They both turn up unannounced on the boat!
Upon returning from UK I noticed what looked like leaves on the salon deck. On closer investigation they were Sticklebacks (L'épinoche). There were about 16 dead fish all over the decks! As the decks are about 2 metres above water level, how did they get there? Mini tornado (raining cats and dogs)? Jumping fish? No conclusion just a bit weird. An old guy said they often jump out of the water! Never heard of jumping sticklebacks.
A few of the unlucky ones
Yes and Gendarmes. We were in an écluse in a roundabout between 2 pont levés, lock gates closed and the bridges down when we was approached by a gendarme who asked for our papers. At first I thought he wanted to see our vignette (licence to be on the canals in France, similar to vehicle licence disk in UK). No he wanted everything. Half an hour later he had gone through all our papers to check who we were, our qualifications and if Soraya had all the inspections, certification etc. that is required for a boat of our size. All a bit stressful. Whilst I have been fastidious about documentation it has been very difficult to find out with 100% accuracy what is required in both France and Europe, all countries are subtly different. The good news is that after reading throughly all the documents including the TRIWV European Certification (14 pages) and inspecting the fire extinguishers etc it was all smiles and shaking hands. Phew!!! Now it's all over I am pleased we have been thoroughly inspected, passed with flying colours and the inspection recorded.
The Inspection
2 comments:
Bet the Gendarmes were just being nosy and fancied a look around your wonderful barge. As for the sticklebacks... bit of a long shot but maybe dropped by birds who had scooped up a mouthful? Truth is I have no idea, it's just a guess. Happy cruising xxx
We have no idea either but have moved on. Hope it doesn't happen again.....could be bigger fish next time!!
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