Meuse to Canal de la Marne au Rhin ouest - Verdun to Toul via St Mihiel, Commercy and Pagny-sur-Meuse

31 July to Monday 8 August 2016.

31 July: Verdun to PK239.7 near St Mihiel - 38kms, 10 locks.
1 August: PK239.7 to Commercy - 22kms, 6 locks, 1 (50m) tunnel.
4 August: Commercy to Pagny-sur-Meuse - 15kms, 5 locks.
5 August: Pagny-sur-Meuse to Toul - 14kms, 12 locks, 1 (866m) tunnel.

In glorious weather we join the rush out of Verdun to the first lock and decide to let our Dutch and German 'colleagues' get ahead of us. Thereafter is is 100% relaxation

but the port gearbox is still giving trouble - almost no reverse and now sluggish in forward. Maybe we have picked up weed or a plastic or polyprop bag of sorts? The port de plaisance at St Mihiel is full mainly thanks to some very inconsiderate mooring by some of those 'colleagues' of earlier in the day, so we do an about turn and head back downstream and find a mooring on a wall adjacent to the water-sports club and opposite a large WWI French cemetery - and a very pleasant mooring it was too.

The watersports club

I jump over the side to inspect the prop but cannot even see my hand in front of my face so that job will have to wait until the water clears which was the next morning - prop completely clear which is good and bad!

So on we go to Commercy

Passing the now near-empty port at St Mihiel

Clearing weed from the lock gates

and after the first lock we have absolutely no reverse on port but at least the forward gear is okay-ish. The port de plaisance was pleasant but full so we spent the first night at the supplementary quay and moved into the port the next day. 

Supplementary quay

We had noticed water in the bilges around the kitchen/bathroom area so the first job was to mop up and try to find the source of ingress - in doing so, we emptied our 'cellar' to get to the fore-peak bilge and removed 13 heavy lead ballast ingots to get to the kitchen bilge. Eventually the ingress was traced to a leaking pipe at the back of the one kitchen cupboard but the ugly sight of rust in the kitchen bilge made me cringe

Cellar contents.

Ugh!

so out came the paint chipper and Dremel-like tool and the evening was spent doing rust removal, painting on rust converter and finally, primer.

Commercy is the home of the Madelaine cookie and Chateau Stanislas

Madelaines

The Palace Stanislas

There is also some interesting statuary

After a couple of days exploring and doing maintenance it was off to Pagny-sur-Meuse (passing Pessimist at the supplementary mooring whom we thought were not stopping as they passed us the previous day) with its lovely little port (but with a horrible ablution facility) and nothing much else, although we did pop into the village for a beer. Just before reaching Pagny we had turned off the Meuse and were now on the Canal de la Marne au Rhin ouest.

A lock full of weed.

We were joined by the 24m Carotina and her delivery crew.

Stunning!

At later in the day we were joined by Pessimist, the three of them joining us aboard for supper.

Pessimist and Elle at suppertime.

Bright and early Friday morning we were on our way to Toul where we had made contact with a mechanic who said he could fix our gearbox. But first it was the convoy through the Foug tunnel where we were fortunate to be the lead boat, then through a string of locks at the first of which we were directed into the right hand bassin while Pessimist, with whom we had hoped to lock through, were directed into the left hand one. And so for the next 9 or so kilometers and 13 locks we were bundled with two Dutch flagged boats which raced between locks and gave us the foot-tapping treatment when we, travelling right on the speed limit, eventually arrived.

Toul is a lovely city!The Port de France is big and clean

and close to the centre of town and a local produce fair even set up right next to us on the quay the next day.

The port restaurant is good and with its Vaubanian ramparts, beautiful St Etienne cathedral

Rather gruesome relics.

and plentiful shops and restaurants

the city is well worth staying for a few days. And the son et lumiere (light show) against the cathedral front facade was truly stunning.

St Etienne Cathedral by day...

...and by night during the son et lumiere

The show was followed by Irish coffees a la France at the port restaurant.

We met nice people and shared stories and meals

Shared with Pessimist's skipper.

All in all a most pleasant stay.

An aside - my experience with the mechanic...

My first email to him:We have a 1975 Paragon gearbox model GC 4270 P23-L Z7719-L and the reverse clutch seems to have packed up. Do you have anyone who could repair it at a reasonable price?
His reply: Bonjour M.Cullen, I can repair the gearbox but of course it will have to be removed from the boat.
Me: I will contact you when we get to Toul, probably tomorrow. What is your hourly rate and will you be able to get spares?
Him: 65€/hr Yes I can get spares.
Me:We are now in Port au France. Do you work on Saturday? If not, when will you be open again for a chat?
Him: Monday morning. Call by at my place -from about 8h30.

So I ride the two kilometers to his boatyard and arrive at 08h30 on the dot and at 08h50 he arrives with a "Who are you?" greeting. Turns out he had forgotten about the arrangement... I then explained the gearbox problem in detail and he said that the clutch brake had packed up - his charge would be between €800 and €1600 for the job. When I queried this, explaining that I could get a completely refurbished box from a firm in Holland for €1,400, the problem being taking the old box out and replacing it with the new one, he said "I'm not interested in doing your job" - and that was that! He sent us on our way in the full knowledge that he was probably the only mechanic between Toul and St Jean de Losne who could help us. Nice guy - not.