17 July 2012, Port de France, Toul
Although only a small town, Toul has a
relatively large and busy port. There's room for about 50 boats to
moor in the actual port with a few more around the edges and it is
almost always nearly full. Apart from large barges, which don't
physically fit into the available spaces, everyone seems to find a
place but there are never very many spaces at the end of the day. The
reasons for its popularity are multiple. It is situated at the
intersection of the Marne to Rhine Canal and the Moselle river, with
the port set in the safety of the canal rather than on the river; it
is also situated between the Meuse and other major waterways such as
the Moselle and the Canal de l'Est, which leads to the Saone and as
is therefore on the itinerary of many boaters from the lowland
countries heading south or east for the summer. The size of the port
means boaters are unlucky not to find a mooring here, the cost of
mooring is reasonable (9 euros a night or 54 euros for a week for us)
and the surroundings are pleasant. The town itself is set within
beautifully preserved and moated fortifications, so it is worth
visiting for its own merits and its size means that there is
everything a boater needs here - supermarkets, fuel, DIY supplies and
a boat yard – all within easy reach by foot or bicycle. It is also
a safe place to leave your boat for several days or weeks if you need
to go off somewhere for a while – so some of the boats in port were
unoccupied.
This was our second visit to Toul, the
first being in 2009, and each time we have stayed for a week. It was
a bit of a detour for us this year as we are heading towards Verdun
but for a few weeks we've been looking for a boat mechanic to fix
a small leak in our water cooling system and Duncan at Lorraine
Marine (in Toul) was keen to do the work. Our timing meant that we'd
also be arriving on the 11th of July and it's always good
to be settled in a port for the few days each side of the 14th
to see out the Bastille Day celebrations - and associated disruptions
to navigation. As you can see from the previous post, this also
proved worthwhile.
Every port or designated mooring place
has its own rhythm, largely governed by the navigation hours for the
waterway and the distance from the next lock in either direction. The
port of Toul has a lock at each end and navigating hours on the Marne
to Rhone Canal are 9am-6pm for pleasure craft; 7am-7pm for commercial
boats, of which there are very few. No boat can go anywhere outside
of those hours. The rhythm of traffic is also governed to some extent
by where the next moorings are in any direction. Dowstream from Toul,
there are several possibilities quite close by. Upstream, there is a
ladder of 12 locks, which must all be navigated in one go. No-one
arrives from that direction until late morning at the earliest.
Tuesday 17 July started out as a cloudy
day with a bit of a breeze. Laundry day for us as is often the case
just before we leave electricity and water supplies behind. We were
up at around 7.15am and as C went across the road for our breakfast
baguette, only one other boater on our pontoon was up and around: a
Dutchman, who was heading back to Holland with his wife for a few
days to visit her sick mother. The only other activity in the port
was from the workers involved in the port development – they are
building a new pontoon and port office, developing gardens, renewing
a bridge and installing a cafe within the grounds of the port. They
were already hard at work. The bakery was busy too; it has some of
the best bread we have encountered on our travels and the queue at
that hour was out of the shop door.
Breakfast for us is a deliciously slow
affair – we ate our French bread with Dutch cheese and an Alsatian
selection of sliced sausage, then drank our two cups of coffee over
several hands of cards. During this time there were signs of movement
on the boat next door on our port side, which suggested they were
preparing to leave that morning. By 8.30am, we were doing the dishes
and there was suddenly all sorts of activity. People are bringing in
their electricity cords, fiddling with fenders, preparing ropes and
eying up all the others doing the same thing... With half an hour to
go before the lock would open, the beautiful Dutch boat, Walrus was
already lining up at the upstream lock, making sure he would be first
through the locks in that direction. A lone French sailor near us on
our pontoon was also ready to leave, so C went out to help him with
his ropes. People navigating on their own have well-developed ways of
managing but it is always easier with a bit of help.
8:40am – still 20 minutes before the
locks start working and Round 2 begins – our next door neighbour
and one other boat head out to queue for the lock. Others on deck
watch and wait. We're starting our laundry by then and engaged in
conversations with various others on the pontoon as well. Some Brits
on the end of the pontoon have problems with their bow thruster; we
don't have a bow thruster, so we don't have that kind of problem
either.
At 9am on the dot, the locks open and
the first two boats in each direction are on their way. J has taken
charge of the laundry operation (no surprises there) while C fills
the rinsing drum, our water tank and our drinking water bottles. This
is a delicate operation here as the tap fittings will send water
shooting out parallel to the ponton at shin level if you don't
proceed in exactly the right way - and yes, we have learned this
through experience!!!
 |
| Those @#!!%&! tap fittings |
At 9:45am, the laundry is coming to an
end and is drying on the lines in the cockpit. C is painting the
repaired edge of the shower (yes, it's the same one that we've been
repairing since we started – and yes, the car jack solution has,
indeed, worked!!!). The British with the bow thruster problems head
off towards Pont d'Ouche on the Canal de Bourgogne... and things go
quiet. By 10:15am things have gone quiet on the water and we've
finished the painting and the laundry – time for another cup of
coffee and a few more hands of cards before we kick into action
cleaning windows and using our fabulous new industrial-strength wipes
to remove some of the stubborn marks from the outside of the boat.
It's 11:55am when the first new boats
arrive in port – Avalon (UK) and Johanna (Holland) come in from
upstream. After helping Avalon to moor (because they came in near us
and not because of their nationality), J suggests that we take
advantage of the fine weather (a rarity this summer) and the empty
space on the end of our pontoon to set up our chairs there and have a
glass of wine. C puts up no resistance to the idea at all...
12:30pm: a little yacht heads out of
the port going downstream having avoided all the morning congestion.
We're having one of our favourite warm-weather lunches: crudités
(a selection of raw vegetables kept separate rather than mixed up
together as a salad) and that glass of wine has somehow turned into a
whole bottle. (How did THAT happen??!!). The afternoon looks hazy and
lazy... A big boat (like, really BIG) arrived at 1pm and moors
nearby looking for all the world like a brand new ocean liner but we
don't go out to help – we're enjoying our lunch too much.
 |
| Lunch |
1.15pm
and we're playing another game of cards when Intermezzo (Holland)
leaves and two German boats arrive. By now all of the laundry has
come off the line and much of it is in the “airing cupboard” (see
photo below). At 1:40pm, we are making up the bed with the newly
laundered sheets, when J suddenly exclaims “Here comes happiness!”.
“Happiness” turns out to be a very large Dutch boat looking for a
mooring. It takes 40 minutes and lots of fiddling about with tender,
ropes and fenders before they finally settle into their parking spot!
One of the things we got right in buying our boat was the size –
we've never wished for it to be either bigger or smaller.
 |
| The "airing cupboard" - that's Happiness lurking in the background |
Time
gets fuzzy for a while (might the wine have played a role?)... C
makes preparations for dinner as we've invited Frank to dine with us.
We've been travelling (and eating and drinking) together frequently
since the 29th
of June and tomorrow we head our separate ways. J has a wee rest. We
both then head off to Lidl's to get a few supplies – some that we
need for dinner and some before we leave Toul tomorrow (including
more of the wine that we had at lunchtime). By the time we get back
to the port a few more spaces have been filled.
4pm
– we went to visit a couple of the local merchants: a second-hand
shop that was chock-a-block with all sorts of things that we have no
use for (some intersting, most not) and then the Domaine de
l'Ambroisie, a local wine-maker that we had visited on our previous
stay in Toul. As we did then, we had a lovely tasting experience and
a most enjoyable conversation with one of the two winemakers – a
delightful young man with a good grasp of English and a great memory.
During the course of the conversation, he stopped, looked hard at C
and said “You've been here before”. I think he was happy that we
wanted to come back and see how his wines and operation were
developing. We left with three bottles of his Cotes de Toul wine –
a still rose, a sparkling rose and a late harvest, artificial ice
wine. They are a bit more expensive that our usual 2.79 euros a
bottle but then they are a bit special too.
On
our return to the boat, we once again set up our chairs on the (still
unoccupied) end of the pontoon and have a little read, as well as
conversations with a Frenchman, who'd come into port in a boat the
same as ours, Duncan, the mechanic, who is looking for some very
sketchily-described boat and Nick, the Englishman from Avalon, who
wants to know if we have books to swap. We do, so we do (have books
and swap them, that is...)
After
the last boat arrives in port (at 5.50pm), C takes a tally of the
boats in port to give you an idea about nationalities. There are 17
Dutch, 9 British, 7 French, 4 German, 1 Danish, 1 Australian, 1 NZ
(us) and 4 of unknown origin. Without any imperical evidence, I'd say
that this ratio is not quite typical of our stay in Toul – there
would usually be a few more Germans, some Belgians, fewer French and
maybe an American or two. We didn't see the Australian boat come in
and it turns out to be a boat that we know: now called Breeze, it
used to be Kiwi Breeze with a kiwi owner. C and the new owner are
having a lovely conversation on the other pontoon when she notices
Frank arriving for dinner – time to go home...
Dinner
consists of:
Mousse
de Foie (a fine pâté)
- bought not home made
Chicken,
Leek and Carrot Casserole
(a firm favourite at home and on the boat)
Strawberry
tarts (supplied by Frank)
accompanied
by a Vin Gris from the Domaine de l'Ambroisie (also supplied by
Frank).
All
of it is just delicious and none of it difficult to prepare – the
best kind of meal, especially when the company is good too!
After
Frank leaves, there is just time for us to sit out on the end of the
pontoon again for 5 minutes and enjoy the last of a glorious evening
before the sun goes down and takes the temperature with it. We then
go inside to do the dinner dishes and have a last hand or three of
cards before turning in for the night. Bonne nuit!
No comments:
Post a Comment