Yes, we almost lost Liberty. It was a very close call, and not one we will forget in a long while.

We stayed an extra day at Cruas, just because we felt like blobbing (and because the Mistral wind was blowing strongly), reading books or watching DVDs, but finally left the little place radiating its charm in the shadow of the nucelar power plant and headed south once more.

We put in a long day and aimed for a small marina at L'Ardoise, up a back water off the Rhone, and recommended to us by Aussies Phil and Bagusha who we'd met a couple of weeks back. They called it Lard Arse.

It turned out to be not such a quiet backwater, as the marina is just past a commercial wharf where barges unload gravel, and the crane goes all day long lifting the gravel out of the hold and dumping it noisily into a hopper, from where it gets ground up into various grades of pierre. We saw one grade called Pierre Ponce. The mind boggles.

And just further west of the gravel plant is another industrial complex that generates a continuous hum, so between the two of them Lard Arse was more Loud Arse. Still, having said that, the gravel works stopped at 4.45, and the industrial hum quietened a bit soon after, so not so bad in the evenings.

Liz and I unloaded the bikes and cycled off in search of a supermarche, and ended up cycling to Laudun about 25 minutes away in order to find one, but it was sunny and warm, with the added bonus of riding alongside vineyards of the Cote du Rhone Villages appellation. In celebration we bought some of the local Vin Rose.

Back at the marina a table had been laid for ten on a side annex off the main pontoon, and soon a swag of Germans gathered there for an evening meal. (Not sure what the collective noun for a group of Germans is. An 'invasion' maybe? A Prosit?)

Most of the boats in the marina seemed to be there for winter, covered over with tarpaulins and tucked up tight, but there were five or six boats showing signs of life. One of them looked permanent, and the owner had even created a little floating house off the back of his boat for a couple of geese, which appeared to be his main friends. Unkindly, Liz postulated that he was keeping them for his own private fois gras supply.

There was also a charming little floating Capitanerie, with a tiny bar and outdoor seating, but as with so many such things at this time of year it was closed. Pity. Still, Madam Capitaine - when she came round for our mooring fees (they weren't THAT closed!) - was charming and made us very welcome. (In English. Turned out she spoke at least three languages)

As with Cruas we decided to stay a wee but longer, especially as the crew threatened mutiny if we didn't, and the gravel barge had been emptied and disappeared. Liz got a cleaning urge and we spent a good part of the day scrubbing and cleaning and polishing the outside if the boat... something you see other boat owners doing constantly, but something we haven't been doing nearly often enough. (i.e. at all)

Next day (Friday 18 October) we almost lost our boat... a very scary time. We left L'Ardoise reasonably early and got back onto the Rhone, with a shortish day planned to go to Avignon to check out its moorings. The waterways bible suggested they weren't great, being a quayside situation rather than pontoons, and subject to the wash of passing boats, but we needed to check it out.

Avignon's quay is up an arm called the Old Rhone, which means you turn back up against the current to reach it. As soon as we did it was obvious the current was much stronger than the main river, and our speed dropped from 14kph to just 6kph. But the weather was fine and there was no wind. Just as well or we'd have been saying au revoir to Liberty a few moments later.

After passing the remains of the charming 12th Century bridge of St Benezet - which spans the centuries but no longer the river - we could see the quay with a few boats already tied up, but plenty of room in front for us. The river flowed strongly but I gunned the engine and manipulated the bow and stern thrusters to bring us alongside. Liz hopped off and looped the mid-rope around a bollard. Seeing we looked secure I hopped onto the quay and suggested, given the current, that the mid rope would be best moved to the front, which Liz began to do while I began tying the stern rope to a ring, only to look up when I heard Liz yell to see the front of the boat start to swing wildly away from the quayside and into the current. A long way into the current.

Liz desperately tried to hold the rope on the bollard, and I tried to do the same with the stern rope. But with the current catching the boat now the stern also started to swing away, and although we had front and rear ropes attached, Liz's wasn't fully secure, and was too long, allowing the bow to swing too far out. My stern rope was the same, and before we knew it we were both heaving on our ropes trying to pull Liberty back into the quayside, but watching her 17 or so tonnes literally straining at the leashes as the current tried to carry her away. For the diners at the riverside restaurant on the other bank it was a tug of awe.

"I can't hold her!" Liz cried. "Hold on!" I shouted, "we need to swing the back in. Tie the rope off, but mind your fingers!" You do not want fingers caught in rope being pulled by tonnes of boat... it's not pretty.

The problem was, every time Liz loosened her rope in order to tie it off the boat would pull more and more of it out of her hands. At the stern I wasn't doing much better, because instead of a bollard I had only a mooring ring, and trying to thread the rope through while the boat kept pulling it was a nightmare. Luckily I had more than Liz, and managed to get a couple of knots in place. But by now the stern of the boat was about three metres out, and the bow more like four or five; beyond reach. I heaved on the rope while Liz did her best to hang on to what little she had, trying to establish a knot. Slowly, infitesimely slowly, the stern started to come back. The more I pulled the more it came out of the current, which was sweeping round the bend in front of the boat, and eventually I got it close enough that I dropped the rope, leapt onto the rear, and dived for the controls.

With much roaring of bow and stern thrusters, and revving of the engine, I got the front of the boat into the quay and Liz finally had enough rope on her side to tie up properly. "Do NOT get off the boat!" she shouted as she could see I wanted to tie off the stern rope. "STAY there!!"

I meekly did what I was told, and tweaked the thrusters, until we were finally secured, snug against the quayside. Liz came aboard and we just hugged each other, both of us probably suffering a degree of shock, and close to tears. "Still, that's more exciting than attending meetings!" I said to her.

Two glasses of wine later, sitting on top of the Bond Lounge (see pic), our heart rates returned to normal, but we were still feeling very very lucky that we hadn't lost Liberty.

We talked about what had happened. We hadn't taken into account the fluvial dynamics, which, when you looked at the curve of the quay were so obvious. The current was sweeping past the apex of the curve and past us, but once the bow got caught in it a few metres out, off she went, and there was too much rope so the more Liberty's bow got carried out the harder it was to pull her back in. If the wind had been blowing it would have been a disaster. And to think that only the day before I was getting a bit complacent, and as a matter of pride trying not to use the thrusters for mooring.

Never again. It was entirely our own fault, our Rhone fault.

We decided after lunch that Avignon was not the mooring for us, and sailed south in search of somewhere easier. We found it... the Marie Celeste of moorings...