Saturday 16th June ecluse Alma to Stenay

Trip 16kms Departure 9 am. Locks 2 of 104

It was raining heavily at 7 am and looked grim for the day. By 9 we decided to don our wet weather gear and move on to Stenay. We left just in front of Reinhard and we travelled together the 16kms. The rain was heavy the whole 2 hours but the scenery was still enough to keep us smiling.

Herons, baby signets, water rats cattle horses and a variety of birds kept us entertained as did the second lock. We had moved close to the front by requirement and I checked Collette was ok as it was quite a deep lock. There was nowhere to tie a second rope anyway and she was an expert now and refused any assistance as though it were an insult to be asked. Nearly full and apparently all ok I popped down for a leak. Mid flow a shout of Andrew and I see the far wall of the lock hurtling towards the heads window. I rush up as fast as humanly possible to find Collette struggling to hold on. Not sure why but she said she had almost lost it and why did I go to the toilet just then. I cordially accepted total blame for the whole incident, went below and thrashed myself for being such an idiot. Incredible!

We waved farewell to the Germans as we entered stenay port on a narrow backwater off the main canal.

It was another very nice port 7€ inclusive of full facilities and a free pass for one into the European beer museum just 300 mts up the road. It was still chucking it down and was turning into the worst weather day of the trip. I had a chat with vim, a Dutchman who we had met at sedan. He gave me a low down on where I should and shouldn't go in the coming weeks and was generally very friendly.

We had soup for lunch, it was a soup day! Fish for me tomato for the crew.

Collette had been complaining about train and war museums so I took her to the beer museum.

It was actually very good housed in a beautiful building and the tavern offered a monster selection of beers for sampling after the visit. Still it rained but we strolled round the town and found ourselves at a lidles.

Bought a good supply of vittals but it was hard work carrying it back to the boat. Showered and changed and finally it stopped raining. We had pork chops with new potatoes and haricot vert before eating a huge bag of mm's. Only had a couple of beers and a glass of wine and we did some research on verdun and nancy for future reference before retiring.