The Saône – Lyon to Mâcon

Lovely days!

Lyon is extremely nice and we had a good time here.  After our officially permitted 4 days in the marina (though we could have stayed longer) we prepared to leave, doing a bit of shopping at the Lidl nearby.  We left after lunch, saying hello to Harry and Denny (Malua) who arrived as we were about to go, and started up the Saône River, weaving slowly through the city of Lyon, which is very big.  We are not good tourists and had not visited the old part of the city, but we could see quite a bit of it from the boat.

After 17 kilometres, at a place called Couzon-au-Mont-d’Or we met our first lock.  Our guide informed us that most of the locks in the Saône were automatic and then proceeded to give instructions on how to operate an automatic lock.  We’d all studied these instructions and thought we’d got the hang of it, sort of. 

Well, of course, it wasn’t automatic and having hung around for a bit wondering when the radar spotter was going to get things going, we noticed water gushing out of the lock and both red and green lights were showing (meaning the lock is currently emptying).  We waited, and finally the gates opened, no boat came out but the light went to green only.  Go – I said to Mike.  So we started to enter and then someone whistled and when we saw him, it was the man in the lock house waving life jackets at us.  Life jackets are obligatory in the locks but since we thought it was an automatic we’d hoped to get away without.  I rushed downstairs and we put them on, now in a bit of a panic.  It was only a 4 metre lock but I’d spotted bollards set on the quay way up at the top and we are down at the bottom.  I tell Mike to bring the side of the boat to this long slimy greenish black ladder, grab both our ropes and start to climb.  Once again a whistle, and the lock keeper wags his finger at me and shouts no climbing the ladder – use the bollards.  We now notice there are bollards set into the walls of the lock.  They don’t float, like in the Rhône, but there are three - one right up high which we can’t reach, one in the middle and one low near the water line.  We picked the middle one and after a bit of faffing around on one bollard we noticed there was another set further along, so we managed to fix one line each from the back and the front to each bollard and got the boat settled.  The gates had already closed, water started to gush in and the boat began to rise slowly.  The turbulence wasn’t too bad and everything was going fine, but the higher we rose the lower the bollards holding our ropes were.  Once well below the water level, Mike’s rope slipped off the bollard.  Horrors!  Thank goodness it was his end because he is strong.  We were quite high by then and could reach the slightly curved lip at the top of the lock.  Mike grabbed this lip with both hands and clung on, keeping the front end of the boat against the wall.  Finally the lock was full, the water settled and the gates started to swing open.  We hauled our ropes in and exited with relief, but confident that we could now handle these locks.  Next time we would use the boat hook to try and reach the top bollards.

We continued motoring pleasantly, but under a very hot sun, through pretty countryside.  Here’s a boat very well prepared for his touring needs – why bother with a dinghy when you can get a car on board?

Late in the afternoon, we reached the recommended stop at Trévoux, at the 31 kilometre marker.  The Halte Fluvial here is managed by a camping site and the charge was €5 per day including water and electricity.  It was a very nice spot and we found friends we’d met in Lyon – Dutch, English and Swedish.  Evening brought blessed relief from the sun and we spent a quiet and pleasant evening. 

The next day we visited the lovely town of Trévoux, bought post cards and some fruit and sat over a cool beer on the terrace of a bar near the water’s edge.   

The day continued so hot that we took cushions and sat under the trees on the bank to get a bit of breeze.  That evening Mike and our Dutch neighbours went swimming, bravely I thought, in the river which is not as clean as one would like to imagine.  Refreshing, anyway.

Later on clouds built up and in the morning there was a brief but tremendous bout of thunder and lightning followed by a shower of rain.  It didn’t last, but the day remained cool and cloudy, so we set off at about 10am intending to travel about 24 kilometres to Belleville.  However, Belleville mooring was crowded, so we continued another seven kms and got to our second lock at Dracé.  Quite confident we knew what we were doing this time around, we entered this lock of only 3.2 metres quite fearlessly, only to find that the bollards, though the same structure as the previous one, were set much further apart.  With the best will in the world we couldn’t use two, so we tied ourselves with two ropes to the one bollard in the same fashion as we had done in the Rhône.  Stressful.  Sailboats have such a curved shape that they swing badly, no matter how tight you hold the ropes and our solar arch at the back is very vulnerable.  Once again, it got bashed, but survived the experience and so did we.  Though not much fun, these locks are infinitely preferable to those in the Rhône.

We carried on, through lovely countryside and in pleasantly cloudy conditions looking for somewhere to stop and decided on a nice looking place called Crêches-sur-Saône which had been recommended by Irish friends in a motor boat.  Bearing in mind that motor boats have very low draught and can moor just about anywhere, we entered very cautiously, watching the depth sounder.  It dropped to two metres and then began to flash between 1 and 2 just as we scraped our bottom.  Mike back off quickly churning up a cloud of mud and we got out of there. 

After that there was only the large town of Mâcon at the 80 kilometre marker.  We’d been recommended spots in the centre of the town (again by motor boats) but we are still very afraid of tying up against town walls, so I phoned the marina which is a kilometre or so beyond Mâcon.  The man quoted me €15+ per night with €2+ for electricity and we decided to go for it but not bother with electricity – our batteries are still in immaculate condition.   However, passing through the town we saw a bunch of yachts tied up on a pontoon so we went over and snuck into the last available space.  There are no facilities but it is free, seems safe, is right in the centre of town and we are surrounded by friends again.

Over cups of tea with Bob and Brenda (motor boat Kandalishka) we were pleased to hear they find the locks equally stressful as their boat, though a motor boat, also swings badly and they spend their entire time fighting off the lock walls.  Bob had a nasty scrape on his hand to prove the point.   Amazingly, Bob and Brenda were in Finike, Turkey, the year after we were there and are well acquainted with a number of our old friends from Finike.  The evening was pleasantly spent over a few glasses of wine with Ren and Willem (motor boat Acquarel) and young (15 year old) Sam from the NZ boat Isis. We are assured by everyone that the locks are all different and we must be prepared for any eventuality. Great.   

We’ve just had lunch time drinks on Kandalashka and now we have found the Mediatheque, which is a full on library.  Internet access, sitting in a quiet comfortable room on the second floor at a desk, is free for as long as I want.  Perfect.