In this blog: naughty Jack goes swimming, Mike and Ross drink beer, we all nearly die, and Liberty flees the nest...

Yes, at last, without visible means of support, we set sail on Liberty on a short "shakedown cruise". Not wanting to place ourselves in danger, we waited to do this until our good Kiwi friends Ross and Julia arrived to stay on board as the boat's "guinea pigs". Mean? No, practical :-) I need to know if I call "All hands on deck" that we actually have a few hands!

I picked up R & J at the local station - they were mid-way through a six or seven-week European tour - and delivered them to the boat.

Mid-morning all went to the Book Swap, a regular ex-pat boat people meeting, followed by the weekly opportunity to pick the brains of local experienced boatpeople including Mike from Poland. He has two boats, a brace of MG cars and a scooter, and is 83. He has 30 years' experience afloat and is regarded as the boat guru in these parts. He is a lovely man.

Mike gave us the welcome news that we will almost certainly find moorings down south, especially on the Midi between Sette and Toulouse, plus it will be warmer... Exactly the sort of optimistic news we wanted to hear.

Quick visit to boulangerie for sticky tarts then back to boat and Champagne to celebrate R & J's arrival.

Well, finally we took Liberty out for the first time, a short jaunt of two hours in the afternoon. Didn't do anything more adventurous than go out onto the Saone, tootled upstream for an hour, turned around (the bow and stern thrusters are great for turning on a sixpence, or a centime, whatever France uses now) and return.

It was nice and sunny when we started but from half way it rained, until we got back. Backing Liberty into her mooring between a pontoon finger and another boat took some doing but I managed it in the end. Having Ross and Julia on board helped as they were able to manage ropes, fend off etc, plus the French couple from the boatmTranquil also helped, and gave me a round of applause when I finally wedged Liberty in.

The boat performed well except we couldn't get the inverter going so that's something we need to address. (For the nin-yechnical. It's the thing that enables you to get mains power from the boat's batteries when not connected to shore power. Here Enders the lesson)

Engine-wise it was flawless, and we didn't sink - which is just as well because despite being otherwise well-equipped there are no life jackets.

So, first sailing uneventful. Long may it be that way.

If you're following these blogs you'll recall from the last one that Liz went along to a boat-ladies' coffee morning. Later after having tied Liberty up,
Ross and I went to the make equivalent: Boys' Beer at the Bar de la Poste where expats gather weekly to swap boating stories and advice.
There we met Ray and Joe, both on Dutch tjalks, Ray's dating to about 1890, Joe's a youngster of 1905, both made of iron and solid as. In fact, Ray's boat spent theSecond World War completely underwater where it had been deliberately sunk so the German's couldn't use it.

As in so many bars and restaurants, the Bar de la Poste encouraged dogs, with the barman's dogs - two spaniels - being accorded the special privilege of being allowed to lie on the tables. This encouraged us to woof down our beer.

Despite the chauvinist nature of the gathering (Lucy from Kiwi Rose popped in to introduce me to her husband Max who was there, but then quickly ducked out saying "I'm not a man so I'm not supposed to be here") there was an excellent community feel, and some great boating stories.

So, there we are later on board, sitting down to lovely stir fry, then tucking in to lovely cheeses supplied by R & J, when the carbon monoxide alarm goes off, so we turned off the gas supply to fridge and cooker, lots of farting around with the alarm, gaffer tape over the thing, finally it stopped and after multiple resets it showed nothing. Until just before bed it Seemed to detect more gas. Is it the blue cheese? Or the sweet chilli sauce? The hot air we have been talking? Possibly the farting around? Hard to say, but we didn't seem to be in any danger and assumed the alarm to be faulty.

We gave R & J the state room, with Liz and me trying out the convertible dinette bed, which turns out to be surprisingly comfortable. Nice and quiet night, wind had dropped.

But, 2.20am and the carbon monoxide alarm goes off again. Liz leaps up, does all the right things, turns off the fridge, checked everything while I slept, or tried to (the lingering effects if the chauvenistic gathering) but again no obvious culprit. Ross and Julia chose to ignore it.

Next day, Thursday 19 September

No more alarms, and woke to sunshine. Liz and I could hear the owner of Jack the little white terrier who some weeks back had almost jumped into the water in the dock while we watched from a friend's boat. His owner, a bow-legged Frenchman with flat cap, was berating him, "Jaques! Jaques! Non! Arrete! Jaques!!"

This morning as we lay in bed we could hear Jack's owner in the distance yelling at him with increasing desperation, trying to stop him doing something - probably diving in to the marina - but it was obvious he failed to deter him. It was very funny. The shouting crescendoed into a wail of dismay as presumably Jaques lived up to his Cousteau name and dived in. It was difficult to understand the stream of French invective but seemingly he was to be banished to the car.

But our carbon monoxide mystery remains just that. Something to follow up with Keith, an experienced boating friend due today on his Dutch Barge called Picton.

The regular 0930 Radio Gare d'eau forecast a nice day, so in lovely warm sunshine we set off once again on Liberty, this time to meet Keith and his wife Hilary up river. Using the bow thrusters we gracefully pirouetted midstream when we met them, took photos of each other's boats, and sailed in tandem back to St Jean de Losne. Lovely.

Pure coincidence, but at one point there were three Kiwi-flagged boats in view of each other, all waving.

Picton entered the Bourgogne Canal lock and we moored back at our pontoon, a much more elegant return than yesterday's dodgem display. Today we reversed in beautifully if very slowly, but without any bumps, grinds or embarrassment.

K & H plus friends Lizzie and young Charlotte came to visit. Couldn't shed any light on the carbon monoxide alarm or the inverter problem, although we did discover that the fridge isnt gas powered after all... it's electric. So, we elected to go and have lunch instead, on the quayside. Moules mariniere au curry, nom nom. I gleaned more info from Keith about what we need to set off on our odyssey, including the all-important vignette, like a registration sticker on a car that shows we are paid-up and allowed to use the locks and to cruise the rivers and canals.

So, still a few things to take care if before we can set off next week, not least of which is to increase my own confidence level which is very much below the waterline at the moment.

Friday 20 Sept

Drizzly start. Dropped R and J at station, then back to boat. Down in engine bay I discovered two batteries were dry so bought demineralised water for top-up, along with all-important French canal and river guide books (guides fluviales) which itemise absolutely everything you need to know.

Then off to VNF office for the vignette... which turned out to be very expensive, and would have been cheaper for us to buy a full year's vignette than month by month. But Madame was closing for lunch so we left with just the one month ticket which takes us to 23 October by which time we hope to be in Avignon.

Then packed for the weekend, got in Van Rouge and drove south, little realising that below decks the two betteries I had topped up were heating up and beginning to vent explosive gas.