Friday 30th August - Merzig

Skip threw himself into cleaning the outside of the boat before it got too hot to do so and Crew filled the washing machine and did some galley cleaning.
We had our usual beers, then lunch, chatting about our future route - we will quite soon be in more  of the French way of things, with smaller locks.  Our route back will involve several different rivers and canals.....so quite diverse.  They do say, variety is the spice of life!!
After lunch a nice German man came along (who turned out to be the harbourmaster)
and, in German, invited us to a marina party this evening.  It starts around 6 p.m. with drinks and there is also food later and a very good band for music.  Crew had already prepared vegetables for our dinner and defrosted steaks but we decided to put those on hold and join the party.
We went over just before 7 p.m. and joined the party.  First job was to find some beer and wine and find out what the correct procedure was.  Evidently, food and beverages were free.......well, really!!!
Translated by Henk, the lady in the bar told us that we could make a contribution to the clubhouse, which we all decided we would do.

The harbourmaster and his wife had only taken over the marina four months ago and made huge improvements already.  They had obviously arranged this Havenfest (harbout party) a while ago and had pulled out all the stops!  The band consisted of only two people, one man and one woman, who had a terrific voice and sang a good mixture of songs, including a medley of Beatles songs.  The beer and wine was flowing freely, more so as the evening went on and there was also very good food on offer, which of course, we availed ourselves.  They also had a celebrity appearance by Herbert de Lorca, who is evidently well known in Germany, indeed Henk was certainly aware of him......we had no idea!  He got us all singing a ‘club’ song, which was great fun!  The evening had cooled down considerably and the party was winding down, so we decided to go home......we had truly done justice to the white wine!!  Tomorrow morning we will be putting some money into the pot!
Back on board with a digestif, the party carried on but we were assured of managing to get to sleep, despite the continuation of the music.  Night, night!!!