SNUGGLED UP TO PAULINE

We arrived in Sarreguemine with the hope that we could moor up and leave Soraya for a week while we went to a wedding in Antibes. We selected Sarreguemines as it seemed to have plenty of mooring, a railway station and a car hire firm which gave us options for travelling south to the Med. The problem was that it was all taken by private boats permanently moored. It was virtually on the German border so we carried on briefly into Germany, don't mention the grounding! to see if there was additional mooring across the boarder, there wasn't. We decided to turn around back into France and find a place. It didn't look hopeful. On detailed inspection we saw a space that was almost big enough with a boat at one end that obviously wasn't used and more importantly could be moved. So we went for it and moved the unused boat a few metres along. What we didn't realise at the time was that this was a private Club Nautique and where we had moored was the permanent space for two boats which could appear at any time. There was nobody around so we settled for the night and hoped we'd see the Capitaine, whose office was in a Dutch barge called Pauline, the next morning.

Nestled up to Pauline.

The next day was a public holiday (Whit Monday), no sign of the Capitaine!  I phoned him and got a message that he would arrive late afternoon. Not good for us because if he said we couldn't stay we would have to go elsewhere, maybe a days travel away and no station nearby. All we could do was wait and hope. However about midday a small boat moored up and out got the President of the Club. No problem he said, you can't moor here because the boats that moor here are arriving shortly but you can raft up against Pauline for as long as you want!! Great, we moved straight away with his assistance and here we are snuggled up to Pauline. Very secure and the railway station about 500m away. Antibes here we come!

For those blog readers who receive this by email it's worth clicking the highlighted 'Europe on a Péniche' title at the bottom. This will take you to the actual blog with all previous posts and our current location.