Thursday 5th September - Mittersheim to Port du Houillon

A much cooler morning greeted us today.  The plan was to depart at 9.30 but two hire boats passed going our way so we ended up not leaving until just after 10.  The first lock went OK but we had a problem with our second - the gates just wouldn’t open, even though the lock was empty.  So we decided we had to turn around and operate the zapper again.  As we were going back, of course, we met Henk, so now we are cruising together, which is more difficult and takes more time......ah well, plan B again!
We had small gaps between locks for the first five and then we had seven locks in a row, one after the other.  As we now had to be at the very front of the locks, we took the full force of the water gushing out, which made for an uncomfortable time.  We have, of course, done series of locks like this before but we now realise that age has weakened us somewhat and it is not so much fun now!!  However, in order to get anywhere, the job has to be done.......we will just have to try and get more rest!  As, tomorrow, we change Canal to the Marne-au-Rhin, we had to give in our remote controls in our last lock.
We arrived at the port, also a Canalous base, just before 3 p.m., all feeling quite tired.  So yet another late lunch.  Crew was not feeling too good so when the men had finished lunch, went below to rest.  As we are in the wilds of nowhere, there was no restaurant available, so we just finished the day on board with the TV.   Crew defrosted the left over Chilli con Carne and baked some potatoes for supper.

18 km 13 locks 5 hours