Tuesday 2 August 2011

Joinville to Vitry-le-Francois


We stayed two days at La Vinaigerie’s pontoon and enjoyed suddenly pleasant weather – so good we had dinner in the cockpit again!  I took full advantage of the wifi connection and caught up on a few emails.  Joinville was once again a lovely old town, with the river running right through it.

And another beautiful (13th century) church with a statue of Joan of Arc.



We awoke this morning to a cloudy, misty day, which pretty much continued all day long apart from one or two feeble and short lived outbreaks of sun.
There is so much water about now that the canals are overfilled and spilling all the time.  This is fine except some of the locks we entered today were so full the water level was ABOVE the lock wall, so we were floating over the lock.  Fenders only go down to water level, so we have to be very careful to keep the side of the boat away from the concrete lock edge, until the lock starts to empty.  The spilling causes heavy waterfalls within the lock. 
There are very few boats about – we only met a couple all day today.   We managed 13 locks, six lifting bridges and one overpass.  At our first lock the mechanism wouldn’t work so I phoned and the vnf man arrived a few minutes later and sorted it out.  He informed me that all the remaining locks were automatic but that there were some lifting bridges that someone would come and open for us. 
A couple of hundred yards before the first bridge there dangled over the canal a long rod with a sign to turn the rod.  We had come across this mechanism before in some of the locks, so we slowed down, turned the rod and the bridge lifted.  Easy.  However, at the second lifting bridge there appeared to be no remote method to operate the lift – no radar, no rod and no remote box - so we came to a stop and waited for the promised vnf person.  I tried phoning but there was no reply to their number.  So, since it was lunchtime anyway, we moved to the side, hammered our pickets into the bank with a mallet and moored up.   After lunch I phoned again and someone answered and very genially said someone would be along soon enough.  Ha ha – it was obviously their lunch break too.  We were there about an hour, but it was pleasant enough and the first time we have used our pickets to actually tie up to the side.
We had a bit of high comedy during the day with a duck.  Forever is keeping to the middle of the canal as the sides tend to be full of weed and we bore down on a group of ducks, all of whom swam off to the side except one stubborn (or stupid) fellow who remained in the middle.  Just as Mike was getting worried he would run the bird over, it took flight and shot forward down the canal a couple of hundred yards, and then settled again - right in the middle.  Once again we came up on him and again he sat there until we were almost upon him, then took to the air and flew a bit further this time and once again settled in the middle of the canal.  We’d got the giggles by then, and blow me down if he didn’t just sit there again until we almost ran him over and then took off into the air again, flapping furiously, but staying smack IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CANAL.  The third time he flew so far he met up with another group of ducks, so we couldn’t identify him, but when we came up they all moved over to the side.
The rural French are keen container gardeners, red and pink geraniums and bizzy lizzies being favourites, particularly together.

We arrived at Saint Dizier at 5pm and moored on the public quay.  There was nothing interesting there but we did find a good supermarket close by the next morning.  However, we didn’t explore the town of Saint Dizier, which is no doubt very nice.  It is a very big town.
Saturday 30 July
Another quite boring day, just working our way through a seemingly endless series of locks – eight today, no lifting bridges – and arrived this evening at the very nice Halte Nautique at Orconte.  It is €6 per day and there is even a shower here!   Orconte is a small village with nothing much but there is a bakery and (amazingly) a nightclub!  There are some pretty old houses (same flower boxes). 


We came here because we intended to do an 11 lock run tomorrow out of this canal and straight into the Canal Lateral de la Marne, passing through Vitry-le-François.  However, the gear box continues to give us trouble.  Mike did some work on a cable and it seemed much better for a couple of days, but forward gear is pausing again and we are worried about getting into the big rivers (the Marne and Seine) with a dodgy gearbox.  A neighbour told us there is a mechanic at Vitry-le-François, so we will stop there after all.  The neighbour also lent us a chart of the Marne River as we don’t have one and I traced all the relevant pages out – long tiresome job.
Sunday 31 July
Amazingly, there were stars in the sky last night and this morning it has remained sunny and pleasantly warm all day.  We left Orconte after lunch and spent another fairly uneventful afternoon taking in six locks.  The mechanism on quite a few of the locks wouldn’t work initially, but we persevered and eventually they did.  Once again the water level is very high making manoeuvrability difficult, especially at the last lock which had a protruding submerged shelf (which no one told us about) and which we nearly dinged the boat on.  At this last lock we handed back our ‘telecommande’ and we have now finished the Canal between Champagne and Burgundy. 
The depth at the marina in Vitry-le-François is marked as 1.6m.  As we are 1.67m we didn’t like to enter but there was nowhere else to go.  Finally we begged permission to tie up against a large barge in the canal, and the man agreed but advised that he had work beginning on the barge next morning and was afraid our yacht would be damaged.   We agreed to move in the morning and tied up for the night.
After settling the boat we took a walk over to the marina and met a few people.  There is a South African boat moored outside the marina and we will take his place tomorrow morning when they leave.  He had a bad experience with a mechanic so we won’t try that chap. 


Monday 1 August

Well, the welders arrived and got work on the barge at 8 o’clock, courteously starting at the other end of the barge so as not to disturb us too much.  As soon as the South African boat left, we tried to settle on the wall outside the marina but it was too shallow and we got stuck in the mud for a bit.  I had tried phoning one mechanic but he lives in St Jean-de-Losne (fat lot of use that is) and the only other one we think is the chancer who charged the South African €500 for a three hour job, so we gave up on the whole idea and left Vitry at 9.30am. 

Today we entered the Canal Lateral de la Marne, got through eight reasonably easy locks and are now in Chalons-en-Champagne where we have found a free spot to tie up near the marina.  Mike has had a go at the gear box and we think it is ok.  Hurrah.  Hopefully that has saved us a large mechanic’s fee.  We will see how we go.  Chalons is a lovely town with the most beautiful cathedral I have yet seen – St Etienne.

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