Final day: from Roubia back home
Early in the morning I see a musk-rat swimming alongside our boat to the bridge. It a beautiful sight. We have seen last year several of them but this year it's the first. At the last lock of our holidays we give the lockkeeper the last bottle of wine which is left from Locaboat. We didn't like this wine very much (to sweet).
At a quarter past nine we navigate into the port. Our boat is inspected by Locaboat. As far as I can see they do that in a totally different way than at Lattes. They make several comments about the state of the boat but we aren't to blame for that. There is a big hole in the black protection belt and one of the fenders is leak. I am sure that we haven't bumped against anything with the front of our boat but I haven't checked this in Lattes. When I tell them what problems we had on our first day (putting water in the gas oil tank by Locaboat), they become more generous. They don't make a problem anymore of the hole in the protection belt and I accept the costs of a new fender because they don't make a problem of the crooked railing due to our contact with a bridge in Portiragnes.
I sum up a list of shortages of the boat from the beginning of our trip: a leaky toilet, the missing of brush and dustpan and a stop of one of the curtain-rails so the curtains fall of when they are opened. We complain about the very filthy bottom of the beds and the smell of gas oil in the sanitary rooms.
We are transported to the Lezignan-Corbières by a cab which has to drive twice. The lady taxi driver talks as fast as she drives and so we have plenty of time to drink a cup of coffee in the bar nearby the station. We travel back to Holland by train. We pass some places which have become special to us: Narbonne, Béziers, Agde, Sète, Frontignan (the bridge is just opened) and Montpellier.
We are crossing some of the canals we have navigated on and see flamingo's looking for food in the étangs. A week of navigating marshes past in about an hour. We have to be patient for an other year.
