Rafting up...

...is tying your boat up to another boat when there is no other mooring available. It's a bit like double parking on the water.

Interestingly this year, we have had to raft up to other boats - and have had boats rafted up to us - more than any other year we have been on European waterways. The pressure on mooring spots has been very noticeable this year, which is surprising in the current economic climate.

Zwerver (or “Wanderer” in Dutch) was the first boat we rafted up to this year. We were on the Meuse River with M and M, came into Bogny sur Meuse at the end of a fair day's navigating only to find there were no spaces left on the quay. C spotted a Kiwi flag on the back boat and suggested that would be a good place to try first. So we gently sidled up to the boat and asked if we could tie up to them for the night. Steve and Sonia smiled and welcomed us. I think it helped that we were Kiwis! We were exceedingly grateful and were excellent neighbours. Generally, the kaupapa seems to be that once you have tied up, you don't make any assumptions or take any liberties, and that was fine with us. However, later on we bumped into Steve and Sonia in Charleville-Mézières and enjoyed renewed contact and exchange of local information.

Wherever possible, we like to travel alone and have a lock to ourselves. One day, though, we caught up with Hors d'Age, a lovely boat with Brits Tony and Yvonne on board. We shared locks with them and we were both intending to spend the night at Pargny sur Saulx. As we went through the last lock, right at the port, Tony, who was in the front of the lock said, if there is only one space left they'd take it and we could raft up to them. There were, however, no spaces left! Hors d'Age rafted up to a German boat and we asked first a Dutchman and the a German man if we could raft up to their boats. Both refused us with fairly flimsy excuses. One said he was on pins, not bollards, which is hardly an issue on a canal as there is no real flow of water, not like on a river, and the other claimed that our boats weren't compatible shapes, which was simply rubbish. Fortunately, Frank, on River Holme, welcomed us when we asked him AND plugged into his electricity supply as well. (Yes, we did pay the port official for it!)

The weather was favourable and so we decided to stay on in Pargny for a few nights to do some jobs on the boat. After the first night we were able to move onto the quay and then played 'host' to two yachts, one from Switzerland and one from Canada. We know how nice it is to feel welcome to raft up in this situation and do our best to make others feel welcome too. We can remember only one time a couple of years ago when people on a boat rafted up to us were a little inconsiderate, clambering noisily over our boat, to get to their boat after a late night out.

We have caught up to Frank a few times since, rafting up to River Holme a second time at Void (where he cooked us a tasty bbq meal) and spent a bit of time with him in Toul. Frank is good company, he sails alone a lot of the time since Sue, the love of his life, died five years ago.

Today, 20^th July, we arrived in St Mihiel at lunchtime and there were no spaces left on the pontoon. Andrew, a Belgian on a different Zwerver, happily helped us to raft up to his boat. We were thankful to have this safe haven. It had rained on and off all morning (and has again all afternoon for that matter), and we know we have some weed around the propeller that must be removed before we move on to Verdun, our immediate destination. It will be much easier to do that from the security of a proper mooring. We've even been able to plug into the free electricity on the pontoon, so it's easy for us to use the computer. Tomorrow morning, when Zwerver takes off uptream, we hope to slide into their place on the pontoon – and by lunchtime we will, no doubt, have another boat rafted up to us.