Summer Doldrums

It's been a while since the last blog posting, mostly because the events of the past two weeks fall into the category of the mundane rather than the new and/or unusual. With an impending visit by the boat broker on July 9, we spent the week after our return from Lille mostly prepping the boat for the visit. The English-speaking boaters that had been in Toul prior to our departure for Lille had all departed by the time we returned, so our social opportunities were limited during that period. We did, however, have a lovely evening on July 7 at La Fiesta restaurant celebrating our 47th wedding anniversary.

By the afternoon of July 8, all of our boat preparation tasks were complete. We'd been curious about the state of the Marne au Rhin Ouest Canal following its closure, so we biked along the 10 km of canal between Toul and the Foug Tunnel. It was a sad sight.

The walls of the basin on the approach to the Foug Tunnel show how low the 
water has dropped.

The low water really allows the weeds to grow.

One section of the canal was at a good, normal depth: the pound
near a factory. The photo at the top shows how a barrier was installed
just prior to the lock gate at the downstream end of the factory. This was
done to minimize water leakage through the lock gate, keeping the
 level up so that the factory had enough water for their operations.

Of course, the extreme shallowness of the section of the canal just downstream of that lock is the result of blocking the water flow.

The worst yet was the state of the canal on the upstream side of the Foug Tunnel that we glimpsed when we passed it by train on July 18.

Absent several weeks of above normal rainfall to replenish the soil and the reservoirs, this waterway will not be reopening to traffic this season.

Back to Toul then, and the July 9 appointment with the broker. He took lots of photos, walked through CARIB to get her specifications correctly recorded, and was gone within 3 hours. The listing went "live" on July 14 on the Doeve Yachtbrokers website. With no immediate need to stay around CARIB, as any boat showings that might crop up would take a while to arrange, we were free to plan a getaway for some off-boat explorations.

Because the French have been so good as to grant us tourist visas over several boating seasons, we decided to stay in-country and spend our tourist dollars in parts of France that we'd never been to and would never have been able to cruise through in any event. Brittany, in the far west of France, became our initial objective and we started making travel arrangements for a departure date after mid-July. The week delay would allow the worst of another heat wave to pass.

We had hoped that our trip could include a quick visit with boating friends Ian and Lisette in southwest France, but were unable to find appropriate train tickets. July and August is prime vacation season in France, and our attempts to reserve tickets were apparently too late for what is a popular holiday destination. We regrouped, settled on July 18-30 as our travel dates, and focused on getting travel arrangements for Brittany only.

Once those plans were made, we had a week to work on several small boat projects, watch the Bastille Day fireworks in Toul (early, on July 11), attend a Bach Festival trumpet and organ concert in the Toul Cathedral on July 12, and enjoy docktails with English-speaking boaters who had been filtering back into Toul.

It was a better fireworks show this year. We stayed on the far side of
the canal, and though that took out a good view of the cathedral, we
were able to hear the music much better and watch the fireworks
with less neck strain.

We started our Brittany trip yesterday and are currently in the regional capital of Rennes. A quick after-dinner stroll was about all we could manage until travel weariness caught up with us. With a good night's sleep behind us we should be able to learn more about Rennes on what promises to be--finally--a wonderfully temperate Sunday weatherwise.

Summer activities in full swing, we came across an outdoor jazz concert in the square
by the mayor's office. It was also the first day of the summer light and sound show at the
parliament building, but an 11 p.m. start was a bit late for us on this particular day.