Mittersheim (heading for the dock)

Sunrise on the canal de la Sarre

It’s nearly three months since I last updated the blog and that’s due to having a longer than usual summer break in England.  What with the birth of our seventh grandchild and holidays the time has flown by and it’s now time to fulfil our long standing commitment to black the boat.  Narrowboats should have their bottoms cleaned and repainted every three to five years and many people use bitumen as the covering, hence the term blacking. Two years ago, we booked a dry dock for this purpose at a place called Wittring on the river Sarre which is by the German border.  The booking is for September this year and we're sharing the dock with Alistair and Sabine’s narrowboat.  They’ve used the dry dock previously to black their boat, so we’ll have plenty of experience on hand to guide us as we’ve never done the job ourselves.  In England we always used a boat yard to black our boats, but it costs at least four times as much to have the job done in France, hence one of the reasons to do the work ourselves.

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 70^th 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.

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.

Not sure what Duncan’s carrying here

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.   

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Leaving Diane-Chapelle on Monday morning

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.

Pull pole at lock 1

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.

Brand new dispenser

I was surprised again when my allotted door opened, and I took out a télécommande that was unlike anything I’d seen before.  It was the first one I’d come across with a screen, sound and a charger.  There were eight languages to choose from and I soon found out that many different messages appeared during the lock operation together with a loud bong announcing each new message.  I must admit that after a few locks I was a bit fed up with the bonging.

Futuristic télécommande and charger

I couldn’t help thinking about the cost of requisitioning and installing the new system especially as very little commercial traffic uses the canal.  I lost count of the different messages and I even got to trying to force new ones.  They included: welcome to such and such a lock, request received, please await next instruction, prepare to transit the lock, please enter the chamber, start lockage, and cycle complete please exit the chamber.  It tickled me that whatever language I chose the final message was always, ‘Bon voyage’!

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:

Moored for lunch between écluses 9 & 10

Some of the lock cottages I passed are still inhabited and must be wonderful places to live as they tended to be very remote.  On this canal they used to have stabling and accommodation out the back but many have been converted to living quarters.  Some cottages were sadly abandoned and ripe for renovation.  This one had even had the stable converted at some point so you can see how big they are compared with normal lock cottages:

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.

The first two trees by the water are the ones Karen harvested

Thinking of memories, I was reminded of several great walks Karen, Buddy and I had on and around this canal.  Sadly, Buddy won’t be doing them any longer and I have to admit that, as well as missing Karen, I’m finding many things that make me realise Buddy isn’t on the boat either.  For example, if I’m having a snack while driving and I drop a crumb or two, Buddy is there immediately to hoover them up.  It’s also odd getting up in the night as we older folk do, only to find silence and no Buddy wagging his tail at thought it may be time to get up.

I went straight through Mittersheim, preferring to get on and also to moor out in the countryside.

Passing Mittersheim port

Approaching the fourteenth lock of the day which was just after the port at Mittersheim, I got the following message on the télécommande:

Lock out of service

The lock lights were working correctly though, so I ignored the message rather than immediately calling out VNF.  Sure enough the lock started filling and although the ‘out of service’ message kept flashing up I got through with no problems.  I moored up for the day a couple of kilometres after the subsequent lock in such a quiet and peaceful location that the phone signal was very intermittent.

Moored somewhere north of Mittersheim

On Monday I cruised 20 kilometres up 15 locks and saw three hire boats and one private boat.  To put things in perspective it took me and Karen a week to do the journey I did today!