What If?

Years of encouraging young children to write imaginatively has given me a pretty well-developed 'what if?' mentality. Is that such a good skill to develop, I wonder? It's all very well to enliven a story with dramas and catastrophes for the protagonist to overcome but not, perhaps, entirely useful to imagine similar struggles in our daily lives. Some foresight is necessary for the avoidance of problems but too much makes it harder to be brave and adventurous - qualities you would think are not necessary for inland boating. Generally speaking you would be correct.
We were chatting over dinner with a couple from a neighbouring boat. 'Have you been to Bordeaux?' he says.
We spent a couple of enjoyable days there en route to Scotland but that wasn't what he meant, of course. He meant by boat. Now this is something that one of us has been trying to persuade the other to do for the past couple of seasons. No prizes for guessing who is the reluctant one.
The canal de Garonne terminates at Castets en Dorthe, about 70km from Bordeaux. We went there last year and walked along to the deep lock leading down onto the River Garonne. The lock house has a flood gauge on its wall with markers showing the heights and years of the many floods. The lock house is, unusually, double storey and the gauge reaches the second floor. In summer the river is fairly benign but it is tidal which means that you need to travel at particular times. The journey takes about 4 hours by which time the current in Bordeaux is picking up.
Our dining companion assures us that the trip is easy and the mooring superb; right alongside the lovely Water Mirror . This sounds encouraging. I ask if there were any problems at all and he says 'it was a bit swirly' going through the bridge but ok if you have a bow thruster (hmm..) and by the time they moored up there was 'some current but it wasn't too difficult'. Then, 'there was a bit of a party atmosphere at night though.' (We were in Bordeaux on the night of the semi final of the World Cup. I'm familiar with how the locals party). However, I am, initially, encouraged and agree we should go.

The routine on arriving in Castets is to see the port captain to arrange the 'voyage'. A form has to be filled in, the lock descent booked and a phone call made to the Bordeaux port authority to arrange the mooring. And herein we find a problem and not one of my imaginary ones either. The Water Mirror mooring is not available and we will have to go elsewhere. The phone call is quite long and I understand enough to work out that the port captain is not quite sure about what is being suggested.
Anyway, he finishes the call and tells us that we must go to another mooring about 2 km further downstream. (I don't like that 'about'). 'You'll know it when you see it,' he says. 'There's a tower.' I ask him if he can show us on the chart and he just waves his hand over a distance of about 10km.  I remember then that he is new to the port and came here from central France. What if he doesn't really know where exactly we are to go?
We go back to the boat and I pore over the chart and can't work out where we are to moor so we go back and ask again but he's in a hurry on his way home or somewhere and just says, 'You can't miss it. It's a big house. With a garden.'  Is it a Tower or a Big House or both? And now it has a Garden. I just want the name of the place!

 The 'what ifs' begin. The main ones being what if we can't find a place to moor and the tide sweeps us away and/or the bowthruster fails (this has actually happened since so not entirely fanciful)  and'/or the engine breaks down etc. etc. However I am still prepared to go - reluctantly I admit. That night it begins to rain. Heavily.

Next morning it is still pouring. The forecast says it will rain for the next three days. There's been torrential rain in the east of France. What if........?

We cancel the lock.