Like ships in the Night

Last week a boat was passing from the sea to the Etang de Thau, by way of Frontignan. "Look," cried the second passenger. It's Njiva.' " the boat that they were passing on the canal was none other than Njiva II , our very own. They sent us these photographs of her.

"So, why all the fuss?" you may well ask. For our boat is pretty nondescript. The answer lies in the name on the side of this second boat, for it too is named Njiva. It is the very boat in this picture, and Njiva is hardly a common name.

The explanation is simple. This second Njiva is a nine metre steel motorboat, built in a small Dutch boatyard in the nineteen eighties. It is the very first boat we bought in France in 2016. We changed her name from Waterman to Njiva, which means 'dove ' in Shona( a language of Zimbabwe.) We spent many happy hours in her exploring the beautiful Canal du Midi. We then brought her to moor at Mèze on the Etang de Thau, from where we discovered the delights of the Canal Rhône- Sète. We loved this boat so much, and spent a lot of time making her comfortable, and adapting her for our use. We sold her in 2022 to Medhy and his wife Carole . Since then they have navigated the River Rhône in her , for that is where Njiva's new owners live. We bought a new boat and named it Njiva II. And so when Carole and Medhy passed alongside Njiva II the other day they got quite a surprise.

They told us that they had been heading for Bouzigues where they were to spend a few nights. It was in Bouzigues that they first saw their boat, for we were moored there for the winter. And so we decided to spend a night in Bouzigues ourselves. A couple of days later we turned up. At first we anchored outside the port, hoping to swim from the back of the boat. But alas, an invasion of méduses(jellyfish) rendered that impossible. Although we know that these ones do not sting, it would have been far too unpleasant to swim amongst them. Is this a result of warming seas? The Mediterranean sea has reached temperatures of over 30C this year..

Bouzigues was beautiful that night with the lights of Sète shining from over the water.

Later in the day, the two Njivas were reunited.

The next morning we took our leave, and headed for home.