Langres to Joinville

Saturday 22 July

As agreed with the vnf, we cast off at 11 am today after a run to the supermarket for provisions.  Our first lock was a straightforward remote operated one, but at the second we were met by a cute young woman with a blonde pony tail who escorted us, shooting along the tow path on a motor bike for the rest of the day, opening and closing the locks for us as we went, including one weird bridge that had to be physically swung sideways.  One or two of the locks gave her trouble, but she sorted them out and she left us at the agreed stop of Rolampont (PK 139), another nice Halte Nautique with services. 

Sunday 23 July

Our friend Jacqueline phoned last night and asked if we’d put our heating on.  At the time I said no, it wasn’t that cold, but it certainly was the next morning.  It had rained again in the night and was now grey, windy and freezing cold.  Nonetheless, we left early, 9 am, and managed 15 locks, one lifting bridge and twice the canal passed, rather excitingly, over the Marne River. 

We had three young people assisting us today – two men and a woman – each taking care of us for a section. They were all charming, friendly and helpful.  Mainly though it was a long boring day, the locks are so close together that you can’t really relax and do anything in between – not even a cup of coffee.  There’s not much to see either, just thick forest either side of the canal.  The rivers are definitely more interesting than the canal.  And it was made worse for me by the fact that I didn’t feel well and got progressively worse as the day passed.  I felt quite weak and miserable by the time we got into the stop at the town of Chaumont (PK 110).  This is not free – including water and electricity and taxes it cost us €22 for two nights, though the facilities are not much better than the free stops.  There’s a washing machine (very  cheap) and wifi though the connection is only good in the capitainnerie.  The capitan was friendly and obliging.

We’d met Walter (Swiss) at Langres and that evening he arrived, having done 21 locks in the day, and he and his two dear and very old dogs came for a beer with Mike.  I told him I thought he was brave to do 21 locks but he confirmed what we already know – the locks are dead easy for straight sided shallow depth motor boats, even single handed.  Later he brought me a coke and seven little sugar coated pills from his very expensive homeopathic medicine box.  Homeopathy only works if you believe in it and I can’t say I do, but it was very sweet of him.  Basically I think I had what the French call a ‘crise de foie’ – liver crisis - from too much cheese, paté, and other good things.  I’d had no lunch and couldn’t face dinner so went to bed with a nice empty stomach and feel a little better today.

Thankfully, we’d already decided to stop an extra night at Chaumont, but it was a little wasted as I just sat about feeling grim.  The general ‘malaise’ has passed but now I have toothache – it feels like an abscess – which is very miserable.  I’m chewing paracetamols at a great rate. We’d been recommended a good restaurant in Chaumont, but I didn’t feel like eating and it was closed Sunday and Monday anyway!

Tuesday 26 July

At 10 am we set off again, taking in 11 locks, one tunnel (only 308 metres this time), one overpass and two lifting bridges.

We were assisted by two sweet young things today for the first nine locks and then the locks became electric, controlled by our remote telecommandes.  Our ‘assistante’ continued with us to make sure all was well, which was fortunate because the first one didn’t work.  However, the vnf technician was there and he sorted it out.  The next two worked fine.  It’s very nice having the young students travelling along with you, some of them are very friendly, chatty and helpful, but we prefer the remote controlled ones as they are quicker.   I must say this part of the canal is really not interesting and continues with heavy forest on both sides.  Occasionally, it opens out to farm houses, pasture land, lovely cows often with calves and even some crops, but then it closes in again and we only get glimpses of the countryside through the trees.  The weather continues grey, windy, drizzly and cold.  There are patches of clear sky and even sun and then it gets quite hot rather quickly.  One peels off layers of clothing and three minutes later it’s cold again.

We arrived at the delightful Halte Nautique at Froncles at 3.30 pm, me tired and fed up with my sore gums.  The Halte here is only €1.50 to stop and another €1.50 for electricity.

The late afternoon and evening turned out wonderfully, the clouds scudded away and a little sunshine poked through drying everything off and warming us up.  We changed into shorts and t shirts and took a stroll around the little village which is quite well supplied commercially - restaurants, tobacconist, hairdressers and an enormous Post Office.  We didn’t see a grocery store but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one and we didn’t need anything.  As for bread, we were happy to hear that the baker’s van comes to the Halte at around 9.30 every morning.

For the first time in ages, we sat in the cockpit and had our sundowners and then dinner, watching a few locals playing boules in the picnic area.  My toothache has receded a bit and I was able to enjoy my dinner.

Wednesday 27 July

A nice late start at 10 am – and then nine locks (all automatic), two overpasses and a lifting bridge later we arrived at Joinville.  We passed a large riverside factory which was obviously dumping waste into the water and there was a milky sheen of whitish powder over the water for a long stretch.

At our last lock I got chatting with two adorable just- teenagers hanging about the lock.  They wanted to know if we knew the queen and had we been to the wedding?  Funny little things.  They took our photo so we took one of them.  

Initially, we parked at the Halte Nautique, which is also a mobile home/caravan park and was quite full.  However, we’d been told about a B&B called ‘La Vinaigerie’ with a pontoon further downstream, so we investigated and then moved there.  There is wifi connection (a big draw for me) for €1 per day plus we pay a small amount for electricity.  It is very quiet and pleasant here and there is a big supermarket and garage very conveniently just over the road.

Piepape to Langres

Thursday 21^st July

It rained in the night and started drizzling again early in the morning.  So, despite having told the vnf girl we’d be leaving at 8 am, we had a lie in, walked into Piépape village to buy fresh bread, and then set off at 10.30 am.  I telephoned the vnf and a man in a van duly turned up at the first lock to let us through.  There are no radar detectors here but the locks are very close together and once you go through one it sets the next lock into operation.  The design and layout of all the locks was identical so the process was quite smooth apart from a couple of them refusing to open or close, in which case I called the vnf (there’s an intercom system on the dock which saves using one’s phone) and someone always arrived very quickly – even during the lunch hour to my pleased surprise.

The countryside here is very agricultural with lots of wide open spaces and gently rolling hills in the background – just the sort of land I’d like to live in.  There are lush green fields (the drought is well and truly over) dotted with fat, healthy looking cattle, mostly white or a soft cream or occasionally brown and white.  They stand about placidly in herds of ten or twenty munching the grass or lie lazily chewing the cud.  They are beautiful.

 

On flatter ground the crops are grown – tall leafy stalks of green corn already tasselling but still too young to warrant stealing a couple for dinner; spectacular sunflowers, heavy yellow heads straining to tilt towards the sun; and short stems of ripe beige wheat rustling in the wind, much of it already harvested.

We are passing through many small villages with pretty, well kept gardens full of vegetables and fruit trees.   Along the tow path are people, not too many, walking, cycling, camping, swimming or fishing. They are usually families or groups of school age kids on an organised outing.  People are generally well behaved and the children make hardly any noise – they don’t scream, like English kids.  And no litter, anywhere.  Shades of ‘Stepford’ - must be something in the water.  There’s a pleasant rural tranquillity about it that belies the crime statistics, apparently.

Early afternoon we finally got to Ecluse Number 1, our last ‘up’ lock, where we were greeted by an endearingly friendly chap who took all our details (he was charmed to hear we were from Zimbabwe which he’d never heard of, but seemed to think there may be a lot of Irish people there) and said he would arrange approval for us to go through the Balesmes Tunnel.  This would take 15 minutes so we tied off in the lock and gratefully relaxed with a cup of tea and sandwich.  When he returned with the go ahead he insisted on giving us a chocolate each and so delighted with him were we that we gave him a jar of our apple chutney – I warned him it was spicy but he assured me he would like it.

A few kilometres along we reached the tunnel which passes under Balesme-sur-Marne – this is 4,820 metres long and only 5 metres wide so only one boat can go through at a time.  It took us nearly an hour to pass through.

Despite what I’d read in our chart, inside it is well lit, dead straight and deathly quiet until we came upon a group of workmen putting in new light fittings.  Their calls to each other echoed weirdly down the tunnel and gave us quite a start before we identified them. 

I believe the tunnel was finished, along with the canal, in 1907 so over the last hundred years the constantly dripping water on the walls has formed wonderful stalactites in places.  My camera just wouldn‘t take a good picture of them.

The tunnel marks the highest spot on the canal and a couple of kilometres after it we reached our first descending lock – oh, what a pleasure that was!  We slid slowly into the lock, then without leaving the boat we looped our ropes gently over the bollards at water level, pressed the remote control at the blue rod and down we went, so calmly we barely had to hold our lines.  Bliss!  No more slimy ladders, wildly swinging boat, us shouting at each other, and the end of calluses on my poor little hands.  The whole thing took a few minutes and we were on our way, slipped with equal ease down the second lock and arrived at the Halte Nautique near Langres (PK 149) at 5 pm in very good spirits.  The vnf man was there to greet us and wanted to know when we are leaving again and I told him 11 am Saturday.  We’d had intermittent light drizzle all day, but the good downpour held off until we arrived, as usual, and we got drenched again.

Once again the Halte is free with water and electricity (from 4pm to 9am which is fair enough) but the water is shallow and once again we have had to tie up some way from the dock.   Isis is also here and also has its stern sticking out into the canal.  To get to shore we rigged as a gangplank the board we usually have hanging along the side of the boat.  It was still slimy from the lock walls and Mike managed to slip on it when it was wet and hurt his back, poor chap.  Luckily, and amazingly, he didn’t fall in. 

Despite his bad back, Mike spurned the bus this morning and he managed the long uphill hike into the ancient and lovely town of Langres, birthplace of the philosopher Diderot. 

We took a wander into St Mammés Cathedral, stunning architecture with beautiful soaring arches.  I am constantly delighted by the sheer beauty of Catholic churches and in equal measure appalled by the almost pagan symbolism of the interior decoration.  There is no doubt that Christianity (particularly the Roman Catholic bit of it) has inspired man to the heights of his artistic ability.

Today, Friday, was market day but we found the fresh produce rather disappointing.  However, we bought a Langres cheese which is delicious and have treated ourselves with a ready cooked roast chicken for dinner tonight.  The rain has held off all day and we’ve even had long sunny periods.  However, it darkened again this evening and is now pouring.  We haven’t had a meal in the cockpit since leaving the Saône a week ago and I really miss that.  Of course, it is high here and much further north, so one can expect it to be cooler and wetter.  Mountain weather, I guess.  The countryside is slightly different – more hilly and more trees, almost alpine.  There are still plenty of cows, but not many crops.  We’ve passed quite a few lumber yards along the canal.

Maxilly to Piepape

Monday 18 July

We managed 13 locks and 1 automatic bridge this day.  The automatic bridge refused to open so I telephoned the vnf man who said it was broken but someone was coming, and at that moment a young man drove up in a van and lifted it for us.  We are most impressed by the service provided by the vnf.  There are little vans that run up and down the tow path, checking that everything is alright and they sort things out quickly if there’s a problem.  Most of the locks operate with the ‘telecommande’ remote, which you click when about 300 metres from the lock and that sets the operation in motion.   A few were automatic which means the operation is activated when the boat passes a radar beam.  At our first automatic, nothing happened.   I phoned the vnf man and he asked if we were a small, plastic boat.  Well, that sounds so dismal, but I agreed that we were.  He said, that’s the problem and you will have this problem all the way up.  Don’t you have a reflector?  Ah, yes.  We grabbed our reflector out of the locker and waved it at the radar beam and Voila, the green light went on.

The locks are endlessly challenging - slimy, weed laden, spider web laced metal ladders almost always on the opposite side to the operating mechanism, badly positioned bollards and sometimes turbulent water.  Mike holds the boat against the wall by the ladder and I clamber up (very carefully) hauling both ropes, slip them round one or preferably, if possible, two bollards, pass Mike’s rope back to him, snub mine off and then walk across the bridge to the other side, lift the blue rod, scuttle back across the bridge and take my rope, then hold on tight whilst the lock fills.  The ‘telecommande’ remote control locks are easier because I can use the remote to activate the process and don’t have to cross the bridge and lift the blue rod.  It’s a tiring, dirty business but we are becoming quite proficient.  Every day we bless our new fat fenders which hold the boat quite steady.   The canal is full to overflowing so the rain has finally made some real difference. 

Just after the lock at St Seine, and as we were beginning to worry about finding somewhere for the night because there was nothing marked on our chart, we found a small picnic mooring (PK197) scarcely big enough for one boat and tied up in another torrential downpour.  Half an hour of heavy rain was followed by brilliant sunshine for about an hour, then it clouded over again and has remained cloudy, occasionally drizzling.

Tuesday 19 July

Next morning, still gloomy and cold, we set off and only had six locks to our next stop at Cusey (PK 181) an extremely nice Halte Nautique free with electricity and water, where once again we arrived in torrential rain.  Rain is good but we’re getting a bit weary of it now.

There is a small mobile home functioning as a restaurant open midday and evening serving salads and snacks, but although there were four boats here, none of us availed ourselves of their services (which I felt was a shame).  We took a walk into the little village but found absolutely nothing commercial – there’s the inevitable church and Mairie and I saw a post box, but that’s it.  The New Zealand sailing boat, Isis, took their bikes on a long search of various villages in the area and found not one shop.  Isis has a very long mast and trail a dinghy, making them a bit unwieldy, and they also have 1.8m draught so they get grounded rather often.  They are a laid back and resourceful bunch, particularly their teenage son Sam, and they manoeuvre their way out of all sorts of mishaps. 

Wednesday 20 July

Once again it was gloomy and cold, but we set off at 11 am and took in 11 locks.  Along the way, in the middle of a lock manoeuvre, we were approached by a lady from the lock keeper’s house and sold a jar of Acacia Honey.  It wasn’t cheap but Acacia trees are common in Zimbabwe so we know this honey.   We also admired Madame’s sense of commerce.  Although some are derelict, many of the old lock houses are now inhabited by ordinary citizens, some of whom are friendly and like to pass the time of day and others who ignore us.  I don’t get too many opportunities to practice my French any more so I chat away to anyone who will oblige.  No one has ever offered to take our lines or lift the blue rod.

Curiosity stops many people passing by in cars, on bikes or on foot, to watch the boats struggling in the locks and it’s nice to have a little chat, except when you’re having problems tying up, in which case you’d prefer not to have an audience.  I complained, quite gently, to the pretty young woman in the vnf van who’s been monitoring us for two days now about the fact that the ladder is always on the opposite side from the blue rod.  She agreed that it is totally impractical and offered as an excuse that the locks are very old – the implication being that folk were less logical back in the early 1900’s.  Basically, of course, the locks are designed for large commercial peniches and not small pleasure craft.

We arrived at the Halte Pique-Nique just beyond the lock at Piépape (PK169) at 3.30 pm.  We’d been told about this picnic spot by two yachts and assumed the depth would be good but it wasn’t and we’ve tied up with the keel firmly in the mud and our stern sticking out.  It’s a long bone jarring jump to the shore.  At least today it has not rained, though it has remained mostly cloudy and cool.  There are sunny bursts, we peel our jackets off and I get the camera out, but they never last long.  We hear it is going to stay this way till the end of the week.

Tomorrow we have a continuous chain of 11 automatic locks, which will bring us to our highest point and the last of the up locks.  We have been coming upwards since Port Saint Louis.   It is rumoured that going down is easier than coming up. 

We are hoping so.

Auxonne to Maxilly - into the canal

Bastille Day

The welcome in Auxonne had been so good and we felt so comfortable there we decided to stay for the Bastille Day celebrations.  The open air picnic planned for the evening of the 13^th became an indoor picnic in the town hall as it continued wet throughout the day.  That day the 31 foot sailing yacht Banyan came in and we met English Adrian and Giselle who have just come down the Marne to Saône canal.  We sat together at the party, each taking our own selection of food and talked about the canals.  They worried us a bit with tales of very low water and slow moving barges kicking up clouds of mud and weed, even though they draw only 1 metre. 

The rain held off for Bastille Day itself which was relatively quiet, apart from lots of jet skis and water ski boats flying up and down and a solemn parade of chanting French police.

In the morning, we took our bikes and went for an energetic cycle into the countryside.  Later, a Dutch 45 foot steel sailing yacht Heindrikje Visser arrived and berthed heavily on the mud in the shallow spot where we had grounded, and we met John (who grew up in Cape Town) and his Dutch wife Carla.  They had just come down the Canal de l’Est and with a depth of 1.75 m they assured us they had no problems and when there was a shortage of water they simply waited - eventually the VNF obligingly let sufficient water through to allow them to pass.  They all came to Forever that evening and we swapped notes on where (and where not) to stop along the way.  We exchanged our Rhône chart with Banyan for their Marne to Saône chart.

Later that night, Mike and I walked across the bridge and watched the most amazing fireworks display we’ve seen since Palma, New Year 2001/2 – remarkably fine pyrotechnics for a small town.

The next day, Friday 15^th, I asked Isabelle (Elodie’s colleague, another charming young woman) to phone the VNF for me who confirmed that there is enough water in the Marne to Saône canal, then we did a bit of shopping, bid all our new friends a fond farewell, untied our lines and headed north up the river.  One kilometre up I noticed that the raw water cooling system wasn’t operating so we went into neutral whilst Mike sorted it out (he’d cleaned the filter the previous day and obviously left an air lock), and then put the engine into gear again...... and nothing happened.  No forward gear.  Reverse would work, but not forward.

We had no choice then but to reverse back the way we’d come – very comical I’m sure and we got a few funny glances.  Steering in reverse is weird and difficult so we decided to tie up initially against a large barge Jake, owned by Peter, and Mike was doing very well and until the last moment when things went a bit pear-shaped, though not tragically.  Another Dutchman, Dick, came to help us and then Peter spotted us and he came out to help, and then Adrian came along and joined in and, with a little help from our friends, eventually got rafted up against Jake. 

Peter came aboard and we all had a cup of tea and discussed our options.  Then South African John arrived and he and Mike took a good look at the gear box, poked about, tried forward gear – and it worked!  Later Mike dived to check the propeller which was clear and we all decided that whatever had been blocking it was now removed (perhaps by a kilometre of reversing). 

We sat drinking a few beers on Heindrikje Visser that afternoon and every time a ski boat shot past and rocked the boat she would clunk onto her steel bottom with a thud.  Later on though, the water level became very high and the boat floated and we took heart that the rain had lifted the level of the river.  We spent a sociable evening with John, Carla and Peter.

Next morning, we once more did the rounds to say goodbye only to find Heindrikje Visser, happily floating last night, was now sitting with her water line at least one foot above the water and thoroughly grounded!  Elodie said they must have opened the ‘barrage’ just beyond the bridge and let water through.  Worried that the water level would continue to drop, John wanted to get out, so Dick brought his barge, which is like a little tug with a 149 hp engine and, with Mike as crew, they managed to pull John off the mud.  The tug was a bit forceful and Heindrikje Visser swung sideways and slammed her forward hull hard against the dock, causing Elodie and I to make a cowardly leap backwards.  Carla, to her credit, stayed put and pushed her boat as best she could off the dock, but not before a long streak of paint and steel were scraped off.  A nasty moment.

After John had re-berthed further up in deeper water, we said our goodbyes again and finally left the very nice town of Auxonne. 

Goodbye waves between Heindrikje Visser and Jake.

The gear box behaved mostly well (there has been the odd delayed reaction but it always finally clicked into gear) and we passed uneventfully through Pontailler-sur-Saône and our last two Saône locks and then turned west into the Saône to Marne canal - this is still how it is described on all literature as well as the overhead banner as you enter the canal, but for some confusing reason the authorities now want to call it the Canal between Champagne and Burgundy (Bourgogne).  The canal is 224 kilometres long and includes 114 locks.

There was a new system to the locks now.  The first lock was open and the green light was on so we entered, I climbed up the ladder and we tied up.  On the dock I found the stand where there is a phone – you just press the button and it calls the vnf.  He told me to wait for a ‘telecommande’ – a small remote control box – and to call him back in 10 minutes.  Reading the instructions properly, I noticed then that we should already have lifted the blue rod before calling, so I did and the lock filled.  By then the ten minutes was up so I called again, noticing that the remote had popped out the bottom of the phone box in the interim.  I gave him our boat name and the number of the telecommande, he gave me scanty instructions and then opened the exit gates for us by remote control.  Fortunately, Adrian and Giselle had given us a leaflet with fuller instructions.

There was a second lock almost immediately which we managed without too much of a problem.  The blue rod was placed on the left side, but the ladder was on the right, so I scuttled up and then realised that the only decent bollard was on the left.  I crossed over on the bridge, Mike threw up the ropes and I tied us off.  Of course, I now wasn’t able to return to the boat so I lifted the blue rod and then remained on the dock and held my rope from up above.  That worked perfectly well and it was easy to get aboard again when the boat had risen to the top of the lock.   

Just outside this second lock at the small village of Maxilly (PK222) we found a very pleasant Halte Nautique where we stopped for two nights.  Berthing is free but electricity and water cost €3 for 3 hours.

We’d only intended to stop one night, but the rain came down heavily again that night and most of the following day so we just sat tight, read books and watched dvds.  By the tow path was a tree groaning with small sour apples, so we picked a whole lot and I’ve made a new batch of chutney - sour fruit makes good chutney.  I took a walk into the village to buy the token for electricity and found a bakery, a grocery, a fishing store, a Mairie, a church, a school and a hairdresser.  It is a very rural village.



We saw no traffic at all in either direction until late that second afternoon, when three other boats came in and shared the mooring with us for the night.   I spoke with one of the neighbours and asked him how he’d found the canal.  ‘Weedy’, was his reply.  However, he said the water level was ok and about 1.8 to 2 metres all the way.  Mike is checking the raw water filter every day.

St Jean to Auxonne

Monday 11 July

Friendly welcoming committee

We were subjected to violent thunderstorms and heavy rainfall in St Jean on Thursday and Friday, but it cleared briefly on Saturday morning so we took off.   Histoire d’Eau had a safety inspector visiting them that day and were going to have to leave the pontoon for a while so it seemed a good time for us to go. 

The lock on this stretch was our first automatic lock and we had been fully briefed by Peta and Steve on how to operate it, but our thunder was stolen somewhat by another boat in front of us with whom we shared the lock and who did all the automatic bits.  Anyhow, we could watch them and it all seemed easy enough.  Once in the lock, Mike stopped at the ladder on the left hand side and I climbed up carrying the rope (Mike and I had decided that, because of the fat fenders, we would in future only use one line at the centre of the boat) slipped it over the bollard and passed it back to Mike who held on to it.  I stayed up on the wall and watched the proceedings.  The other boat pushed the blue rod up to start the automatic process, the gates closed and the lock began to fill.   Despite being the smallest and shallowest lock yet (1.85m) the turbulence was terrific and Mike struggled to hold the boat onto the wall.  In future we will go back to using two lines and I will return to the boat, it’s safer.  I heard the lady on the neighbouring boat tell her friends that this was the ‘most exciting’ of the locks and we were pleased to hear it.

Shortly after the lock we reached the town of Auxonne where we found the usual long pontoon with electricity and water points.  After a brief, heart stopping moment of grounding on a shallow patch, we managed to find deeper water and tied up with the help of a friendly neighbour.  Shortly after, a dear young girl, Elodie, turned up and introduced herself as the welcoming committee from the tourist association of Auxonne, presented us with a map of the town and informed us of the facilities.  Berthing was free but we could pay for electricity and water at €1 for 2 hours, so we have taken a euro’s worth each day.  Elodie spoke some English and German as well as her native French and couldn’t have been more obliging, including telling off a ski motor boat for passing too close to the boats and creating an uncomfortable wake.  She sits in a little wooden building on the banks beside the pontoons, but leaps out to welcome each boat as it arrives.  It’s a summer job for her.

The town of Auxonne is old and historic with a very beautiful church ( all set out for a wedding later in the day).... 

Wierd shops  



... ancient houses....

and Napoleon...     



It has continued to rain heavily for two days, particularly Sunday so we spent practically the whole day sitting on the boat, reading and watching dvd’s.  I do hope some of this rain is falling in the north and filling up some of the rivers and canals.  Today it’s nice and sunny again.  Mike went out to buy gear box oil and we changed that, gave the boat a scrub and then we visited the Chateau and museum, Napoleon on the ground floor (he lived here for some time as a first Lieutenant at the garrison) and the history of Auxonne on the next two with this amazing Charpente at the top. 

For the first time on this trip we have made no new friends nor met up with old friends.  We are surrounded mostly by hire boats that charge in and out again very quickly.  Further up the river there is a H2O marina and we saw our German friends’ boat Carolin there, but they have gone back to Germany for a couple of weeks and were not in.

Opposite the church is the tourist office that allows unlimited wifi at €1 if you take your own computer.Good stuff.

Opposite the church is the tourist office that allows unlimited wifi at €1 if you take your own computer. Good stuff.

Chalon-sur-Saone to St Jean de Losne

Really got the hang of it now!

Tuesday 5^th July

We got going late, after a coffee at MacDonalds to use their wifi connection.  We’d planned a short hop (with no lock) to stop at Verdun sur le Doubs but when I phoned there was no space.  They said we could come in if we could tie up at our back only which we declined – not such a good idea for a sailing yacht - so we had to continue and now take in a lock.  This was no problem at all with our new fenders which worked a charm.  It had turned into a very long, hot day, though it was only 5 and a half hours travelling.  The Saône is an extremely nice, tranquil river to travel on and very rural and pretty, the banks dotted with cows, sheep and fishermen, but it lacks the dramatic beauty of the Rhône. 

There are some beautiful houses too, with their own private jetties and lawns that are beginning to look like African lawns in the winter – brown and sparse. 

However, just sitting and motoring along is tediously boring, the monotony broken by the short, stressful and physically demanding periods in the locks or when entering or leaving a marina/pontoon.  Sailing, or perhaps more specifically, boating, is a sport (if you can call it a sport) of extremes.  Long tranquil (tedious) periods interspersed by moments of extremely violent activity. 

Where possible we are trying to stop every twenty or thirty kilometres, but it all depends on the stops available.  We are rather jealous of the shallow keeled motor boats and flat bottomed barges which can just slide up to the banks and park almost anywhere they fancy.  There are lots and lots of hire boats in this section of the river and they are a bit of a menace.  Some are quite adept, know how to handle their boats and have good manners, but not all, and most privately owned boats dread having one of them parked next door or sharing a lock with them – their locking manoeuvres can be quite extraordinary. 

We finally arrived at Seurre at 5.30 pm, where we’d hoped to find a free Halte Fluvial but found the whole area has been turned into a marina.  Within minutes we were greeted by a remarkably unfriendly capitan who charged us €13 for one night including water and electricity but not showers which cost €2.60 each - presumably because of the water shortage.  (We are no longer allowed to wash our boats.)  Chalon-sur-Saône marina was much nicer with good showers included at €17. 

Paul, a friendly Belgian helped us tie up and then came aboard and we swapped notes on the canals.  He has come down the Saône and Marne canal which we intend to take, and though he has no charts he was able to give us information on good places to stop.  He said the canal is very easy, with a good level of water and almost all the stops are free.  He managed without a chart and we have decided that we will have to do the same – unless we meet someone who wants to do a swap.  Paul also warned us that Seurre was the last stop where we would get free water so we topped up our tanks (he said water costs €6 at St Jean de Losne), and that St Jean de Losne is the last good place to get diesel.  We still have pretty full tanks, but we will buy a couple of jerry cans worth.  We gave Paul all our notes on the Saône and Rhône. 

Seurre is a nice but ordinary town and in view of the cost and unwelcoming capitan we left the next day at lunch time.  A hundred yards up the canal we went into our next lock, once again without trouble.  We seem to have finally totally got the hang of these locks and for the first time I wasn’t hyperventilating as we went in.  Later in the day we were told that that was the last of that type of lock.  Ha ha.

It was only a three hour 16 kilometre journey to St Jean de Losne.  As we were coming into the town we were approached by a small motor launch with three French Gendarmes, one of whom boarded the boat to carry out a check.  A charming, handsome young man, he wanted to see our boat papers, passports, vnf vignette and driving permit (Permis Plaisance).  This last is a new requirement (by law) for all craft under 20 metres in length and one has to pass all sorts of tests to get it.  Bizarrely, as these things always are, skippers who hire a boat are not required to have one whereas all us privately owned and very experienced skippers are!  I read somewhere on the internet that if the skipper has an International Licence or something from his home country then that will do, and as Mike has a Skippers Licence from South Africa, we produced that.  I pointed out that it included some hours experience of tidal and inland waters and our Gendarme was perfectly happy – good man. 

However, he wasn’t so happy with our very aged (never serviced) fire extinguishers and made a report insisting that we replace just one at the soonest possible.  He also wasn’t too happy with our life jackets but he let that pass.  There’s nothing wrong with our life jackets, they’re just old.  After a happy little chat in French and English he shook our hands and left the boat.  Upon arrival in St. Jean de Losne we went to the hardware store and bought a new extinguisher for €30 (groan) and then presented ourselves at the Gendarmerie Fluviale where we found the same delightful chap and showed it to him plus the receipt.  Back at the boat we took the old one off and before chucking it we tried it – worked perfectly, of course!

We couldn’t find space on the quay in town so carried on a little and saw a large barge tied to a pontoon outside a camping and restaurant area.  There was space ahead of the barge so we went in but hit bottom just before the pontoon and Mike pulled back.  The Australians on the barge (Histoire d’Eau – great name) came out and very kindly offered to let us moor against them which we did.  We’d met them, Peta and Steve, at Macon.  They had helped us tie up as we came in and introduced themselves but they’d left the next day and we hadn’t seen them again.  Very nice people, we went aboard (I’d been dying to get inside one of these big barges – lovely and spacious inside) and had a cup of tea with them, then again in the evening we all had drinks on Forever.

St Jean de Losne is a central spot for various canals and home to the ‘Le Boat’ hire company.  There is a marina here where many boats are left for the winter and there are boat yards and chandleries providing the necessary services.  The town is very nice and I’ve found a laverie where I did a big wash including bed linen. 

Friday 8^th July

We had a very enjoyable evening with Peta and Steve – aperitifs on Forever followed by a shared dinner  of paella on Histoire d’Eau, drinking port till the early hours. 

The view of St Jean from Forever.

We have one more stop at the town of Auxonne, then we’ll pass Pontailler-sur-Saône  and turn west into what they now call the Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne (224 Kilometres and 114 locks), which will take us up to Vitry-le-Francois and then we join the Canal Lateral a la Marne (67 Kilometres and 15 locks) to Conde and a brief part of another canal to Epernay and the Marne River to Paris (182 Kilometres and 18 locks). 

The black stars mark Port Saint Louis  in the south, Lyon where we left the River Rhône, St Jean where we are now and nearly the end of our journey on the River Saône, Epernay at the end of the canal, Paris at the end of the River Marne, Le Havre at the end of the River Seine and finally Carentan across the channel in Normandy.  As you see, most of our trip is in the rivers with only one canal.

Macon to Chalon-sur-Saone

Happy Happy Days

We spent a very pleasant three days (you’re not allowed to stay longer), in almost perfect weather, on the free Halte Fluvial pontoon in Mâcon with good friends Willem and Renate on Acquarel.  Ren is a gifted artist.  She has a book of their travels which she illustrates with her wonderful drawings.  She very kindly drew a sketch of Mike and me to put into our scrapbook.  We are very honoured.

On Saturday the 2^nd of July we browsed round the most wonderful market we’ve yet seen, bought a local cheese and saucisson sec (both delicious), as well as vegetables and fresh bread.  Our journey to Tournus was uneventful and happily without a lock.  We arrived at lunch time with Acquarel right behind us and once again tied to a town pontoon, free with water and electricity.  We are very impressed with the facilities that are available on the Saône for boats – there are plenty of them and usually free, though one can only stop for two or three days. 

Tournus is a charming town with a particularly beautiful old Abbey, l’Abbaye de St Philibert - a masterpiece of Romanesque art from the 11^th and 12^th centuries, according to my leaflet.  The light inside was wonderful.

Wandering around the town on Saturday afternoon, we found a local fete celebrating a bygone age, everyone in old costumes, performing ancient arts and crafts, singing and music.  Very funny. 

Our 13^th wedding anniversary is today 4^th July, but since it is a Monday and many French restaurants are closed on Mondays, we decided to have our dinner out on Sunday night in Tournus.  Our dear friends Ren and Willem came by with a bunch of flowers for our anniversary and to say goodbye as they were leaving that day and taking a different path to us. 

We took a long walk later in the day and found what looked like a small restaurant in the town called Le Bourgogne, made a reservation for later and went back to the boat for a couple of aperitifs.  Returning at 8pm, we found the restaurant packed (thank goodness we’d booked) and were placed in a large room at the back.  We chose a three course menu for €15 which was the cheapest we’d seen.  Mike had herrings with potato and olive oil and I had a salad with poultry livers – things I would never think of preparing and neither of us would have chosen except for the limitations of the menu but both were delicious.  We both had a Jaret de porc (slow cooked pigs knuckle, same sort of thing as braised oxtail) with potatoes, I took the cheese board (Madame was exceedingly generous and gave me four large slices which Mike helped me with) and Mike had two scoops of chocolate ice cream.  The usual baskets of fresh bread and carafes of water and we had a pichet (50cl) of good Beaujolais wine all for €39!  We ate so much we thought we’d pop and everything was utterly, utterly divine.  Excellent choice of restaurant.

We have looked at property magazines and found a few likely looking farm houses to restore with land in our price range and got quite excited ... but have been warned that it gets VERY cold here so we will forget that.  Pity.

Chatting with neighbours on a sailing boat, we discussed the problem of our boat swinging.  They pointed to their large globe-like fenders, one each hanging at the front and back of the boat with numerous smaller tubular fenders in between and said that’s what we needed.  “The fat ones at the front and back make a straight line and stop the boat swinging.”  Elemental physics, really, and we should have thought of it as most of the yachts we’ve seen have these fat round fenders front and back.  So, we bought two – expensive, but worth it.  We left Tournus this morning for the marina at Chalon-sur-Saone and had to pass through one lock.  Admittedly, it was a small lock (2.6 metres) but Forever sat snug and firm against the wall - what a difference those two fenders made.  We are very pleased with ourselves.

Here we are in Chalon – one big fender at the back

The really unfortunate news though is that Harry has phoned us to say that a boat (1.8m depth) he knows who has already passed through the Canal du Centre and is half way up the Canal Lateral de la Loire has been turned back due to lack of water in the canals.  We feel so sorry for them to have travelled so far and now be turned back.  He says anything over 1.6 m is being turned back and we are 1.67m so that’s us scuppered.  It is not a disaster, it just means that we have to take another route – for us this will be the Saone and Marne which so far are OK, and thank goodness we found out now and not after starting along the Canal du Centre.  We can;t get offic ial confirmation from themarina here which |I think is very bad.  The VNF should advise all marinas who should advise all sailing boats.  Anyway.  All our charts are for the three central canals and we have nothing for the Saone and Marne.  Now we are madly chatting up everyone trying to swap charts.

I'm sitting with a coffee in MacDonalds, using their free wifi.  Off to Verdun sur Doubs now.