Savoy to Ligny-en-Barrois

Our guide, now known as the yellow angels, welcomed us again at 9:00 a.m. The yellow angels accompany you almost invisibly on the journey. Until the tunnel, we had 7 more locks, and he was convinced that we could go on for 6 or 7 more locks. After all, our destination was Ligny-en-Barrois, far beyond what he thought we were capable of. Before the tunnel, we were handed over to two more yellow angels. They prepared the tunnel for us.

About 500 meters before the tunnel, there was the obligatory traffic light. Already in front of the traffic light, there were two wires hanging about 1-2 meters above Gustav. On closer inspection, I could read, "Danger of death, 600 V". Now it would have been just my luck if the tram came from behind.

Fortunately, I was not so daring as to trigger the contact for passage with our hook on the wires.

After a short wait, the lights turned green, and we continued reverently. The canal was narrow and curved before the tunnel portal. Then suddenly the view opened up, and the portal of the tunnel lay directly in front of us.

Wow, a black hole, and this time you couldn't see the end of the tunnel. The description indicates a distance of 4870 m. My body started to rattle immediately, at about 5 km/h that's an hour underground. Then my first officer had a few more words with the yellow angels, and they handed us the remote control, which was to be used until lock 18, and goodbye.

We cautiously approached the opening, and behold, there was a well-lit tube in front of us, on the right a parallel walkway, on the left the bare concrete of the tube, draft of about 2 meters. Then there was a bit of hustle and bustle among the yellow angels, and eventually we realized that one of the two would be driving with us on the route.

An angel on a bike, that is. At first, he held back a bit, but since our Gustav was smoking a bit, I thought he wouldn't last much longer, and it didn't take long before he drove ahead at a safe distance.

If someone asks me about the speed, I was too focused on not driving into the wall. My first officer sat as a figurehead at the bow with a flashlight and shone it. After an estimated 500 m, we had a water breach across the entire width of the tunnel. For the aforementioned reasons, it couldn't be bypassed, so we already took our second shower of the day.

I estimate that the passage took about half an hour, so 4870 m lock chamber at about 9 km/h.

At the end of the tunnel, our yellow angel said goodbye and released us into freedom.

Of course, we still had our destination in mind at that time. It should also be easily reached, but we were mistaken. We hadn't taken into account the technology of the automated locks. They did not want to communicate with our remote control. At the third-to-last lock, we had to request the yellow angels again because the gate would not open.

When asked how far we wanted to go, we answered honestly. As a result, our yellow angel flew ahead of us and prepared the locks. Of course, I also wanted to contribute, and I was furious because our Gustav did not want to go beyond 11 km/h even at 1800 rpm. So I pushed the levers further forward, and at 2200, Gustav relaxed and started to glide. I was so surprised by this, as normally he only does that at well over 2600. I then slightly eased off the gas to catch Gustav, but the wake I had left behind caught up with us and pushed us towards the lock.

Long story short, we made it and exited the last lock 2 minutes before 6:00 p.m.

Directly after that, there was the harbor, in the middle an empty dock, but how do we get there? The algae had grown up to 10 cm below the water surface, it looked as if we were the first ship entering the harbor this year. We dared to enter and were immediately taken over by the harbor master. Suddenly I heard Heike say, "what, 40 €, we're not staying here," and I added, "not in this dump." But it was clarified, the amount was 10 €, 40 cents, all inclusive. We wanted to do some shopping, and that was worth it to us.