Canal Des Vosges: Epinal to Girancourt to PK115 – Some ‘wild’ mooring.

Saturday 3 June to Sunday 4 June 2017.

35.4kms, 40 locks, 1 swing bridge, 2 days!

Saturday 3 June: Epinal to Girancourt – 18 kilometers, 16 locks, 5 hours 25 minutes.

At eight fifteen we cast off, beating an anxious looking Swiss couple on Adele.O to the draw by a few minutes, meandered up to the junction of the two canals only to find another cruiser waiting for the first lock to open – they had obviously spent the night there hoping for a solo lock-through. Twenty minutes later the lights came on and with Bison Firet (?) leading the way we entered the first lock with them tying a single line to the second last from front bollard and being severely bashed around by the inrush of water despite her being on the throttle.

The next lock (lucky number 13) opened, we entered, the doors closed – not! So up the ladder went our travel companion, words were said over the intercom, and with a smile he informed us that il arrive (‘he is coming’). Twenty minutes later the doors finally closed and poor Bison Firet (?) once again smashed her bow into the wall – this happened for two more locks, with even their protruding bicycle handlebars taking some punishment, until we suggested that they move one bollard backwards, as we would, tie up fore and aft, and do the lock activation control. For some reason he was none too happy with this but agreed and for the next fifteen or so locks we heard no more metal abuse.

Hanging on for dear life

Three hours after the locks opened we arrived at Girancourt, a most nondescript place but with a long quay with plentiful bollards and rings.

A new quay on the way

Pretty churches

Winding waterways.

Magnificent stonework!

Girancourt quay with Adele O and a storm ahead.

And it poured with rain the whole night.

Sunday 4 June: Girancourt to PK115 – 17.4 kilometers, 22 locks, 1 swing bridge. 7 hours including delays.

First to start again the next morning we arrive at lock ‘Girancourt 2’, activate the remote and nothing… Lynn walks to the control hut, chats to the VNF man who arrives twenty minutes later, inspects, resets, inspects, resets and finally the doors open and we are on our way.

This section of the canal is quite arduous mainly because 20 of the 22 locks were ‘against’ us meaning that we had to wait for them to fill before we could enter. From the time we activate the remote to the time lock has filled and the green ‘enter’ light goes on takes about six minutes so over the day we spent two hours at idle waiting for locks to fill – talk about watching paint dry! As a matter of interest, it takes about two minutes for us to enter the lock, secure two lines around bollards and to activate the ‘empty’ cycle which in turn takes six minutes until the lock doors are fully opened and we can exit, so each lock was a fifteen minute process, and coming at less than a kilometre apart you can’t do much more than drive and prepare, drive and prepare. Quite arduous as I said but at least the weather was lovely.

Prettiest boat on the waterway - flower and music note bedecked.

This lock...

...let in almost as much water as it let out.

One of many walled up lock-keepers cottages

The foreboding mooring at Thunimont

Manually operated swing bridge.

The small picnic mooring at PK115 is delightful and we had it all to ourselves so a braai and a couple of glasses of wine saw us in bed and asleep very early.

Happiness is a peaceful and deserted mooring.