Dry Gullies Epinal to Nomexy

The Port Capitaine knocked on our window last night and told us that the harbour was to be closed  from tomorrow because there was no water, and if we wanted to leave then this morning would be a good time to do just that.

We had noticed the campervans circling like vultures over a dying carcass, but hadn't realised they were waiting for our parking spot until that very moment.   They would have to wait, we had things to do at the bank.

Deeply engaged as we were in discussing exactly what we would buy from the bakery for morning tea before we departed, we joined the queue in the bank and settled in for our wait.    Eventually with hearts in throats because the technical nature of the discussion we were about to have was far beyond our abilities in the language stakes, it was our turn.

I laid our bank details and identification documents on the counter and contemporaneously launched into my well rehearsed apology for our inadequacies in the area of communication.   The bank chap politely butted in, throwing me entirely off my game.
"Credit Agricole" he said, reciting the name of our bank clearly set out on the letterhead before launching in to a short but undecipherable tirade, while tapping on my documents.

"Yes, that's right" I replied, expecting some resistance as, after all that is what happens in banks.

He then repeated his whole diatribe, and again I ignored him and pressed on with my enquiry.

Everyone except us has a story about how hard it is to get assistance when one doesn't speak the local language.   We had escaped to date, but now it was our turn.  Clearly I had a tough one here.
He seemed a bit perplexed, although not at all frustrated, and said something that sounded like  "No you are here" pointing as he did to the wall behind us.

"Well yes I know I am here"  I replied, not completely certain of where the conversation was heading, although at that precise moment a rather large light bulb deep within my brain switched itself on.

We were standing in the chambers of a bank whose name sounded very much like the French word for "here", not actually the one we had intended to be in.  Engrossed in thoughts of morning tea, we had actually wandered in to a bank almost a city block from the one we sought, an establishment very much in competition with our own.  Much laughter, heart felt apology and slapping of backs later, we shook hands with the long suffering banker, no doubt no longer feeling any benefit from his day off yesterday, and departed for the correct address, where we had even less success with obtaining assistance.

It was time to retreat we thought, before the canal became as dry a gully as the one's we'd been running up all morning. The water by that time was so low that our exit was about as close to off-roading as one can get in a boat, but after several hours we were again in safe water and ready to resume our travels.

On the Bank Epinal

I had to face facts, no matter how much I told myself it might be ok if I just let things settle for a bit,  the black goo that filled the hydrometer when I checked the battery charge confirmed that this one particular battery was broken, as they say in the construction industry, with a capital "F".

Fortunately it is just one of a pair which serve to keep our lights and pumps running, and of course the refrigerator when we have no shore power, so we do not have a crisis of any great magnitude.       Without going into a long discourse on what makes a battery a battery, it is suffice to say that light, pump and refrigerator batteries have different characteristics to the ones we use to start combustion engines.

Therefore before heading off in search of someone who could help, I spent some time ensuring that I had the correct terminology in my head, and in the event that it left my head even fleetingly, written in large letters on a piece of paper held securely in my pocket,.

Incredibly perhaps, my efforts at communication were entirely successful, which meant that following each "no, sorry, (shrug)" I received in response to my enquiries, I was able to elicit from the shrugee  directions successively from tyre company to auto accessory shop to  anywhere within walking distance of the preceding place having established as I went that each of them stocked only the wrong type of battery, and no it's not possible to order one in.

In a way I can't say that I was unhappy, because as each new direction was given as to where I may find one of the wretched things, I found myself being lured further and further from the boat  like a child being lured into the forest by the smell of fresh gingerbread perhaps, and I must admit I began to be wary of the prospect of lugging thirty or so kilograms of battery across Epinal, arriving splashed in acid with arms dragged from their sockets. 

As that wariness grew into fear, I sensibly abandoned my pursuit of a battery and set off for the bank in order to settle the small matter of payment for our new bicycles.

But how quickly we forget.

Today is Monday, the day that bankers reserve for anything but banking.  It's like a Sunday really in their eyes, so with that in mind we became bankers for a day and went for a long walk through the ruins  of the Chateau, drank cool drinks in the shade of a tree, and wondered what anyone that didn't work in a bank was doing.

Two Scoops Epinal

When we woke this morning, we were in Epinal which is quite fortuitous under the circumstances, as that is exactly where we were when we went to sleep, albeit after spending a rather long night with Clara and Remco who during the course of it seemed recover completely from their earlier angst, none of us able to work out how we actually managed to arrive when we did.

We should have been stuck in no-man's land two thirds of the way down the hill, but we weren't, we were lying in a nice port watching the colours dance around the water, wondering why we can never devise a plan that is capable of remaining intact for more than two days.

We like it here.

Perhaps we can find a battery.  Even better, perhaps we can find someone helpful in a bank who will assist us to pay for the bikes before their imminent arrival.

Perhaps we can stay for a while, but it's Sunday and there's no point working on a new plan today.

Perhaps we will look at that tomorrow.

Going Down Ecluse 15 to Epinal

If the wrinkles on it were symmetrical I may have had an entirely furrowed brow last night, as I calculated and recalculated our chances of actually getting to the top of the hill in time to make it through the chain of fourteen locks down in one day.  It's the sort of stuff that's cloaked in futility, a schedule like that is a bundle of  frustration waiting to be unleashed, but I calculated and recalculated anyway, bravely pretending that I wouldn't look at it on the morn.

If everything was to go perfectly our way, a contradiction in terms when one is referring to French Canals, I calculated that we might actually get to the top of the downward chain exactly three minutes too late to make it to the bottom.  I wondered what our chances would be of picking up a valuable three or four kilometres on the run to Toul.

The first two hours of the day were encouraging to the point of causing excitement, we'd actually picked up almost ninety seconds, if we could do that for the next two hours we'd be there!

That is exactly when we caught up with the Dutch couple in the large cruiser, and they were not a pair of happy campers.   It would seem that a couple hailing from a country best known for its efficiency, had simply refused to allow them into the lock, closed the gates and departed, leaving them (and for that matter us) with a dozen or so locks in an automatic chain, completely out of synchronisation, and in need of a good deal of work by the lock keepers on route just to keep us heading in direction forwards.   We thought about our shattered plan, and took solace in the fact that it didn't seem to be anywhere near as disastrous as their shattered plan, and got on with enjoying our day together at least until we got to the top of the hill when we lost sight of them in their haste to make up for lost time in the ten kilometres of lock-free canal before the descent.

The descent is a chain of locks, each separated by at most a hundred metres, and timing being what it is, our new Dutch friends found themselves separated from their nemesis by exactly one lock, and we followed them by the exact same distance, through the miracle of automated technology, none of us able to move closer or further away.

In the meantime, through circumstance that were completely inexplicable, after a somewhat tension filled last hour, we managed to enter the last lock in the chain at exactly one minute to six, to be met at the bottom by the now smiling faces of Remco and Clara.

We'd had enough excitement to last a week.

We had arrived in Epinal, it was time to change our plan.

Another day in the office Ecluse 38 to Ecluse 15 (Thillots)

Another day in the office.

We came up with a plan overnight.  Due to an overwhelming number of plans failing to come to fruition, we haven't done that in a while, but despite the little warning buzzer in the back of my head we did it anyway.

The plan was simple.  We'd put the "pedal to the metal" and spend the next four days travelling from nine in the morning to six at night, the business hours of the locks on this stretch of canal, and by Tuesday we'd be in Toul, where we'd meet Dave and Ria.   We wouldn't linger anywhere on the way, we'd simply make notes to follow on our return next year.

We were in the first lock at six minutes past nine, a disappointing effort in light of the fact that we had actually moored at it's very gate, and for the first hour or two our plan went swimmingly.     Then we arrived at Fontenoy-le-Château at about coffee o'clock, which turned into coffee and I wonder if the Baker has any eclaires today, which turned into an admittedly swift reconnaissance of the town "for next year", a chat with a passing barge or two, and a promise to stay for a month on our return.

Not withstanding our short diversion, twenty-three locks and twenty-six kilometres up the hill since breakfast, we found ourselves facing a lock that refused to open, and discovered that perhaps this was a very fine piece of forest to spend the night after all.

We had averaged an impressive two point eight kilometres per hour for nine hours.   We were humming!

Farewells Corre to Ecluse 38 (Ambievillers)

They must be afraid of the dark or something.

That's what we figured, because they sure weren't all that keen on us going back to our own boat and leaving them sitting there last night, but to be fair we weren't in all that much of a hurry to go either.

When we eventually stirred in the morning, ready for an early getaway, the shared coffee and resumption of last evening's conversation put paid to that plan.  The need for one of us and one of them to take the electric bikes for another ride, this time as far as the supermarket delayed things further, as did the need by all of us to eat pretty much everything they'd brought back from the supermarket, while sitting amiably in the shady clutches of a large tree.

Eventually we ran out of excuses, and very nearly stayed another night, but even if we weren't anxious to rendezvous with Dave and Ria next week, they have our bikes in their car…..

So hugged and kissed each other again, took a few last photos presumably in case in the few months until we meet again we forget what each other looks like, and parted with smiley glows that would surely last a week.

In fine company Corre

Grahame and Aileen arrived today right on cue, all suntanned and smiles.  They had cleverly replaced their battery a few months ago, when they were near a thing called a battery shop.

We suggested there wasn't anything to see here and they should perhaps move right along, although there is a supermarket on the very outskirts of the town, just one very long kilometre away if the signs are to be believed.

The term "outskirts" in this sense seems to mean between the cow paddock and the grain fields, on the way to somewhere else, and no, the supermarket doesn't stock batteries for boats, and all agree that truly it's terrible the way the mobile phone companies don't even know we exist in this village or anywhere else in the vicinity because if they did you'd be able to phone someone or ask Monsieur Google for help.

To find an internet or mobile phone connection is very far away, apparently too very far to walk.   If the person who told us that had used the "B" word I may not have been able to restrain myself, because we have very good friends who we have not yet been able to reimburse for the purchase.

If we don't find a sufficient internet connection to allow us to pay for them soon, the bikes might end up going back to the shop as well!

The new arrivals on the other hand, had no such problem, with two shiny new electric bicycles proudly hanging from the rack on the back of their boat.   Goodness if we'd had time, we could have whirred our way to the next country on one of those, but even then there were doubts from all who knew the area that we'd ever find an internet connection again.

I should have just pinched the batteries when they weren't looking and installed them under our bunk.