The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (isn't that title already taken?)

The Good
The birds left earlier than usual this morning.  Here in Corre, raucous crows fill a few trees across the marina from us.  The quarrelsome, noisy birds fly off in the mornings cawing loudly, then in the evenings fly back to roost in their favorite tree complaining all the while. 
I enjoyed them when we were in Corre 8 years ago and they still please me so I listen for them.  But all was quiet when Yogi and I walked by the trees on our regular morning stroll.  
I don’t know where the birds were I just know that I missed their fussing.

We are finally where we are supposed to be.  We’re leaving on a jet plane in just about 2 weeks and little Echo will stay here safely tucked up for the winter.  We hadn’t planned to return to Corre, we were off to Niderviller which is close to Strasbourg, then, after listening to some cruiser friends sing the praises of the new owners of this marina, we changed our minds and headed south instead of east.  And we are glad we did….sort of.  Never have we found more accommodating people.  Corre is a small village with no facilities, so the capitain, Jean-Pierre and his wife Doris, today are driving Dwight to the dentist in the next town, driving Yogi and I to the vet next week for an International Health Certificate and will be driving us to catch the high speed train to Paris.  That is service!

The Bad
We are only sort of glad to be here because of an incident in one of the locks coming down the Canal de Vosges.  We’ve been through hundreds of locks both going up and going down.  Down is always easier, gentler, except for this time.  I cannot explain why the water wasn’t going in the right direction….it was rushing into the lock from the downward side, where it was lower than we were, creating such turbulence that our aft line broke under the strain and the boat repeatedly crashed into the side of the lock.  We had no control whatsoever  Standing on deck, I clutched the handrails trying not to fall off at each shuddering bang.  All of a sudden, I head the engine start and Dwight was driving the boat forward despite the end of the broken line being wrapped around the prop, using all of our 70 horsepower to keep the boat from being slammed into the lock gates behind us.  Meanwhile the two young VNF lock keepers, who we suspect caused the problem, just stood at the top of the lock frantically calling their supervisors (we hope) on their cell phones.  Finally the downstream gates opened stopping the rush of water into the lock chamber.  The propeller somehow cut through the wrapped line and we moved forward, out of that damn place.

We would like to say a few things to this boat of ours:

• thanks for being steel because a fiberglass boat would have been destroyed
• thanks for having a strong propeller
• thanks for keeping Yogi-dog inside during all this otherwise he would have been thrown from the deck and drowned in that turbulent water
• thanks for taking good care of us, we will return the favor

 I, Fran, who’ve never been particularly fond of this boat have a new respect for it and also for Dwight for his quick thinking and driving skills.  Whew, glad that’s over….well, not quite.  We are pretty sure that the shaft was damaged in the melee.  Our accommodating hosts here in the Corre Marina have composed a letter in French and sent it to the VNF in hopes that they will take up some of the cost of new lines, a new shaft and renewing the paint scraped off by the lock wall.  Keep your fingers crossed for us.

The Ugly

The nasty blister obtained while trying to hang on

Poor, poor boat