July 9 – Autigny-le-Grand to Joinville
Well, today started easily enough – we left at 8:40 and went right through the first lock. When we got to the second – and last lock, the gates were closed. When traveling on this canal, you must request that the locks be opened for you on Sundays and you must let VNF know what time you will be traveling. So – since we got through the first lock on time we couldn’t figure out why the second lock was closed. There was a man on the bridge above the lock who kept gesturing to us but we couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell us. As we got closer, he walked down toward the canal – still full of grand gestures that indicated that the lock was sleeping, or the lock keeper was sleeping, that the noise on the bridge above was turning (beats me – I couldn’t understand him); he kept pointing to the side of the canal with stay here or go away gestures. Finally he came close enough for me to speak to him but – as it turns out – he was a deaf mute! Now that was an unintelligible conversation! He did the hand on the upper arm and fist in the air gesture, he did the sleeping motions, gestured about turning a crank, he pointed this way and that – still none of it made any sense at all. Finally I telephoned the VNF in St.-Dizier to tell them the lock was closed and a friendly voice told me that the lock was broken and the man who fixes the lock’s car was broken. Since the friendly voice then started to tell me this in English I said: “Ben – is that you?” Indeed it was! He said they had no idea how long it would take for VNF to get there or fix the lock. So, Dave decided he wanted poached eggs for breakfast while we waited. I no sooner put the water on to boil than the lock opened. There was a very nice young woman who was there, hand cranking the lock doors open and closed for us. She spoke a little English and apologized for taking so long to get there, that said she lived very far away. We had only waited about 20 minutes and weren’t on any schedule so it didn’t matter to us at all – we were just thankful that we didn’t have to wait for a long time as there was no place to tie up the boat.
When we got to the quay in Joinville (about 5 minutes past the lock), it was full and there was no room for the boat. Fortunately, we had encountered a few of the boats earlier in the week and they moved around and made room for us. Now we have electricity and water for the night but still no internet. This town is of a good size, but it is Sunday in France where everything is closed.
We walked into town – on Sundays in these small towns, it looks like the towns are deserted. We found a very pretty cathedral and finally, a restaurant down underneath a hotel that was open. The price of a room with a bath is 31E per night. We had a very nice lunch – we both had a cassoulet of escargot and mushrooms, then Dave had a fish entrée and I had pate. Fortunately I ate the pate before reading my book about how they stuff the ducks to give them cirrhosis of the liver before they kill them to make pate. Yuck. Anyway – lunch was lovely and we came back to the boat to rest awhile. On the way into town we crossed the river which was full of big fish – trout about 4 pounds each. Dave couldn’t understand why all the fishermen were fishing in the canal when there was such a plethora of big fish in the river. On our way back from lunch there were two canoes with fishermen but the fish were in hiding from them. Aside from the carp in the canal in Cambrai, these were the biggest fish we had seen so far.
Naturally we had to find a bar to watch the final match of the World Cup. Now if you are a sports fan – just skip this paragraph. I am not a sports fan – unless, of course, it is the PBR. Watching soccer is like watching paint dry in my opinion but I did like the way the field was striped green and I thought the ball was pretty. I was amazed at all the sponsors – but can’t understand why Oxy-Clean or Vanish was not among them – all those grass stains! The mid-air collisions between the players were interesting and the commercials were more fun than we see in the States. I thought the Italian team, with the exception of that one hottie (you girls know who he was if you watched), needed a team hairdresser and the stuff they sprayed on the injuries could be mass marketed to women everywhere. Other than that – it was sad to watch the French lose but it saved us listening to the noise of their winning.
Tomorrow we’ll be at the first lock again at 9 a.m.