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| Sunrise on the canal de la Sarre |
At the beginning of July our family dog, Buddy, was diagnosed with liver and lung cancer which has sadly turned his and our world upside down. As far as boating is concerned it means he can no longer go to the boat as, although he would be allowed into France because he doesn’t have to have a health check on the way out, he wouldn’t be allowed to return as he needs to be declared as fit for travel by a French vet. Notwithstanding that it wouldn’t be fair on him to undertake the journey there. This means that I’ve come out on my own to get the boat to Wittring, do the blacking and then take the boat to Port Sainte Marie where she’ll stay until we return sometime in 2025.
On a happier note, it’s my 70th birthday at the end of October and my present from Karen, which she gave me a couple of years ago, was a Victorian post box manufactured in 1873. We kept it in a storage unit along with our other household effects until we moved to Flecknoe last year where we stored it in the garage while deciding on the best spot to place it in the garden. During the summer we had the top half of our garden re-designed and asked the garden designer to make it a focal point of the new part of the garden. We enlisted Neal Hallam, one of six Neils in our village even if spelt incorrectly, to carry out the build once I’d sourced the bricks from a local reclamation yard.
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| Neal hard at it |
I was lucky enough to secure an old pier cap from the same
yard and as it was so heavy they had to use a forklift to put it in the back of
our car. It then took four of us to lift
it out and place it on top of the finished pillar.
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| Not sure what Duncan’s carrying here |
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| We were extremely pleased with the end result |
We had the dry dock booked for the whole of September so
had planned on going out in the last week or two of August to move the boat to
Wittring. Once we got the news about
Buddy, we soon realised I’d be going out to France on my own, so a bit of
rescheduling was required especially after hearing from Alistair that the dry
dock was ready for us 10 days early.
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| Dry dock ready for our boats |
There was no way I could get out earlier as we had a family
holiday during the month but agreed with Alistair that he should go in as soon
as he could. This wasn’t a problem
because it meant that when I arrived, the dock would have to be reflooded to
let me in and Alistair could move his boat slightly so he could prepare and
black the bottom bits that had been sitting on the trestles.
I left for the boat on the Saturday of the bank holiday
weekend in the pouring rain; we usually leave in the early hours but for a
change I left it until 6.30am. Although
the shuttles were nearly all fully booked, they were handling the holiday volumes
well and my train crossed dead on time.
The sun was out and there was no sign of rain when I arrived on the
other side and before heading off on the 325 mile journey south east I stopped
at a supermarket to recharge the car while doing some food shopping. I had lunch and recharged again at our French
‘home’ town of Chalons-en-Champagne and then a final recharge as I went through
Metz by which time the temperature had reached 33 degrees. I still had plenty of miles left in the car
but I wanted to have a fullish tank
when I arrived at the port where the boat was. The charging
stations were as we expect in France: plenty of points, quiet, quick and
cheap.
It was nine o’clock French time when I arrived at the boat which, as happens when left for a while, had been sabotaged by spiders. Webs were strung out everywhere and for some reason it’s always my turn to go through them first when we arrive. Other than unpacking food stuffs from the car I took it easy and had an early night.
SUNDAY 25 AUGUST
The morning was spent emptying the car and getting the boat
ready for cruising to Wittring and I set off just before midday. My plan for the day was to get up the
remaining four locks that I’ll be going through on the canal de la Marne au
Rhin until turning north up the canal de la Sarre which is where Wittring is. It was going to be interesting as I’ve only
single handed in France when going down locks as the operation is a lot simpler
going down compared with up. Single
handing uphill in the UK is relatively straightforward but for various reasons,
French locks are not suited for narrowboats and need a different approach with
the lines. I’ve never had to worry about
it as Karen has always done the ropework but now I’ll just have to manage. In summary I will have to go into locks very
slowly then get on the roof at the front where I’ll hook a line over a bollard
using a long pole. Once secure I’ll have
to get back to the rear to do my normal engine control duties.
All went well at the first lock until I started coming out
and found four hire boats all over the place with nowhere for me to get
through. I waited while they sorted
themselves out and then carried on to the second lock. Without Karen’s experience I cocked this one
up and as I tried to loop my line over a bollard it fell off my pole and into
the water. Of course, the boat carried
on drifting slowly forward, so I had to get back to the engine end and manoeuvre
it back to the bollard and all went well at the second attempt. There were a couple of young cats watching on
in bemusement and I was rather glad Buddy wasn’t with us as he would have been
very interested in them.
The third lock went well but a hire boater decided to lose control as I left the lock, and I had to stop and wait for him and his crew to sort themselves out.
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| That’s not the way to do it. |
Fellow boaters David and Wendy, whom we last met on the river Meuse, were also waiting to come
down the lock, so I eased up for a quick chat as I went past them. They’d seen the antics on the hire boat and had
already decided they wouldn’t share the lock with them.
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| David and Wendy on Otium |
I had one lock left and this was a deep one at 16 metres
and is operated by a VNF éclusier. I’d
heard that some éclusiers insist on having at least two people on a boat for
this lock, so I was hoping the éclusier on duty wasn’t one of them. This part of Alsace is covered in forests and
large lakes, but most of the lakes cannot be seen as the canal runs through
them with high banks. The lake before
the deep lock is a little different as boats sail across it.
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| Heading across a lake to the deep lock |
I had to wait about 20 minutes before the lock was ready
and had already planned my approach.
Having been through before I knew it was quite benign as it fills from underneath and at both ends which prevents boats being tossed around. I also knew there were floating bollards on
one side and vertical slidey poles on the other but I couldn’t remember which side was
which. Fortunately, Alistair had been
through recently so had made a note for me.
I went for the pole option which I found a little difficult at first because I couldn't see a way of getting my line around it without falling in. With two of us we use two slidey poles, one at each end of the boat, and can position the boat so we can get a line around one at a time. I was putting a centre line around which meant being on the roof which is further away from the side. I didn't think that such a short difference in distance would have such an impact but I finally managed. The lock filled in just under 30
minutes with no mishaps and just a friendly greeting from the éclusier when I
got to the top. As I had no more locks before leaving this canal I handed in the télécommande that I'd been using to operate the locks.
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| In the deep lock |
The deep lock was built in the 1960s and replaced a flight
of six locks, the remains of which Karen and I explored previously. Once at the top I was at the summit of the
canal and moored up for lunch. I have to admit that Karen said she was really envious when I sent her this picture of the mooring.
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| Moored for lunch at Réchicourt |
It was a great spot for butterflies and I could see many nectaring
together including at least two species of fritillary. There were also a couple of maps, the only
European butterfly with seasonal dimporphism which is where the spring brood
has completely different colouring to the summer brood.
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| Summer brood map by the boat |
A few kilometres further on I was approaching the junction where
I’d be turning left. Straight on eventually
meets the Rhine at Strasbourg which we visited three years ago. The German
Black Mountains the other side of Strasbourg could be seen quite clearly.
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| At the junction |
The canal de la Sarre was originally called the canal des Houillères
de la Sarre and was built to transport German coal (houillères) into France. It doesn’t carry coal boats anymore but Karen
and I were surprised to see boats being loaded with coal in Germany when we
went there on our way to Luxembourg a while back. The canal follows the Sarre valley and joins the river not far from the German border where it takes on the German name, Saar, and eventually joins the Mosel as the Moselle is called in Germany. Modern kilometre marks have been installed along the canal but some of
the original stone markers are still in situ and fortunately not been removed.
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| One kilometre down the canal |
I moored up for the night about a kilometre short of the
first lock and soon realised I’d moored under a walnut tree which would hide
the morning sun from the solars, so I untied the boat and started the engine
again. No sooner had I done that than I
heard an alarm going off and feared that an engine hose had split. I quickly turned off the engine and pulled
the boat to a better spot. I was tying
it up again when I felt ants were covering my feet and crawling up my legs. Fortunately, they weren’t biting me but not
wanting them all over the boat I pulled it forward to a third mooring spot where
all was ok. I checked the engine hoses
and found a small split in a feeder hose from the header tank. This was the second hose to go this year and fortunately I’d
bought some extra lengths in the UK and had brought them over. This meant I’d be working on the boat in the
morning rather than getting on towards Wittring.
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| Sunday night’s mooring at Diane-Capelle |
On Sunday I cruised 15.5km up four locks saw six hire boats
and one private boat.
MONDAY 26 AUGUST
It wasn’t long before I was approaching the first lock on
the canal where I remembered from last time that I would have to pick up a
télécommande from a rudimentary dispenser.
I summoned the lock by pulling down on a pole hanging over the water;
quite unusual really as most have to be twisted.
Once in the lock I went to get a télécommande and to my
surprise there was a brand new dispenser on the lock side. It was all rather futuristic rather like an
Amazon locker but with a larger screen and also a speaker telephone if there were
problems using the machine.
I couldn’t leave until I replaced the split engine hose so,
after a quick breakfast, I got on with it.
Although I had spare hose, a friend had suggested that if there’ enough
free play on the existing hose I could cut it down and reconnect it. This I duly did and was quite pleased with myself. I let the engine run for a while before I got
going and when I checked all was ok a while later I saw the same hose was also
spraying out water at the other end.
There was nothing for it but to start again and put a complete new
section of hose on which seemed to do the job so I set off under another cloudless
day that promised to be hot again.
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| Leaving Diane-Chapelle on Monday morning |
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| Pull pole at lock 1 |
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| Brand new dispenser |
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| Futuristic télécommande and charger |
After yesterday’s journey through the lakes that couldn’t
be seen because of the high banks, today’s was more to my liking and had plenty of views of the water and
woodland.
By the time I was ready for lunch I’d been down nine locks
without a hitch other than having to wait three times for boats on their way up
that had just called the lock before me. As usual there were plenty of telltale signs
of the days when barges were towed by electric locomotives including many
engine sheds. Normally the sheds are
wide enough to have two sets of tracks side by side but I did pass my first
ever single width shed:
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| Moored for lunch between écluses 9 & 10 |
Regular readers will know that Karen is mad keen on
harvesting walnuts, whether unripe ones for pickling or ripe ones later in the
year. Unlike nearly all other canals we’ve
been on in France this one seems to be bereft of walnut trees, normally lock
cottages have at least one tree. I
moored near one last night and didn’t see any more until reaching Mittersheim
later in the day. I remember that Karen
harvested many from two of the trees just outside the village.
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| The first two trees by the water are the ones Karen harvested |
I went straight through Mittersheim, preferring to get on
and also to moor out in the countryside.
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| Passing Mittersheim port |
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| Lock out of service |
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| Moored somewhere north of Mittersheim |