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A Kiwi, a South African, an Australian and two Englishmen walk into a bar. Sound like a joke? Well, actually it was funny. At the evening Boys' Beer on Wednesday, there we were sitting outside the Brasserie L'Amiral in St Jean de Losne, chatting just like last Wednesday about all things boating. There weren't many others there, but Madame was very apologetic that they had almost run out of beer after an incedibly busy day.
I put this down to the two boat-loads of Germans who arrived in port the evening before, but there's no tangible evidence. Anyway, two things in particular made us smile and forget the beer shortage. One was like something out of the Guiness Book of Records... at an adjacent table there was a little pug dog with an enormous scrotum, hugely inflated, to the extent that it only just missed the ground when he walked. Steve seemed to know about the dog and said its condition was inoperable. Sad for the poor wee thing, though he seemed to be coping, just. There would be moments he would have to walk on tip-toes though.
The second item of amusement also involved animals. Well, birds to be precise. Outside the brasserie there are four plane trees, and at this time of the evening the local bird population comes home to roost in them. This in itself is unusual as the French have, by and large, killed all living thjngs in the name of haut cuisine, but somehow these delicacies were still living.
Monsieur was showing a little girl how to make the birds shut up by clapping twice. She tried her best, but although her claps had an effect it didn't shut the birds up completely, so he slapped a table twice to show her, and the birds went completely silent! Not a cheep, not a chirp. Amazing.
It didn't last long though. Once the birds realised the noise wasn't actually both barrels of a shotgun they continued their chat, as did we.
Next day, Thursday 26 September.
Slept better knowing we had new non-fuming batteries beneath us, though Liz was up in the middle of the night investigating a dripping noise in the hull. We do have some water in the stern bilge beneath the propeller shaft - it has been there for a few days now - but I am assured by Nicolas in the brokerage office that in 95% of cases it is due to water seeping in around the propeller shaft flange.
As he pointed out very logically, all propeller shafts have to go through a hole in the boat, and keeping water from entering the hole is something all boating people have to be concerned with. Usually this involves ensuring enough grease is packed in the flange... something I must find out how to do. We have discovered a grease gun on board, and presume there must be some grease somewhere too.
But in the meantime it was departure day!
We took care of the final admin stuff, which meant paying for our mooring, the electricity we used and - gasp - the work on the boat to find the electrical problem and install two new batteries. All this lent credence to the saying that BOAT stands for Bring Out Another Thousand.
We said au revoir to Madame Erica and Girogio Armani, cast off in warm sunshine with a positive forecast, and glided out of the marina. (I always think the past tense of 'glide' should be 'glid', but seemingly it's not, which is a shame.)
We turned right onto the Saone with a sense of relief and headed off into the unknown.
Well, not true. Having equipped ourselves with the river-canal guides necessary for our trip we are left in no doubt what lies ahead; every turn of the river, every lock, hazard, signpost, limited speed zone, bridge, post, mooring place and duck is detailed on the map pages. (OK, maybe not the ducks...)
So in fact there were no surprises. There are even kilometre signs, called PK for short - point kilometre - that tell you how far you've travelled and exactly where you are.
Combine the incredible detail of the river maps with the gorgeous calm and warm sailing conditions and we finally started to relax. We passed a few craft coming our way, including a couple of large commercial peniches - huge barges carrying industrial cargoes - which reminded us that although we love our Liberty to bits, we are small fry on rivers and canals that still carry behemoths such as those we saw.
And so we approached our first ever lock, at Seurre. (Not really our first since we had travelled in a narrowboat on the English canals back in 2005, but our first French one)
Protocol dictates that you should advise the lock-keeper (eclusier) ahead of your arrival with details about your boat, its type, its name, whether you are heading upstream or down, and your expected arrival time...all using the VHF radio on a specified channel. In French.
Having never done this before I was somewhat nervous, although I had worked out what I was going to say and written it down. Two kilometres out I tentatively pressed the transmit button, alerted the lock keeper and announced who, what and where we were and how long we would be. I took my finger off the button and we waited.
Amazingly the response came back almost immediately and without question that our arrival in ten minutes would be fine. Phew! So, in a very short time we rounded a bend and there was the lock, with the 'traffic light' signal showing red and green, meaning the lock was in preparation mode.
Now you might think that the lock keeper lives beside the lock in a quaint cottage with roses growing over the doors and a white picket fence out the front. Wrong. These locks on the Saone are huge, large enough to accommodate two at least of the giant peniches we had seen earlier. In fact, when the lock gates opened one glid out, a Titanic that made our boat look like a dinghy. But then the lights turned green and then it was our turn, so in we went, slowly, on tick-over.
The guide books have lovely pictures showing how two crew members should handle the ropes and bollards in a lock, going up or down. We were 'avalante' - going down - so the lock was full as we entered. According to the diagrams, one crew member (Liz) stands at the bow with a rope ready to throw round a bollard, while crew member two (Me) is at the stern, ready to throw a rope round the stern bollard on the lock.
That's all very well, except the bollards are so far apart we quickly realise that we are going to have to throw both our ropes around just one of them, so some hurried reorganising, but it worked. The eclusier, sitting in his lofty control tower and seeing that we had the boat properly secured, closed the lock gates behind us, and within a few minutes we began sinking (but floating, if you see what I mean) as the water started to exit through the underwater paddles in the gates in front of us.
We had dropped almost four metres in the lock, so sailed out of what felt like a brick warehouse with no roof, and on to - literally - a whole new level of sailing. Yes, with locks you actually can boat downhill.
Just around the corner we found the riverside town of Seurre, tied up at an empty pontoon, and had lunch on deck in the sun.
Originally our plan was to sail just this far on day one, not knowing how things would go, whether the boat would explode, or whatever, but so easy had the journey been that we consulted the guide book (get this... In German it's called a 'Kanalfuhrer'!) and decided to push onto Verdun sur le Doubs, where we arrived just after five, backing in next to a French boat that probably hoped we wouldn't. In turn we hoped nobody would moor next to us, but an hour later a huge hire boat did the same to us, followed by another doing it to them. We were glad we'd arrived when we did though, because now, as we sit on the fore deck (celebrating the real Day One with Champagne), the small mooring pontoon is full.
But, having covered just over fifty kilometres today we have decided to do about the same tomorrow. Given that even this late in the season the moorings are full we wonder if it will be a sort of Le Mans start in the morning.
The race is on :-)
- comments
Jeanette Well done! Great to hear all went smoothly. I can imagine all the trepidation etc. Brings back memories of crewing on a yacht where as is turned out only one person had an experience. Locks are so amazing. Bon voyage
Wynn Ingram You're going great guns - well done. We berthed at Verdun last year after heavy rain, with Soane and Doubs approaching full flood. Was a mega scary experience which required us hurling a line to the very helpful capitaine to get us in - never to be repeated. A tip which we have found helpful is to plan your day's travel to get to the next mooring around 3:00p.m. give or take. At that time you can normally take your pick of where to tie up. Happy boating. Wynn & Anne
David Sounds fab! May your flange stay greased.