Riccall Rambling: Peruwelz to Bar le Duc and return

We now have a ‘port-attach’, a home port, at Peruwelz, just across the northern French border into Belgium. We had been looking for a permanent base in the north of France or Belgium for some time, having failed to achieve it at Cambrai – our preferred place.

We spent the winter in Valenciennes and they would have offered us a place there, but getting I and out of the mooring was very difficult with the current that can flow there.

Peronne near Tournai offered us a place in theory when we asked but when we got there by car to confirm, they said that the boat which was going to vacate the very space they had in mind for us, had decided not to leave so there was no place for us after all!

So we drove straight along the canal to Peruwelz, and by sheer luck several of the ‘staff’ were present and the upshot was that a place was offered for us there. We returned to the barge still in Valenciennes in early April and set off the next day for our new mooring in Peruwelz. We had an easy day of it and moored up that evening on the quay allocated to us, in our new annual port. We celebrated with a meal in the restaurant at the port.

We started off our cruising season this year with the intention of doing the Doubs via Besancon to the Rhine and down to Strasbourg, returning via Nancy and the Meuse.

However!! We had to return to the UK for a week for a variety of reasons, including to repair the driver’s window on the car which had stuck in the open position. Then, Alex noticed the crown on his implant was loose. WOT? AGAIN! Yes, the same one that had given all the trouble near Den Bosch last year and been tightened twice by his own dentist over the winter.

So we contacted DFDS and they were able to offer us a day return for £45 and the dentist could tighten it again on that very day. So that’s what we did.

Finally we set off cruising on May 7^th – quite late for us. All went well (apart from the torrential rain storms and cold temperatures)

Ready for the next downpour!

till we got near to Vitry le Francois on the Champagne et Bourgogne Canal when the oil pressure light and alarm came on on the dashboard. But the oil pressure was fine on both gauges so Alex disconnected it and carried on. Then other strange readings started to crop up and when Alex finally checked the water level in the engine cooling system he found it well down.

He looked under the engine but initially saw no water there so he assumed the worst and decided the keel cooling must be leaking. This made us decide to change our plan and head back north via the Marne au Rhin and the Meuse.

Several things then came to light. First there was water under the engine (Alex just hadn't looked properly). Second, the leak was from the water pump (replaced less than 6 years ago) not the keel cooling. Third Alex had forgotten that he had amalgamated the oil light and buzzer with water over-temperature sensor when he got the ESTRIN Certificate in 2021 hence the warning light and buzzer. And Fourth, he had somehow transposed the oil and water temperature senders to the respective displays. (IN fact they had been incorrect for 20 odd years but as they are normally within a few degrees of each other it had never come to light.)

We got to Bar le Duc where we had arranged to meet up with Mary and Martin who were bringing with them a replacement water pump!

That all went well and Alex fitted the new pump the next day and we all celebrated by having an excellent meal out in a restaurant in the High Town.

Bar le Duc High Town

Our plan had been to return north after Mary and Martin’s visit via the Meuse, but this was scuppered by the VNF who had closed the Meuse just where we would have joined it and in addition had lowered some of the pounds 20 kms beyond Bar le Duc by more than we could cope with.

So, thinking we’d be OK to give Mary and Martin a couple of days’ cruise 10 kms and ten locks upstream to Ligny en Barrois and back again, we set off. But, even here the levels were down and we struggled to make headway, but couldn't give up because there was nowhere to turn round till we got to a particular mooring where the canal gave us the necessary width. Even then, it took an hour to carry out the ‘demi tour’ in the mud, silt and weeds. We ‘moored’ for the night 3 metres from the shore as close as we could get, with one mooring line only over a bollard kindly put there by a passing walker (somewhat bemused to be asked to do this!).

Interesting mooring

Next day of course, the same thing in reverse back to Bar le Duc. But good company and good crack makes up for such problems.

M and M left to catch the train for their onward journey into Germany to visit other family members and we set off to retrace our steps to Vitry and return to Peruwelz via the same route already travelled, but we had run out of other options.

We also realised that if we did not hang about too much we could make it back to Peruwelz, and our car, in time to get back home for Will’s 50^th birthday bash and the following weekend Charles and Genevieve's wedding celebration, thus avoiding having to find a short term mooring and catching trains back to pick up the car (and the whole thing in reverse afterwards).

So it was a fairly full-on journey back, the last few days of which were in the heatwave.

Yet again - another heatwave

We were so glad to have electricity on tap when we got home to Peruwelz so we could run the air con without running the genny. And it has been soooooooo hot, the air con has ben been on virtually 24 hours a day since.

We have seen far fewer private boats again this year which is both strange and depressing as it means the VNF is less wiling to maintain the remainder canals (ie the ones with almost no commercial traffic).

Points of interest on an otherwise fairly uneventful season so far would be in order of occurrence:

We were roundly castigated for being on the mooring at Fresnes lock which another barge, Kalibel, wanted when it arrived at 6 o'clock. We offered to help them moor up on the quay behind but were told they had 22 years of boating and needed no help, then they cocked up the mooring well and truly!

The next day they rushed off at 9.15 and we followed at a more leisurely pace at 10 o'clock. And there they were 45 minutes later stuck at the first lock saying that there was no reply on VHF 18 and no answer on the phone line. Alex immediately contacted the next lock on VHF 22, explained the situation and within a few minutes we were all into the lock. 22 years?!!

We spent a night moored alongside BANDRA with Ray and Rachel and had a lovely fish pie with them for supper.

We were joined at our next mooring at Denain by an 86m x 10m barge which arrived travelling backwards up the canal towards us. We suggested we’d be happy to move but the captain said no, he could get in fine, and then he was going to be doubled by his mate and colleague on another barge. OK so far. But then the mate, on a 110m x 12m barge, arrived virtually trapping us in as there was a cruiser behind us. But next morning the cruiser made an early start and we were able to simply reverse out.

Spot the RICCALL

We decided an early stop at Vic sur Aisne and had lunch at the local bar/restaurant. Far too much food (as always) but a good meal and half went into the doggy bag in Louise’s handbag, enough for a whole lunch the next day

And the couple from the small boat ahead said that now the fishermen had left there was room for us with free water and leccy ahead of them. Maria and Harry on BAT YAM came for drinks – a very nice couple.

We admired all the new moorings being created at Reims but as yet there appeared nowhere designated for barges

Too small for us

so carried on past Sillery to Beaumont sur Vesle where there is a VNF depot and large basin. In the past we have never dared to cross to the quay, being uncertain of available depth. This time it was getting late and we decided to give it a go. It was absolutely fine and we moored up easily. While there, a young woman on a bike stopped to chat. She was English (called Louise) and was cycling from Geneva to Littlehampton via Calais!! What an adventure!

Intrepid cyclist Louise

At Conde we met Nats and Andy on EBENHAEZER, a boat that we have often seen pictured in the DBA magazine but we had never met before. They too came for drinks on RICCALL and we hope to meet up again for a return match.

On the return journey we passed through Soissons, mooring on the quay opposite the visitor moorings - free and perfect for us, and stayed an extra day to visit the market which had been so brilliant some years ago. Well, the moorings had been upgraded, but the market was sadly going in the opposite direction! We did a walking tour of the town and came across an impressive war memorial away from the main town streets which we hadn't seen before. Quite something.

Soissons war memorial

We also came across an interesting boat called FALKE. When speaking to its captain, we discovered that it had been a German patrol boat with a top speed of 24 kmh!

FALKE

We moored at Peronnes ‘Car Wash mooring’ as we call it in the hope of finding a bit of shade and there was some to start with, but as the sun moved round we sadly lost most of it. However, in the middle of the night Alex heard some sort of commotion between the side of the boat and the quay. Eventually he went out investigate. There was something down there! He got the barge pole and started poking to try and move it down the boat and away. It fought back biting the barge pole! Eventually after much encouragement with the pole it emerged at the front of the boat and turned out to be a coypu!

Over the next few days we had an easy run through Hensies Lock onto the Pomeroeul Conde Canal. As we approached the lock we could see on the AIS that we were being caught up by a commercial KARIN. We could hear the lock keeper trying to contact KARIN on Channel 20 multiple times and then on Channel 10. No reply to any of it so we entered the lock, the gates closed and up we went. Poor old KARIN left out in the cold, as it were. but worse was to come for KARIN because as we exited the lock the lights turned to double red behind us – the lock was ‘en panne’. We could then see KARIN heading back the way it had come to take the long way round through the double locks at Peronne a good 4 to 6 hour round trip! It certainly pays to keep your radios in good working order, and switched ON!