Trip 16kms. Departure 8.45. Locks 5 of 135
We both woke at 5. Ridiculous. I blame the drink the night before. The crew goes back to sleep but I get up make tea and write some blog. At 7 Volker delivers bread. At 8 vim gives me his phone number asking me to call him if toul is full. I top up the water and we go say goodbye and sing happy birthday to Volker for Saturday. Card and champers is gratefully accepted and it's a tearful farewell on the pontoon as we wave fond goodbyes.
A nice run to the end of the Meuse which finishes with 4 locks in 2km. They are dominated by a monstrous lime works. The dust is incredible and appears like caked on plaster on every girder of this impressive structure. The slow revolving barrel humming as the white ghost train lurches along the track for the shoot to fill another wagonload. Dumper trucks rattle through the environs and suddenly a clean bright passenger train hurtles through at such speed to avoid being engulfed by this swarming white fog.
I am thinking of potential stopping places when I feel an unwelcome vibration. I increase the revs and sure enough the vibration gets much worse. Oh no! I switch engines and soon arrive at Pagny sur Meuse. A quiet little town. There are some youngsters fishing on the well tended halt pontoons and we moor at the end of the trot. I immediately prepare for another Cousteau dive.
The water was much warmer and much clearer and the prop did not look too bad. Not good news. I still had to use the knife and then I noticed some particularly fine stuff which I had great difficulty cutting. Eventually got it off after much effort and found it was a black wire like line. Was this it? I decided to inspect the other prop and discovered a mass of the same twine and rope and material wrapped round it. I cleared it and found the same wire in this mess. I started to consider possibilities. I had heard 2 clunks in the previous two weeks one on the day I first felt the vibration. We had decided on both occasions that we had hit the bottom or a submerged obstacle. Could it be that we had caught this rope on two props and the clunk was when the twine Burke between them having put the props under massive horizontal strain. Had i missed the twine in the gloom first time under? Had this clearance resolved the problem? I would find out tomorrow when we leave.
We took advantage of the weather and mooring to clean and shampoo the hull while the crew scrubbed the aft deck. Then it incredibly started raining. The crew went for a well deserved snooze while i wrote some blog. The shower lasted an hour and then it was blue sky humid and seriously hot. I slept on the sundeck.
We strolled round the town having put stuffed aubergine and rice in the oven which was lovely on our return and I had my first gin and tonic of the trip. Nice change.
Watched Germany lose to Italy in the euros semi and then the lightning started. Followed by thunder and as we went to bed the rain started.
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