittersheim to the planned coal/salt canal.  As it turned out the main canal was never completed as the canal I was on, the canal des Houillères de la Sarre, started taking the trade making the proposed canal financially unviable.  The canal des Houillères de la Sarre no longer carries coal (houillères) so nowadays is simply known as the canal de la Sarre.

The disused arm and the never opened canal in dotted lines

After Mittersheim I started up the 11-lock flight to the summit and the plan in my head had been to make it to the top before mooring up for the day.  I soon got into a good rhythm especially as all but one of the locks were set for me so, with no waiting while locks emptied, the ascent was much quicker than I’d anticipated.

Friendly but inquisitive dogs halfway up
The disused embranchement and the 11-lock flight

I was surprised to reach the summit by the early afternoon and moored up for lunch at an old wharf at Ferme Albeschaux.

Moored for lunch

While having lunch I decided I could probably make it most of the way to my final destination.  It wasn’t far until I would reach the canal de la Marne au Rhin where the locks have longer opening times of 7.00 to 19.30.  This would give me more chance of getting further thus leaving a shorter journey for the next day.  The canal started making its way past lakes interspersed with forests, which presented quite different vistas to the open countryside I’d been through since leaving the dry dock at Wittring.  One of the many disused sheds for the now defunct barge towing locos had a picture of the junction I would soon be reaching.  It clearly shows how the canals run through the lakes.

Picture on engine shed showing the upcoming canal junction

The first lock after joining the canal de la Marne au Rhin was the 16-metre deep Réchicourt lock and as I neared it the rain started falling.  Fortunately, it was only a drizzle, and it didn’t last long even though the skies looked threatening for some time.  I had to wait about 45 minutes for the lock to be set for me as a hire boat was coming across the lake below and the lock was already set for him.  By this time I realised I could probably reach Port Sainte Mairie by the end of the day, two days earlier than expected.  The wait gave me a chance to start getting the boat ready to be left while I returned to England.

Waiting for gate to lift at the deep lock

At about 18.30 I was entering the final lock of the journey and feeling quite pleased with myself as well as excited to be able to get back to Karen two days earlier than she thought - I hadn’t let on that this might be a possibility as I was hoping to surprise her.

Entering the final lock

We never drink anything alcoholic when driving the boat, but I made an exception in the final lock and opened a bottle of English IPA to celebrate:

I was soon moored up at Port Sainte Marie next to a lovely Swiss couple and we soon found our common language was very poor French.  We had a stilted conversation about our travels and then I started packing the car for a quick getaway in the morning.  I saw they had a St Bernard on their boat, so I explained about Buddy and they took the 25 kgs of dog food that were now no longer needed on the boat and that I didn’t really want to take back to England.

Moored at Port Sainte Marie

I remembered that Karen could see where I was through her phone so realised I wouldn’t be able to surprise her after all so I had to tell her I was coming home early: she said she was still surprised as well as pleased though.

On Friday I cruised 37.5km up 15 locks, down four and saw two boats, both hire boats.  Looking at the boat log I realised this was the longest day's cruising we’d ever done on the boat.

SATURDAY 14 SEPTEMBER

I left at 6.30 and with a couple of stops to recharge the car and stock up with wine I arrived at the Eurotunnel by 14.00 without any mishaps.  Once back in the UK, the M20, M25 and M1 were all clear so I also had an easy onward journey back to Flecknoe to complete my 500 mile journey home. 

 

Mittersheim (floating my boat)

Buddy in France in May this year...

FRIDAY 6 SEPTEMBER

This wasn’t the first time Alistair and Sabine have used the dry dock in Wittring; the first was 20 years ago and they explained how different it is now that the sides and base have been concreted.  The following picture shows what a difference the improvements have made to working conditions.

2004 and 2024

Friday was another successful day leaving just one more coat on one side to finish before we shift the boats forward on Monday.  I was also able to start getting on with prepping between the top rubbing strake and the gunwale.  A rubbing strake is a sacrificial length of steel that runs along the side of the boat and stands proud in order to take the brunt of knocks and scrapes, hence the use of the term sacrificial.  The gunwale is the top of the hull and provides a narrow walkway for us to walk along the cabin side of the boat.  The tar has been applied up to and including the rubbing strake as most of that section is constantly underwater.  The section I started prepping was originally gloss black which is usually the case on narrowboats.

Prepping underway with three rubbing strakes in view

You may have noticed in the picture above that the large chalkhill blue vinyl has started peeling at the edges – not one of my more successful jobs.  When we had our first boat we had vinyls made from images I provided and they worked perfectly, even though we applied them ourselves.  When we had the current boat built we did the same thing and the company had retained the artwork and were able to send us new vinyls which again have worked perfectly.  Over the years we’ve repainted various sections of the boat and last year it was the dark blue on the sides.  I ordered the same vinyls again and these are the ones that are peeling off.  I believe the mistake I made was to paint over the original vinyls rather than removing them first.  A new task on my job list will be to talk with the company to find out the best approach to rectify the situation.

Peeling butterfly vinyl

SATURDAY 7 SEPTEMBER

Alistair had business to do in Saarbrucken which is an hour’s drive north so I had most of the working day on my own.  This meant I was able to chat away to myself without Alistair thinking I was talking to him.  I put the last coat of tar on the remaining side and glossed the other side between the rubbing strake and the gunwales.

First coat of gloss done

One of the Germans who helped hold our lines as we positioned the boats when we went into the dry dock came by during the morning.  He gave me a bottle of orange flavoured vinaigrette that he was rather proud of.  Because of the language barrier I couldn’t quite understand the provenance other than it came from Spain.  He either made a large canister of it there or he bought it and now decants some for people he meets.  I had some on my lunchtime salad and, as well as having a great aroma, it was indeed rather good.

After packing up for the day and grabbing a shower, good friends John and Heather stopped by.  They’d been travelling around western Europe in their camper and had spent the last week in their place in the Swiss Alps. They’d fully intended reaching Wittring earlier in the day but after getting to the bottom of their mountain they realised they’d left their bikes behind.  Those of you who’ve driven or been driven up those mountains know how long it can take, so going back for their bikes added about 1½ hours to their journey.  It was great to see them and their dog Zoe and have a catch up with them over a couple of beers.  They were just leaving on the next leg of their journey when Sabine arrived from work at the start of six weeks off so we all carried on with more of the same for a while.

SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER

An anode is a lump of metal that electrolysis corrodes quicker than the steel of a narrowboat which is why they are often referred to as sacrificial anodes.  They are usually made from magnesium and fixed to the hull under the water.  Most boats have at least four, two at each end and I brought four more over from the UK to supplement the four original ones before they corrode away.  There seemed to be plenty of metal left on the old ones, which were fitted when we had the boat built in 2016, so they were left on and the new ones welded alongside.  Luckily Alistair keeps welding equipment on his boat so I didn’t have to hire someone to do the work. 

Sunday was put aside for doing the work as Sabine was now with us and she helped Alistair by holding the anodes against the hull while I was on fire watch on the inside of the boat at the point where the anodes were being fixed.  Sabine held each anode tight against the hull using long mooring pins and obviously looked away from the welding as it happened.  

Old and new anodes

As water was being let into the dock at 8am on Monday so we could move the boats forward, we had to remove everything from the bottom of the dock and store it safely.  We also worked out, that once we started floating, we needed to move forwards 1.3 metres.  Knowing this we put up markers so we would know when we were positioned correctly, and the dock could be drained again, letting the boats settle on the supports where we wanted them.

We’ve noticed that crickets keep being attracted to our boats since they've been tarred and later in the afternoon the largest I’ve ever seen landed on my boat.  I believe it was a Great Green Cricket and here it is on my hand for scale.

Great Green Cricket

MONDAY 9 SEPTEMBER

By 7.30am we were ready for VNF to arrive and start flooding the lock so we could reposition the boats to tar the bits that had been resting on the supports.  It was raining but fortunately not too hard when three VNF éclusiers arrived an hour later even though only one of them opened the gate paddle.

It took about 30 minutes before the boats started floating and we were able to move forwards the 1.3 metres that we needed to.  Once we were sure we were in the right position we gave the éclusier the thumbs up and he closed the gate paddle then opened the drain to start letting the water back out.  It took about two hours to fully empty but Alistair and I were too impatient to wait and started moving our equipment back into position once the water was deep enough to wade in.    The water was lovely and warm, so it felt better to be wading in it rather than standing around in the rain waiting for it to drain completely.

By mid-morning the rain had stopped and was replaced by the occasional sunny spell and the odd spot or two of rain every so often.  I had six sections of the underside to clean with the pressure washer before putting the tar on so it didn’t actually matter to me whether it was raining or not.

One of the sections

I was so eager to get on with the job that I started off by scraping each area while the water was still draining.

Couldn’t wait

Once I cleared the rough stuff off each section I had an early lunch to wait for the water to disappear and as soon as it had I got on with the pressure washing.  It didn’t take too long as each section was only about 1.0 x 0.5 metres. I then spent the rest of the afternoon preparing some of the left-hand side bit under the gunwales that I wanted to paint.  Unfortunately, I’d had a bit of a failure on this section a couple of years ago.  I’d run out of black gloss paint and thought I’d use some black deck paint that I had plenty of.  Deck paint has fine grains of sand mixed in it to give a bit of grip when walking on it.  It looked awful on the side so I’ve been meaning to deal with it ever since.

I tried using a wire brush mounted on a power drill and even looked, unsuccessfully, for our gas kitchen torch to see if I could burn it off.  Eventually I’ve settled on using a blow torch and scraping the layer of sand off.  It’s going to be a long job and won’t have a perfect finish, but it’ll be better than we have now.  Not only that, I can also do it whenever we’re moored against something low so it’s not something that has to be done while I’m in the dry dock.

TUESDAY 10 SEPTEMBER

I finally felt the end of the blacking was in sight as all that was left were the six small sections of the baseplate where the boat had been sat before it was moved the previous day.  Knowing I could do two coats a day, one first thing and then one later in the afternoon meant it would only take two more days and thus I could leave on Thursday.  We contacted VNF first thing and asked if they would flood the lock again to let me out and they agreed to arrive at 8.30am.

Alistair also got on with his unfinished sections on the underside of his boat while Sabine blacked one of the sides.  We had the dock booked until the end of September and as they also wanted to make a good go of repainting their cabin sides they will remain in situ until then.  I also got on with some of the other small jobs that had to be done before leaving on Thursday, such as reattaching the front and rear fenders. 

I mentioned in an earlier blog update that Buddy had been diagnosed with lung and liver cancer recently.  Sadly he started going downhill over the last few days and we said goodbye to him in the evening.  Karen drove him for one final look at the canal as he's been unable to walk the half a mile there for a couple of weeks.  As is his nature he went straight for a drink and she didn't have the heart to stop him.  Karen had me on videophone at the vets so we could say goodbye to our lovely boy together.  He was a wonderful and well-travelled dog who gave us and our family lots of happiness and we like to feel he had a very happy and fulfilled life too.

In his favourite position on the back of the boat

THURSDAY 12 SEPTEMBER

Day one of the first leg back to Flecknoe today.  I probably had four days cruising ahead of me and, if the forecast was to be believed, they would be sunny but not hot like they were when I cruised to Wittring three weeks ago.  VNF turned up dead at 8.30am and started flooding the dock for me to leave.  It was about 1½ hours before the gate was ready to be opened and I could start reversing out.

Nearly time to escape

It was an uneventful day’s cruising which was just as well really because if it had been eventful then it would probably have meant that something had gone wrong.  As can be seen here, there were clouds around but still some sun as expected:

I stopped in Sarralbe to have lunch and do a bit of shopping as I‘d run out of fruit and veg.  It was 1½ miles to the supermarket so at least I got some exercise.  It reminded me that in all the time I was in the dry dock I only went for one decent walk, the rest of the time I was just too knackered after a day working on the boat.

The supermarket was on the other side of Sarralbe and it was good to walk through the town as it brought back memories of when Karen and I followed the town trail with Buddy a few years ago.  I’m not going to flood you with sightseeing pictures as we did that when we stopped here for a few nights before and, anyway, I was on a mission.  I did take a picture of the storks’ nest on the mairie, this is the nest that has a live webcam and microphone which you can just see above and to the left of the nest in this picture.

The town trail was marked with brass plaques of a stork and I didn’t include one of these when I wrote up the trail in the blog so here’s one this time around:

Seeing a lavoir on my way to the supermarket also made me realise that this was the first I’ve seen since being here; usually we probably see an average of one a day!

Small lavoir in Sarralbe

It was good to see the Union Flag was still recognised and being flown:

Here’s all that remains of the town’s defences, one of the gateways:

Sightseers’ picture

After lunch I carried on until just before the locks closed at 6.30pm and found a lovely quiet spot to the north of Mittersheim.

Thursday night’s mooring

On Thursday I cruised 28 km up six locks, saw one hire boat and one private boat.






Wittring (life's been good to me so far)

Shiny new propeller

SUNDAY 1 SEPTEMBER

I signed off the last blog update saying I wasn’t looking forward to putting the first coat of tar on the baseplate of the boat on Sunday.  As well as being uncomfortable on my back in a cramped space I was concerned that I would get covered in the stuff.  To lead up to it I painted the remaining side first so I could defer the job as long as possible.  As it turned out, the underneath went relatively well and not only did I manage it without getting too achy, I got very little tar on me.  I hoped I hadn’t spoken too soon as I still had a further three coats to put on.

The positioning of the dry dock is very fortunate as it runs north-south.  This means one side of a boat is in the shade during the morning and one in the afternoon.  There are also tall trees next to the dock so the whole boat is in shade by 4pm. 

I had several comments on the previous update that the link I provided to the Sarralbe stork webcam isn’t working.  I have now corrected that and here it is again if you’re still interested.  Stork webcam.  

MONDAY 2 SEPTEMBER

It looked like being yet another sunny day but before we started work Alistair drove me to Sarreguemines so I could do a food shop for the week while he went to a DIY store.  We were back at the dry dock by 9am and noticed that clouds were building up and then felt a few drops of rain.  Clearly it wasn’t worth putting tar on either of the boat sides in case it started raining properly.  Instead, I got on with putting a second coat on the baseplate.  At least by putting a second coat on it meant I’d be halfway through. It started drizzling after a little while so, to keep in the dry, Alistair also started painting his baseplate.  By the time we’d both finished, the rain had stopped but there were still some clouds around so we both got on with inside jobs that needed doing.  My main task was to replace the stove glass which had cracked at the end of last year’s cruising.  Neither Karen nor I were sure how it happened so I can only assume the door had been closed on a log that was laying a little proud and didn’t budge.  Unusually for me the job went smoothly and was much quicker than I thought it would be too.

TUESDAY 3 SEPTEMBER

I started at 7am on Tuesday, a whole hour earlier than usual, because I wanted to get a second coat on the left-hand side before it was in full sun.  After that I got a third coat on the baseplate and then felt like a change of tasks.  Alistair felt the same, so we decided to clean our front and rear fenders.  Compared to when the boat’s in the water, taking fenders off in the dry dock was simple.  When in the water, it’s so easy to drop tools overboard or any of the chain links that attach the fenders to eyes on the boat.  Ironically no tools or links were dropped while we took them off.  We got the pressure washer out and gave the fenders a good clean and then removed our weed hatch covers as they needed blacking too.  We’d had to leave them in situ while cleaning the undersides of the boats otherwise the water from the washers would have flooded the engine bays.

Neat line of clean fenders

Our boat is called Chalkhill Blue and Alistair and Sabine’s is called Vector. Some people refer to ours as CHB hence the meaning on this temporary piece of graffiti.  It’s not painted but written using the pressure washer.  It did make me ponder whether it can really be called graffiti as in a short space of time it will disappear.

It’s not graffiti – honest!

While the boat is in the dry dock it sits on supports which means the part of the baseplate that rests on those supports cannot be blacked.  To fully complete the job means refloating the boat, moving it backwards or forwards a metre or two and then draining the water out so the previously unreachable sections are visible.  To do this properly the tar I've applied needs a few days to go off, otherwise it could get damaged when the boat sits back on the trestles.  Monday felt like a good day to do the job as I could get a fourth coat on the baseplate and for it to have gone off by then.  Alistair called up VNF and they agreed they would flood the dock first thing on Monday so at least it feels like we’re nearing the end.

WEDNESDAY 4 SEPTEMBER

It rained quite hard in the early hours but was just a drizzle when it was time to start work.  In order to keep dry there was nothing for it but to put the fourth and final coat on the baseplate.

Baseplate with four layers

Another major job was to replace the propeller as the current one had suffered a couple of dents that were large enough to produce some vibration when we were driving which clearly was going to end up causing some mechanical damage.   Alistair had managed to borrow a propeller puller of the right size...

 ...and it wasn’t long before it was starting to do its job.

Puller on and damaged blade at the top

The whole task was simpler than either of us expected and the new one was soon on:

Karen generally does the meal planning and cooking in our relationship which means I’m not so good at it when I’m on my own.  As well as providing a healthy diet Karen batch cooks some meals so we have a good supply in the freezers.  When I left for France she provided me with some of these meals to make my life easier on the boat.  All I had to remember to do was take a meal out of the freezer each morning so after a long day’s cruising, other than cooking some rice or pasta, there was very little food prep to do.

Karen’s so good to me that she’s even provided meal plans for while I’m over here which also includes some that can be batch cooked.  Each morning, I look at the meal planner so I can look forward to the evening meal after a day of exercise in the dock.  For example, tonight it’s roasted vegetables and salmon which I know is not a meal for batch cooking, but any leftover roasted vegetables will be used in my lunchtime salad tomorrow.  Unbelievably Karen also converts the meal plan into a shopping list to make my life even easier when going around the supermarket!  

THURSDAY 5 SEPTEMBER

With a dry day ahead I was able to get one more coat on each side while Alistair put a final coat on his baseplate.  The picture below shows the benefit of the north-south orientation of the dock.  The righthand side of Chalkhill Blue is in full sun after I painted it before it was too hot and the lefthand side of Vector is completely in the shade.  

Later on, I carried out some inside jobs such as replacing the sealant around the wood stove while Alistair did a couple of welding jobs.  I’m really pleased he has his welding equipment as I have four anodes that need welding to the hull, and he’s kindly offered to do it for me before I leave.

Wittring lock from the boat






Wittring (made it in record time)

TUESDAY 27 AUGUST

Unlike a couple of days previously when I had to replace an engine hose before leaving, there were no pressing jobs to do on the boat, so I set off straight after breakfast.  As I only had 28 kilometres and seven locks to go to reach Wittring I thought I would break the back of the journey.  The hot weather was forecast to continue so that was another good reason to leave early.  As with many French canals there are very few recognised mooring spots for pleasure boats, i.e. those equipped with bollards or mooring rings and sometimes services such as water and electricity.  This doesn’t usually bother us as we’re quite happy staying out in the sticks and away from people.  

I had toyed with the idea the previous evening of continuing down one more lock and stopping just before a hamlet called Neuweyerhoff at one of the recognised moorings.  Karen and I had stopped there before and found it was rather a good site for butterflying.  When I went past it, soon after setting off, I was rather glad I hadn’t carried on as there were tents and camper vans parked up.  Judging by the amount of fishing rods lined up along the whole length of the quay, they must have all be keen fishermen.  It would have been interesting getting them to move if I'd had wanted to tie up.

Passing the busy mooring

Mentioning butterflies, it seems that this part of France is faring much better than the UK this year.  Generally, numbers have been low in the UK and some common garden species such as the Small Tortoiseshell seem to be remarkably down on numbers. On the other hand I would say this is the best year we’ve seen in France and some locksides are almost swarming with different species including many fritillaries and hairstreaks.

The next lock was at a place called Harskirchen which, like most place names in the area, sounds very Germanic. There was actually a lock at either end of the town with a port between them. 

Part of the port at Harskirchen
The second lock at Harskirchen

The next sign of habitation was a further ten kilometres downstream at a town called Sarralbe and there was a sudden change in the landscape.  Rather than the lakes and forests of the previous two days I was now in flattish and open countryside.

Whilst cruising along this stretch I was struggling to remember what Sarralbe was like.  I’m usually pretty good at recalling places and their surroundings but, even though we’d stopped there for a couple of nights previously, I just could not bring a memory of it back.  Well, that’s not quite true as I knew we’d been rather smitten with a pair of storks nesting on top of the mairie.  Their names were Maurice and Mélodie and as storks they mate for life and return to their same nest every year.  There is a year-round webcam focussed on the nest and we often dip in and out to see how they’re doing.  But even this memory wouldn’t bring back a vision of the town mooring.  Click here for alink to the webcam if you’re interested. 

As I dropped down the second of the two locks in Sarralbe everything came flooding back and I remembered that around the corner there was a long mooring by a small park and I was soon moored up.  I decided to stop for a while to take on water, use the recycling point and then have lunch.

The mooring at Sarralbe

I’d made good progress and only had about ten kilometres left before reaching Wittring so decided to carry on during the afternoon.  The next lock was near a place called Herbitzheim and the converted lock cottage and canal service office is probably the most photographed on this canal.  The people living there are clearly very patriotic and proud of their heritage judging by some of the artefacts displayed interspersed with a fair amount of canal memorabilia.  

A little further on I passed a pill box on the famous Maginot line, a defence line built after WWI to prevent any further invasions from Germany.

Approaching Wittring I passed only the second boat of the day; a rather strange looking craft called Mississippi:

Wittring ahead

Rather than going into the dry dock first, Alistair had decided to wait for me so we could go in together and had agreed with VNF that they would open it for us on Thursday.  The dry dock was just before the lock in Wittring but as the best mooring spot was below the lock I decided to go down it and spend Wednesday there.  Regular readers will know that every so often we have to call out VNF when a lock becomes inoperable. I’d been very fortunate since leaving Port Sainte-Marie at the weekend and had not had any reason to make a phone call. Ironically when the Wittring lock had emptied, the gates wouldn’t open so I was stuck at the bottom.  As I knew Alistair was moored below the lock, I called him and he came up to try Karen’s trick of jumping on the gates but to no avail.  He called VNF from the lockside interphone and after a while an éclusier arrived to sort things out and get me on my way.

Alistair jumping on the gates

Wittring is a very quiet place and not a lot to it other than the port, the dry dock, a disproportionally large church and a large and very popular restaurant called Victoria.

Passing the port to moor in front of the restaurant

The original plan had been that Karen and Buddy would have been with me but as you know things have changed.  It would have been problematic living on the boat in the dry dock as it wouldn’t have been possible to get Buddy on and off as he hadn’t learnt to use a ladder.  Because of this we’d taken an Airbnb for four weeks in the centre of the village.  The news about Buddy had come too late for us to get a refund on the place so I decided to use it anyway.  It would have its plus sides too, not least was that it had air conditioning and I could have decent showers every day.

Once through the lock I moored up next to Alistair’s boat and we spent a happy hour or two catching up over some beers.  We called a halt before it got too late so I could find the Airbnb and settle in.  It was very close by, just the other side of the restaurant and in front of the church.

It had taken me two and a half days to get to Wittring from where I started at Port Sainte Maire, a journey of 64km and 26 locks.  When Karen and I did the journey it had taken a leisurely 11 days but we were sightseeing and going for walks on the way.

It looks like it’s going to be hot in Wittring for the next few days at least so I was looking forward to a day of rest on Wednesday before going into the dry dock and starting work in earnest.


On Tuesday I cruised 28 kilometres down seven locks and saw two boats, both private.

WEDNESDAY 28 AUGUST

I had nothing pressing to do first thing so took a walk up the hill to the east of Wittring.  First, I had to get across the canal de la Sarre at the lock then a road bridge took me over the river Sarre.  The canal eventually joins the river further north but at this point it isn’t navigable.

The river Sarre

A footpath leads up the hill via a small chapel that sits in woodland about a third of the way up.  At the start of the footpath stands a small memorial from the villagers of Wittring for being liberated during WWII:

When I reached the chapel, I had a good view over Wittring and the Sarre valley and, although the river itself is hidden by the trees, the canal is clearly visible in both directions:

Looking down on Wittring

The large building in the centre of the picture next to the canal is the restaurant in front of which Chalkhill Blue can just be seen.  My Airbnb is between the restaurant and the church so I get the full effect of the church clock chimes, although it is said that they are so loud they can be heard by everyone who lives there.  Church clock chimes are one of things we love about France.  I know English church clocks can chime too but it doesn’t seem to be as many as in France where they can be heard in nearly every village.  The chimes in Wittring are every 15 minutes which is pretty normal, but they do go through the night which is not generally the case.

Walking further on past the chapel to the top of the hill I came across a lovely wildflower meadow that was teeming with butterflies.  Even though it was only mid-morning it was already too hot for them to settle for any period of time, but I managed to get a couple of shots.  This picture is of a Small Heath which is a butterfly that’s also common in the UK:

Small Heath

The following picture is of a Pale Clouded Yellow that occasionally migrates across to England.  In this picture it looks more like the more common Clouded Yellow but that’s because the sun is shining through it giving it that bright custard yellow appearance rather than its true pale lemon yellow.

Pale Clouded Yellow

I came back down the hill by a different route and once at the bottom I came across another of the pill boxes that sat on the Maginot line.

The old and the new

After lunch we breasted up our boats and went up the lock so we could moor outside the dry dock as VNF were getting it ready for us at 8.00am on Thursday.

Waiting for the lock to open

Steel piling is being delivered to the yard next to the dry dock and four or five lorries arrive from the Czech Republic each day to be unloaded.  It’s not an easy place for a foreign lorry driver to find and Alistair told me that on more than one occasion he’s had to explain where to go to drivers who appeared lost.  They don’t seem to dare to drive through the narrow street in the village so sit on the canal bridge checking their instructions. Once we’d moored up we joined a group of guys who seemed to have something to do with the crane that was unloading the lorries.  Alistair’s French and German is better than mine and his German must be better than his French as the guys immediately switched from French to German.  We’ve noticed this strange switching of languages at border areas before and I suppose it’s quite natural to be brought up fluently in two languages.  

We popped into the dry dock to have a last look around and check the poles that had been placed to show us where to position the boats.  We also put in some mooring pins along the sides to help us hold position as the water drains out.

Ready for us to go in

The ‘2024 Mosella’ painted at the end was done by the guy who had his péniche called Mosella in for blacking over the last couple of weeks.  Alistair had got friendly with him and has borrowed his high-pressure washer and a fireman’s water pump and hoses meaning we won’t have to pay a visit to a hire shop.  The name Mosella rang a bell with me and when Alistair told me that his name was Thilo I realised that Karen and I already knew him.  We’d met him when we were in Saarbrücken and he even showed us around his 38-metre péniche that he was in the middle of converting from a working boat at the time.  

We were having a beer to cool down before going our separate ways when yet another lorry appeared and was clearly lost as he turned into the restaurant car park.  We went over to help him and found the driver was a Russian driving a Polish lorry with yet more steel piling from the Czech Republic. He knew no German, French or English, but mind you we didn’t know any Russian either.   With the help of Google translate we convinced him that he should follow us down to where he would need to park by the growing piles of piling and wait until the crane people arrived in the morning.

On Wednesday I cruised 200 metres up one lock and, not surprisingly, passed no boats.

THURSDAY 29 AUGUST

As promised, a couple of VNF guys started filling the dry dock lock at 8am, although why it required two of them I don’t know.  It took about an hour to fill and I was surprised it was quite so long but I suppose it’s large enough to take a couple of 38-metre péniches with plenty of working room around and between them.   

Water starting to come in
Once it was full, one of the VNF éclusiers opened the gate using a good old windlass.  Although they’re a common sight in the UK and every boater has two if not more, they’re hardly ever used over here because most locks are electronic.

Using a windlass to open the gate
Whilst the dock was filling Alistair and I had got our boats in position ready to go in.  We’d measured out the trestles we’d be resting on and worked out we needed to be five metres apart so we tied our boats together with five metres slack.  The aim was to have four people help us position the boats; two on either side, front and back.  With us tied together it would be as if we were one boat and make things easier.

Going in
Four guys came up from the port to take our lines and after a bit of shouting and manoeuvring we believed we were in the right spot and one of the VNF guys opened the drain hole so we would start going down.  The water was so dirty that we couldn’t see the trestles, so we kept using our boat poles to feel for them to make sure we were still on target. 

Nearly empty
As the water drains it runs in a pipe under the canal and then into the river Sarre on the other side.  With such a small bore pipe it was no wonder it took just over three hours to drain.

Drain hole
Once the water was quite shallow, we were able to guide any trapped fish towards the drain hole and the final few I caught in our fishing net to help them on their way.  After a quick lunch we set up the pressure washer and by the time we’d had enough for the day we’d each cleaned a side of our boats.

Before and after the initial clean
I’m not sure where we picked up mussels on our boat but we seemed to have accumulated rather a lot over the last year or so.  Every few months I’ve scraped them off the sides using a kayak paddle but obviously I couldn’t get underneath.

Looks like a bit of work to do on the bottom
Even though it was another hot day approaching the mid-30s we were able to get quite a bit done, helped by the fact that the tall trees at the side of the dock gave us some shade from about 4pm.

Can’t believe I was wearing a white tee shirt!

FRIDAY 30 AUGUST

I broke the back of the pressure washing on Wednesday and for once was glad it was yet another hot day.  Laying under the boat covered in water while clearing the underside was almost a pleasant way to keep cool.  I used Alistair’s car creeper which made the process simpler and less uncomfortable.  By the end of the day I’d finished one side and the underneath and was starting to feel I was making progress.

SATURDAY 31 AUGUST

Most of the morning was spent pressure washing the remaining side and also the rope fenders.  We’ve had the rope side fenders for about 15 years and they were looking very tired with years of lock slime and mud caked into them.

Rejuvenated fenders
Making a start on cleaning the final side

The last job before lunch and starting to put the blacking on was to clean the bottom of the dry dock.  It had got very mucky over the last couple of days and we wanted to get it clear before painting.  Not only that, there were thousands of mussels that needed clearing away otherwise they would start smelling as they went off.

We'd borrowed an industrial pressure washer and fireman’s hoses with a massive water pump.  We put the water pump in the canal and we took turns to alternate between using the hose and the washer to clear the dock.  We had to keep swapping between the hose and the washer because the hose was so bulky and heavy – I’ve now got a lot of respect for firemen.  After lunch I put the first coat of blacking on one side of the boat and Alistair did one side of his too.

Coming on

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow because when I've put a coat on the other side I'll have to get the first coat on the underside which is likely to be a messy job.