Thursday 22nd June - Niderviller to Einville

Crew was woken at 7.30 to the sweet sound of the engine starting up (only joking!!).  Skip had misjudged the time it would take to get to Nancy for Gary and Tina to catch a train to Paris on Saturday so, instead of three days, we only had two to reach Nancy.  Which meant a long hard day today - added to which the temperature rose steadily to around 40c with no wind!  We cruised for two and a half hours to our first lock which had a fall of 15 m.  Here we had to collect another 'zapper' to operate the locks on this part of the Canal de la Marne au Rhin.  Our crazy hard of hearing crew were waiting for the lock just in front of us, along with two other boats.  They decided to squeeze in at the back of the lock which took some time to organise, putting on their usual comedy show!  The man who had designated himself 'the boss' stayed ashore, along with one of the women - Skip, Gary and Tina were intrigued to see how they would manage to get back on the boat once out of the lock so they waited to see the performance......they were not disappointed!  The boss organised the mooring of the boat and helped the woman onto the boat but on her bottom and she couldn't get herself upright.  So he unceremoniously hauled her up somehow.  He then released the front line and pushed the prow out and threw himself onto the stern, with lots of arm waving and gesticulation!!  Aphrodites' crew were still laughing as we returned to get ready to enter the lock.  Again we were three boats and Aphrodites' bow was pretty snug on the metal of the lock gates, which eased as we descended the lock.  Altogether we waited and hour and a half!  Then 11 locks at regular intervals as the temperature soared!  We landed in Einville at 4.30 p.m. - hot and exhausted.  We had had a bite of lunch whilst underway so the boys went into town, looking for a supermarket to re-stock.  Unfortunately they came back empty handed - the small supermarket was closed.....on a Thursday!  The only restaurant was just a hop and skip from the boat however and although it was fairly ordinary we all stocked up on calories after our long day!  We played cards, then bed.

54 km 12 locks 9 hours