Having sorted our electrical problems at Toul, thanks to Duncan Flack from Lorraine Marine, and having celebrated with a slap up dinner at the wonderful restaurant Table à Victor, we were ready to resume our journey on my 60th birthday on 21 September. We had thoroughly enjoyed our extended stay at Port de France but it was time to move on.

This day’s trip would see us on three different waterways in the course of one day: the Canal de la Marne au Rhin (Ouest) as we left Toul, turning onto the Moselle shortly afterwards, then turning off the Moselle onto the Canal des Vosges which runs along the river.

Our journey to Richardménil  took us through 9 locks, a distance of 30kms. It took us 6.5 hours, which included a stop for lunch in the écluse (lock) at Villey-le-Sec. On most canals in France where the locks are still operated by éclusiers (lock-keepers), there is always a break for lunch between midday and 1.00pm. The trick is to try to plan your day’s travel to arrive at a lock just before midday, so you can get through before the break. On this day, still new to the magic of it all, we arrived at the lock at five minutes past midday. Désolée! Déjeuner….

No mind, we arrived at Richardménil just before 4.00pm and found ourselves alone at the very nice halte nautique… power but no water in a very attractive, peaceful setting. The village is located a short walk from the canal and, after tying up and turning on power, then relaxing with a birthday drink as the afternoon sun shone dappled through the trees lining the canal, we decided to explore it a little.

Imagine our surprise when we found that, though the village contained not very much else, it did possess a fine restaurant, Au Bon Accueil. We had already celebrated my birthday the night before in Toul, anticipating a simple home meal tonight. Now it looked like I would get a second celebration! And a truly marvellous meal it turned out to be…

After two pleasant days at Richardménil we departed on 23 September, bound for Roville-devant-Bayon, a wild mooring some 18kms, 8 locks and 4.5 hours further up the canal. This time, the rule that states a lunchtime break is mandatory was proven by its exception, as we were able to negotiate two locks between 11.55 and 12.40, enabling us to arrive at Roville shortly after 2.00pm.

We were glad of the early finish, because Roville was a decidedly beautiful place and, the more time we had to enjoy the beauty and serenity, the better. This was our first truly wild mooring, with no bollards or other fittings to tie up to, so we got to use our mooring stakes for the first time. We had had these stakes made for us by a guy we met at the yacht club in Schoten and, although simple, they weren’t super cheap. Essentially, they were pieces of angle iron, with a flat plate welded on the top and a pointed end cut at the other end, finished with a dipped, rust-proof paint coat. There were four of them, and the recommended technique was to hammer them into the ground in pairs, at cross-angles, to reduce the chance of them being accidentally dislodged or pulled out. The technique, dutifully followed on this occasion, was proved the next morning at breakfast when a Swiss yacht screamed by without slowing down, causing a ferocious wash and much tightening and yanking of the mooring ropes, but no threat of dislodgement.

We were a bit sorry that morning, after the Swiss disruption, to leave Roville, because it was such a beautiful, serene spot, and our new batteries had retained sufficient charge for us to survive a bit longer without access to shore power…. but we had set ourselves a timetable in order to make it to our winter mooring, so we reluctantly packed up and moved on.

24 September saw us cruise just over 3 hours, 7 locks and 13kms into the town of Charmes. We experienced quite a bit of wind on the canal, as we had done on the trip out of Toul, and of course Sod’s Law meant it was worst just when we were entering or leaving locks, blowing us around a bit and detracting from our enjoyment of the day.

When we arrived at the port de plaisance in Charmes, we found there was only a limited length of the canal that had been prepared for mooring with concrete banking. Nevertheless, there was plenty of room for us so we drifted slowly alongside and prepared to tie up behind a German cruiser. We had found in similar situations that boat people on shore would, more often than not, come to help by offering to take a thrown rope to tie around a bollard. Not on this occasion; the German couple merely moved their chairs to take advantage of the shifting sun which, judging from their leathery skins, had been their favourite pasttime for many years. Comme ci, comme ça, pas de probleme.

We were bemused a little later when a lovely old Swiss vessel arrived, with by now very little room left at the end of the concrete embankment. It would have been easy for the Germans to move their boat closer to us; instead, as soon as they saw the other boat approaching, they moved more quickly than we had seen them do so far…. straight inside their boat and down below, not to be seen again for another half-hour. The Swiss managed to tie up with their stern extending beyond the quay, but it didn’t seem to bother them so we just shrugged and went off to explore the town.

It has to be said that Charmes does not contain much of the name in its physical character, having been extensively destroyed in both WWI and WWII. It’s maybe in that fact that most of its charm lies; with nearly 5,000 inhabitants its mere survival, its persistence and refusal to just die, is its saving grace. Being thus charitable, we did some shopping and prepared to move on the next day….

Our next stop was Thaon-les-Vosges, a journey of 17kms and 11 locks, which took us 5 hours and once again saw us battered a bit by blustery winds. We were glad to pull into the halte nautique at Thaon, a simple affair with no services but located next to an attractive park with pathways, fountains and pavilions.

There was a major petanque festival under way, but very different to the serious affair we had witnessed at Commercy a fortnight prior. At 2.00pm there was no sight of actual games underway, because the competitors were still seated at their long tables enjoying lunch. Eventually they drifted back to the competition and for the next few hours we enjoyed the click-clack and tut-tuts and words of encouragement and disparagement that form the sound backdrop to a large boules event. One of the highlights was the music of guitar and harmonious voices that surrounded the arena where a large group of Pacific Islanders (French Polynesians?) were playing.

That evening, after an exploration of the village, we decided to eat out at a pizzeria near the mooring, having checked in its window that it would be open. To our dismay, with a light drizzle setting in shortly after we set off, we found that the restaurant was not, in fact, open. We tramped off, awning to awning, down the main street and found a little kebaberie, Alp Kebab, a few hundred metres further on. Wonderful fresh kebabs, crisp french fries, happiness. We managed to devour the chips in between rain showers on our way back to the boat, where we finished off the kebabs and licked our fingers with damp satisfaction.

The next morning, 26 September, we noted at breakfast the passing of three huge sand barges, immense peniches with their wheelhouses re-sited to the front, laden low in the water with gravel they had taken on board a couple of kilometres back down the canal towards Igney. We had no idea where they were headed but decided to delay our departure until they had a chance to get several locks ahead of us. We knew the locks could only take one of them at a time, so we decided to give them a couple of hours to clear away.

About 10.30 we set off on our journey to Épinal, 8kms, 5 locks and a pont-canal over the Moselle River. Once again, we we were hit by winds, making manouevring through the locks difficult and tense. The most tense moment arrived when we met the sand barges coming back, obviously having unloaded their cargo not far up the canal and now returning for another load. The first two barges, no problem; we just waited for them to exit the locks and we scooted straight in, going the opposite way (although the incessant wind made waiting for them to exit the locks a delicate operation).

The scary moment came when we rose up the final lock, only to see the third sand barge waiting impatiently on the other side, eager to get in and on his way. He was positioned very close to the lock, his engines idling. As we exited the lock, battling the wind and trying to squeeze into the narrow space he had left us, he gunned his engines and headed straight for the lock, forcing us to make an even more radical manouevre to avoid a scraping either on him or the canal side. Hairy indeed!

The thing is, there’s no point getting upset with these guys. They work this section of the canal, five or six days a week, every week of the year, for a living. Plaisanciers like us might pass this way once or twice, maybe a handful of times in a decade of cruising., for pleasure. They deserve the right of way. But respect and consideration should ideally travel both ways, right?

Less than two kilometres further on we turned left onto the Embrachement d’Épinal, a short deviation off the main canal leading to the city of the same name. This canal is very shallow and suffers from a lack of ready replenishment of its water levels; there are frequent advices and closures to craft with more than a minimum draught. On this day, we found it shallow and narrow but no problem as long as we stuck to the centre of the canal, though we noticed the very obvious sucking effect on the banks that we effected with our displacement as we passed along.

To be honest, whatever caution was necessary because of water depth was more than offset by the relief from the wind that the river valley and its hilled, densely wooded canal banks provided. Through the short few kilometres to Épinal, the forested environment was enchanting.

Finally, we exited the canal into a broad basin, stone-fenced on one side and with a long low stone quay facing a broad-lawned park on the other. It was a relief to arrive and it was with enormous pleasure that we tied up and set about preparing for an extended stay.