Finished with channels

Just outside Saint Mihiel we approached a residential area. When we got very close, some children waved at us and shouted:

-Where are you from ?

We pointed to the stern flag and shouted 'Danois', after which children and adults hugged and patted us.

Late in the afternoon we waved at the pontoon bridge at the town. As usual we were the only boat.

It was cold and raining. Nice to sit down for shelter in the heat from the electric heater we had bought in Maastricht.

The next morning we fell talking with a man who walked by. He told us that he had a boat almost like ours, wanted us a good trip to the Mediterranean and gave us a few tips on the trip. 

After 4 hours we devoured the pontoon bridge at Commercy. On the opposite side a minirodder piled down at the water's edge. Its appearance perfectly suited the description Thue had given us to Ondatra Zibethicus or the bisamrot, as it is a little less exotic in Danish. Whether it was a sump beaver or beaver we had seen at Verdun is still uncertain. (BigFoot as one of the readers of this blog has very imaginatively suggested may be well omitted, at least for this time).

The next day it was 8.maj. In France, it is the anniversary of the end of 2. World War. All stores were closed. Flowers and wreaths were laid on the memorials and the town was left in a dormant state.

It was still cold and rained. We took a business day in Commercy. It was cold and we let the heat be on all day. In the afternoon, two boats breathed. While we talked to the skipper on one, we saw a bishop's arrows again. This time on our wide in a suspicious short distance from Heron.

The next day we woke up to sun from a cloudless sky. It had gotten warmer and the weather forecast promised over 20 degrees during the afternoon. 

We had laid an ambitious sailing plan - 17 locks and a tunnel of 686 meters in one day.

When we had worn our way through the first 6 locks, we reached the tunnel. We headed with nice speed into the dark hole. Although we could see the light at both ends, it soon became pitch dark around us. The chart plotter dazzled and we lost sense of the distance to the tunnel walls. We slowed down. We should not have done that. For now we were overtaken by our own stern wave. When it hit us, Heron swerved to starboard and slammed twice into the railing. There were some ugly noises. They could only mean that freeboard and search rails had gotten a few proper scratches. With difficulty we found the projector in the dark. Pia groped out on the front deck, shone alternately on the starboard and port wall and guided us with the messages "starboard", "port" and "stay the course" in safety and daylight.

Well out, or just to say outside, we sailed for 11 locks into Toul Harbor.

Toul is a cozy town and one of the focal points of the French canal system. There we stayed a few days and enjoyed that summer had finally come to France. In one case we found and tried one of the family restaurants you read about in the food reviews, where the man is in the kitchen and the wife serves. The food was simple and delicious, the atmosphere cozy and we became involved in the conversations between guests and family as much as our French skills allowed it. 

The day before we were to leave, we were visited by Søren Lænkholm and his wife Anne-Grete, who were on their way home by car from their house in the south of France. It was Søren we had met by chance in Travemünde, when he was about to end a 4-month trip on the canals in his boat "Havhesten", which also has its home port in Humlebæk Harbor.

Nice with a (sorry expression) French visit and getting laughed and spoken through.

When we left Toul we came to the Moselle. The river is lovely wide, has good depth, a beautiful nature and after just 24 kilometers it meets the Canal des Vosges.

Canal des Vosges, built in the 1880s, is 124 kilometer long, has 93 locks and connects Saône with Moselle. The highest point of the channel is 340 meters above sea level. From here the water flows towards the Mediterranean Sea. The canal is narrow and winds through a landscape with soft hills, villages, fields, meadows and forests. On the relatively short distance, cities with new residential areas are passing through prosperity and prosperity. A few kilometers after, villages that pass away with dull and abandoned houses pass the opposite.

With so many locks on such a short stretch, the date is stated neither in kilometers nor miles, but in the number of locks traversed.

After 21 uphill locks, we reached the tired city of Charmes. For once, we were not the only boat. Now there were no vacancies on the short dock.

... hmmm

We hauled an English boat and were allowed to lay outside. But as we got closer, we hit the soft mud bottom. We could not lie there. There was also nowhere else we could moor between the two locks.

The only option was to try if we could find a better depth without on one of the other boats.

We slowly approached a French boat and came straight to it without touching the bottom. There was nobody on the boat. We breathed gently, moored and put the cockpit tent up. Then we were in shelter for the rain that had fallen into the buzz that had lasted most of the afternoon.

We were about to go ashore to get shore power when a middle-aged couple boarded. They looked at us angrily and scribbled a few sentences we did not understand. We explained to them that we had to lie outside on them because it was too low everywhere else. They were not more lenient by that. They suspiciously examined our moorings and fenders and then disappeared down the shelter, while occasionally scowling at us.

We regretted that we had not followed the advice to use the winter to learn French. Maybe the couple had explained to us that we had broken some unwritten rule. Maybe they had not understood why we had chosen to lay outside on their particular boat. Not good to know and a little angry with a neighbor who was so furious that we found it wise not to even try to go over their boat, to get ashore. Actually a bit of a shame because after Charmes there were 4 day trips ahead of us before we could refill water and get shore power. 

During the night, the couple underwent a metamorphosis. The next morning they had become kindness themselves - to such an extent that it bordered on the fiddle.

The man explained to an imaginative blend of German and French about the next 3 days route, filling us with water just with their water hose and telling us about the weather forecast that he had taken for us while the wife eagerly appointed a storker and helped the moorings .

When we left us, they waved as if we were old friends, not to be seen for a long time.

After 30 upwards locks we reached after the 2 days peak on the Canal des Vosges. On the last part we walked up to 14 locks, which are so close that we sailed from one lock right into the other. At the top, the canal is even narrower and the landscape almost as in an adventure. We passed the large water reservoir at Bouzey, which is used to regulate the water level in the canal. Not far from there we found a cozy sleeping area and celebrated that we had reached another milestone on our journey to the Mediterranean.

After 42 locks on 2 day trips we reached the town of Corre, located between the Canal des Vosges and Saône. In front of us are the two great rivers Saône and Rhône, which we will sail alongstream until we reach the Mediterranean Sea.

So now we have finished sailing on channels.