Zum See Cruising

Zum See Cruising–August 2011 to Dec 2011

2012-01-20T14:06:00.001-08:00

We decided to return to England on August 10th 2011 but would stop over a couple of times on the return journey. We drove from Sant Carles to Figueres in North East Spain as Joan wanted to see several places where the artist Salvador Dali lived and worked. We first visited the Salvador Dali museum, Teatre-Museo Dali, in Figueres which is a very strange and pleasantly surprising museum.

Next we went to Pubol where Dali had bought and renovated a castle for his wife Gala. Finally we visited his house at Portlligat which is on a wonderful bay and marina. We had lunch in the picturesque town of Cadaques nearby.

Next we drove to Valence in France where we decided to stay overnight especially as we had been recommended a restaurant there. Maison Pic has a Michelin starred restaurant, a hotel and a less formal bistro Le 7 where we ate in the open air courtyard; the ambience and food were very good.

The following day we set off to the UK staying at Vitry-le-Francois on the way to the ferry.

We went back to the UK thinking our house was ‘sold’, as a potential buyer had made an offer, which we negotiated,and both agreed to a speedy conclusion; the buyer then prevaricated for more than 3 weeks!!

In the meantime we decided to go into London and see the boat handling at the ATYC event in West India Dock and then go to some art exhibitions afterwards. We drove to West India dock and met with some Bray club members who were there by boat, watched some of the boat handling competition and then went off to Tate Modern to see their latest exhibitions.

The following week Darren and Debbie were cruising up river and had invited us to join them; due to other commitments we could not join them until the Thursday of their trip so Darren organised a multi day car park permit for us at Abingdon, we drove there, parked the car and then joined them on Unwinder.

We spent a very pleasant 4 days with them on the cruise, eating the first night at a nice Italian place in Abingdon, having a BBQ the next night on board near Wallingford, and then stopping overnight at Henley before making it back to Bray on Sunday.

The following Saturday we had the opportunity, courtesy of the RYA, to board a spectator boat on the opening day of the America’s Cup races in Plymouth; we drove the 220 miles from our house to arrive there by noon to board the boat. We had a really enjoyable afternoon watching the races close up.

Following this event we drove the 200 miles to Cookham to join the annual, and enjoyable, Bray BBQ at the upper island in Cookham. We got there about 8.30 pm, parked the car and then walked down to the river edge where 2 Bray members, John and Roy, kindly came and picked us up in their dinghies to ferry us to the BBQ site. Fortunately Darren had saved us food from the BBQ as everyone else were already eating. Following the meal, as is normal practice, we all sat around the big bonfire and sang ‘Rule Britannia! We stayed overnight on Darren and Debbie’s boat, Unwinder, helped clear up in the morning and then were taken back to the other side of the river to pick up our car and drive home. One of our members, Malcolm, had carved a fallen tree trunk into a bench.

The following weekend we decided to go to the Southampton Boat Show on the preview day Friday; we of course visited a number of chandleries, the MDL booth for a glass of wine and the Broom stand which was also hosting the Broom Owners Club.

We were particularly interested in seeing the two new Broom models the 370 and the 455. To our surprise we saw some boat friends, Mick and Carol Bicknall sipping champagne with Mark Garner the MD of Broom as they had just signed up for a new Broom 370 to be built to their spec which would be displayed at the 2012 London boat show. We understood they had recently sold their boat and bought a motor home but found they could not resist the river so then decided to buy another boat; you just can’t keep people off the water once they have been there.

The next day we attended the MDL Marina Bray marina September party with music, tents and food which was very enjoyable with traditional fish and chips, chicken and chips, sausage and chips laid on by MDL, served from an old tram. The weather was a bit iffy but it was great fun.

On Sunday we met for lunch at the Oxford Boat House with an editor friend of Joan’s from Los Angeles who was working on the feature film ‘Snow White and the Woodsman’. Joan had not seen her for about 20 years so they had a lot to catch up on! After lunch we took her back to her editing suite at Pinewood Studios.

After all these events we were back to the house sale; following further questions from our potential buyer he tried to reduce the price. We told him, thanks but no thanks, we are going back to Spain.

We left on Sept 23rd arriving back in Sant Carles September 24th 2011. On the way we stopped at a small hotel in a town called Montlucon which featured a real Ferrari sitting in the hotel lobby; the hotel was very red!

We spent a very pleasant 2 months in Sant Carles taking the boat out occasionally,

fixing some items that needed work, starting a Petanque (‘Boules’) event each Thursday at the marina with other boaters

and enjoyed a Halloween party laid on at the marina restaurant by the restaurant staff.

During October we went out with another boat, Jenny Wren, to a port called Las Fuentes just south of Sant Carles. The trip down was a bit lumpy but OK. We moored up in the port and then the winds came in quite strong so we put out as many ropes as we could to keep the boat stable as we were moored just inside the marina so were getting the wind and the sea swell. Next day we motored back to Sant Carles with a smooth sea state, no wind and glorious sunshine, a bit different to the previous day!!

On another occasion a friend who had just bought an Aquastar boat at the marina and was wanting to give her a run down to another port south of Sant Carles. About 10 of us volunteered to help him out and then we all set out for the trip. Upon arriving at the port we moored up, and then went and had a great lunch on the quai side before returning late afternoon back to the marina; incidentally the ‘new’ boat handled very well.

Whilst in Sant Carles we found out that an American friend of Joan’s and his wife were planning to visit the UK, France and Venice. We organised for then to stay in our house whilst in the UK and to meet up in Venice where we were planning to drive for the Venice Biennalle art event.

At the end of October we (me, Joan and our cat Chili) set off toward Italy in our car. We stayed overnight at Golf Juan near Cannes.

The next day we visited some art museums and moved a little further along the coast just past Nice to Villefranche sur Mer where we stayed in a small hotel overlooking the marina.

On our drive to Cannes we saw a significant number of police vehicles racing along the motor ways and check points set up because this was just a day or so before the G20 meeting in Cannes.

Fortunately we managed to continue our journey the next day without any delays and arrived in Venice; parked our car in the Tronchetto car park on the edge of the city. We then dragged our roller bags, one for us and one for Chili as well as carrying Chili in a carry case. We caught a Vaperetto boat bus to take us close by our hotel, Chili didn’t seem too bothered having spent much of his time on a boat anyway.

We reached our hotel and then, having got Chili settled, went and saw a lot of art over several days as well as riding lots of Vaparettos; so art and boating!! During one evening we also met with Joan’s friend from the US, and wife, Lindsey for dinner; it had been about fourteen years since they had last met.

We spent four days in Venice touring the Biennalle art event. Of course we had to sample the famous Bellinis at Harry’s bar

On our way back to Spain we stopped off in Turin to visit Artessima another art fair.

We had been watching the weather; when we left Sant Carles and it a lot of rain was forecast. Fortunately we were driving and staying in front of the rain going to and whilst in Venice. All through the city they were setting up the raised platforms for pedestrians expecting a heavy downpour at any time. We did not see any of this until we started to drive towards Turin when it really did rain on the way there. After visiting the art fair whilst it was pouring down but then we had an excellent meal in a restaurant near our hotel, Trattoria l’ Oca Falo. The set menu included a chef’s starter, 3 antipasta , 4 main meals and selection from the dessert cart. Each course was a small plate creating a banquet of delicious variety.

Once we arrived back in Sant Carles we started packing the boat up for the winter; we played some more Boules and visited the Barcelona boat show. A friend of ours from the marina joined us and we even got to look at a couple of motor bikes whilst there. The boats on the water were at Port Vell and a shuttle bus to took visitors to the indoor part at a new convention centre which also had a lot of smaller boats and a few chandleries; we didn’t think the chandlery section was as good as at London or Southampton, but it was enjoyable anyway.

On November 19th we made our way back to the UK staying near Montlucon in France overnight as our half way point.

On arriving back we organised some essential house maintenance activities, visited one of Joan’s art friends opening day exhibition, near Hungerford after which we joined the social activities after the Bray Cruiser Club AGM.

The next few weeks were spent re-registering with movie agencies, attending a local chorale event and a local beer festival during one afternoon followed by the BCC Christmas social in the evening and preparing ourselves for Christmas

On December 21 we drove to Basel to visit family for a couple of days and then to Zurich to visit other family. We had a great time there and enjoyed the visit including seeing the four grandchildren and their faces at opening their presents.

We returned from Switzerland on December 27th and on the 28th had a lady come to see the house for the second time so we will see where this possibility goes; unfortunately we had a buyer that had started the buying process of our house but pulled out on the day when we were exchanging draft contracts as their buyer mysteriously pulled out at the last moment.

After the Christmas festivities we were suffering BWS, (Boat Withdrawal Symptoms), and were looking forward to getting back to warmer Spain so we decided at the last minute to splash out on a New Years boat trip on the Thames in London to see the New Years fireworks.

We set off to London by train arriving at Embankment, the boarding point for the boat, and once we went on board were greeted with a welcome drink. During the five hours event we cruised up to Albert Bridge back around to the O2 arena and then to the firework display at the London Eye.

We were served a five course dinner listening to a live jazz band with after dinner dancing.

At midnight the boat positioned itself just near the firework display and we were treated to a spectacular event as well as a glass of champagne to celebrate the New Year

The event was not cheap but well worth it. Once the boat got back to let us disembark we found we could not board our Underground train at Embankment, just across the road from the mooring, as they had closed the station so we had to walk quite a way through London, finally getting a cab to the train station and getting on the 2.30 am train (the last one) back to our house with 3 minutes to spare; we had originally been trying to make the 1.30 am train!!

Well here we are now in 2012.

Zum See March 2011 to August 2011

2011-08-02T02:31:00.001-07:00

Arrival back in Sant Carles in 2011

We arrived back in Sant Carles early in March and over a period of some weeks we finally got our battery charger replaced, although another unit was fitted this also was found to be faulty so it had to be replaced as well. Finally we got a working unit but found we also had to have 2 new engine batteries as they had been damaged as well. Now all is fine and our insurance company paid without any loss to no claims bonus nor any excess payment having to be made by us as the boat was in a marina when it happened so that was good.

Festivals Spring 2011

During this time we had heard about a festival in Vinaros just south of here so we drove down there to see it. There was a procession of floats with people dressed up in costumes “Rio style”, it was all very pretty and festive.

A week later we went to Valencia to see a festival called “Las Fallas”. This festival consists of several days of fireworks, parades and lots of fun. During the day there was a parade of families all in traditional elaborate costumes, men, women and children alike carrying flowers to a place in the town where a statue of the Virgin Mary was constructed using the flowers and it was about 20 to 30 foot high.

The main firework display took place at 1.30 am

with other ones taking place at mid day the next day and culminating in a ‘fire parade’ where there are large floats driving through the town and yet another firework display taking place late in the evening once the fire parade had reached its end point. After this was the burning of the Fallas, which are large 20 to 30 foot high statues somewhat like Disney characters of which there are hundreds in the city usually at street intersections;

every neighbourhood and community had one and of course when they did burn them there were more fireworks with each one!!

After this we went to another festival in a town called Amposta just about 12km north of here where there were street stalls selling lots of local things and also street tables where you could get food and drink;just so many festivals!!

Trip back to the UK

The following week we had Midsomer Murdesr TV series come to look at our house to see about shooting an episode there; we understand a whole bunch of people came by in a mini bus to view. They actually set up, shot and then re-instated the house on April 13, 14 and 15. They shot the scenes in the house and in the garden for an episode called “Sleeper under the Hill” due to be shown August 8, 2011 or thereabouts on ITV.

On March 27 we set off to Switzerland and spent a few days with the kids and grandkids

, then we drove to Paris for a few days to see some Art exhibitions and arrived home April 2, 2011.

We spent several weeks weeding, planting flowers and generally getting the garden into better shape and also talking to other estate agents re sale of our house.

Bray Cruiser Club events

On April 9, 2011 we joined Bray Cruiser Club for their Shakedown cruise meal at the Swan Hotel in Staines so it was nice to see club members again. We drove there and stayed in the Swan as next day we planned to drive to visit a relative in Surrey we hadn’t seen for some time who had just moved out of her house after 42 years into a retirement home.

The following week we joined the BCC Limehouse trip but by car and we stayed with Darren and Debbie on their boat for the Marathon on the Sunday which was great fun.

UK events including Royal Wedding

The following week I had to double for Richard Briers in a movie called “Cockneys and Zombies” and although Richard did manage most of the shots himself Joan also took part and was dressed as a Zombie with all the necessary blood and gore etc!!

We had decided to go back to the boat towards the end of April especially as we had scheduled a boat lift, polish and antifoul the first week of May. Of course we had to stay in the UK for the Royal wedding and the local village celebrations.

Trip back to Sant Carles May 2011

Our boat was towed by the marina and lifted on Monday May 2, 2011 for a week for polishing out the hull of some scratches we had incurred in the French canals and the hull, props and rudders were also antifouled.

We left for Villefranche sur Saone, our overnight stop in France on Wednesday May 4, 2011 and then arrived in Sant Carles on Thursday May 5, 2011 and then on Friday the boat was put back in the water and we motored her to our mooring place.

Trip to Holland, Germany and Switzerland and then UK

During the latter end of May we had planned to drive to Holland to see Joan’s sister in law who was visiting her relatives with her 2 daughters and granddaughter; we hadn’t seen them since Christmas 2009. We decided to make a trip of it so we first drove to Macon, France as an overnight stop and then on to Eindhoven to see some art, from there we travelled to Apeldoorn, Holland and stayed for 3 days which is near Deventer where the relatives live to visit and see Joan niece and grand niece.. After this we drove to Amsterdam for a visit

and then to Hilversum to visit a Dutch couple at their house for lunch who we had met on our trip, Louis and Annaliese, the subject of one of our earlier blog posts. Following that we returned to Deventer as Joan had to have a minor surgery procedure in the hospital there. Next we went to Berlin for a couple of days

then Munich for a couple of days

and then on to Switzerland again. At this point we thought we might actually be signing a contract for the sale of our house so we then drove back to the UK on June 7, 2011.

We spent a couple of weeks doing UK things including driving to Bristol to see an Art degree show in which one of her friends was participating as she was completing and MA.

Back to Sant Carles June 2011

We then set off back to Sant Carles de la Rapita on June 21, 2011 staying overnight in Bourg-en-Bresse where there happened to be a music festival to greet us

the next day we drove to Collioure in the South East of France and had dinner with a couple, Guy and Geraldine, from the Broom Owners Club who had their boat just a few KM away in Port Vendres the last port before reaching Spain.

In the morning we drove to Port Vendres to meet them; this was a port we had stopped overnight on our journey to Spain by boat and then we drove on to Sant Carles. On the way we stopped off in Cadaques, Spain which is a very picturesque place frequented by artists like Salvador Dali so we plan to make another visit there.

Visit by daughter, Alex

On July 4th our daughter Alexandra came and stayed for a few days on the boat having spent the weekend in Barcelona. We took her out into the bay and went swimming there and also figured out a method of being able to climb back onto the boat using a combination of our bathing ladder and a suitably rigged rope to help pull ourselves back on board; we and hung out there for some hours.

On another day we drove to a mountain town called Morella, about 50 KM from here, This town is built on top of a big hill, with small windy streets and nice restaurants.

She left on Thursday so we had a few days of cleaning up before Darren and Debbie arrived on Sunday 10th until the 20th July. In the meantime the dinghy engine was playing up and Mike was trying to get it sorted out before they arrived, which fortunately we did.

Visit by Darren and Debbie

We were due to go and pick Darren and Debbie up at the airport, Reus, about 80 KM away in the car but then suffered a flat tyre so it was not possible but fortunately the marina laid on a taxi to pick them up. Although during their stay we got another flat tyre we did manage to drive them back to the airport. During their stay showed them the town and viewpoint of Sant Carles

we did swimming stuff in the marina pool, went to the beach and set up our camp site, we all enjoyed swimming in the bay where people also engage in a sport called Kite surfing, being pulled by a kite on a surf board specially designed for this spot.

on the other side of the sand dune was the Med itself the cat was not so impressed with the sand.

We took the boat out to the bay for lunch and also had a dinghy ride in the marina.

We took a trip around the Delta by car which is quite big, it is 10 km from the marina across the bay to the spit where the bay meets the Med.

We visited Valencia for one day and did the tourist bus thing which we also did in Barcelona on another day.

One event we were involved in was a Procession Virgin del Carmen where there was an event in the evening when an altar was brought into the town of the Virgin and the people would light a candle in remembrance of family departed.

The next day at 11 am was a procession which involved all the fishing boats leaving the harbour and motoring through a gate of 2 boats out in the bay followed by the pleasure boats dressed overall where possible (including us of course).

The pleasure boats were led out by the marina boat, “Flamingo” When motoring through the gate where there was a boat on one side with a band, and a boat on the other side with a priest making blessings and they like you to throw flowers overboard into the sea. Having passed through the gates then you return to your mooring; of course there is a melee of boats out there of all sizes and you have to funnel into this gate so it gets quite exciting at times with boats coming close together.

Sant Carles has quite a big fishing fleet who go out every day early in the morning and return at 4 pm to pass their catch to a a market in a big building where the fish boats moor, it is quite a sophisticated process with refrigerated trucks coming to pick up the fish and transport them to other places; during July and August the fleet rest and presumably do maintenance on their boats.

Festival Week in Sant Carles

The following week after Darren and Debbie left was a week of festivities in the town including marching bands, dancing on the beach, horse-cart competition,

Catalan dancing, running of the bulls twice a day for several days, a free lunch of mussels, shrimp, olives and beer, not to mention fireworks.

Life at Sant Carles

During our stay here we are trying out all the restaurants; one restaurant is built out in the bay on stilts and you have to take a boat trip to it which of course we did and it was a great ride and the food was excellent sitting out there over the water.

It is very relaxing here, the weather is warm and some days are windy although the winds are usually nice to have as they cool the place down a bit as it can get quite hot; we tend to just wear shorts and top, no socks, trousers, shirts; it’s great!

In the meantime we have been enjoying Zum See and have found that she has met our every expectation. We have also been finding out new things about the boat like servicing the toilets, detecting problems with our aft shower requiring a new sender from Whale pumps to fix the problem.

We finally plucked up courage to remove the speed log sender from the bottom of the boat, as the speed log was not working with the encouragement of several people in the marina. To do this requires you to unscrew and pull out the sender from the hull, allowing water in and then fitting a specially designed blank plug to fill the hole and stop the water ingress. Once we had pulled the sender out it was obvious why the speed log was not working as the paddlewheel had become encrusted.

We cleaned and tested and so now it is clear and does work; the manufacturer however does advise to take it out in sea water if you are not travelling and then put it back when you need it.

We plan to return to England soon as we have an offer on our house subject to survey and when this happens then we will have to organise ourselves to move out by end of September and find another place to live; probably rented to start with.

Zum See Cruising

2011-03-07T11:00:00.001-08:00

What now after arriving in Sant Carles de la Rapita??

We are not sure but it will be fun finding out.

After spending 4 months cruising from the UK to Spain taking in the Dunkerque 70^th anniversary of the small ships rescue of troops in 1940, 5 weeks in Paris, the thrill, joy, anticipation, and the pleasure of the travel through the French waterways we had made it and enjoyed it.

We arrived at Sant Carles mid September and decided that we should go back after about a week to check out the house and any mail we had not dealt with, unfortunately missing our club, (Bray Cruiser Club), BBQ.

After some investigation we decided that the easiest option was to fly back on air miles and then bring the car down, leaving Chili on the boat being fed and watered regularly by someone on the marina for a couple of days; (we found the biggest obstacle was how to bring the pet back, as others before us have found.)

We booked our flights, changed out of our shorts and T Shirts into something warmer, had the marina take us to the airport, arrived at Heathrow, and took the bus to Oxford and then the local bus to our village, (of course using our bus pass!). We arrived back in our village to find that in the 4 months we had been away the bus company had made a route change where the bus did not actually stop, almost in front of our house any more, but further back in the village!

Fortunately we had our small rolling bags, (after all how much stuff can you bring from a boat, clothingwise anyway), which we dragged through the village to our house. On the way we chatted with several villagers who told us the whole village was up in arms about the new bus schedules and routes.

We arrived at our house, got ourselves some groceries and then planned our trip back. We stayed 2 nights at the house arranged our return including an overnight stay in the middle of France and left in our car for the 1,800 km journey back to Sant Carles.

We arrived back to sunshine and got back into our shorts and T Shirts as the weather and surroundings so great; we even let the cat off the lead so he could go and explore by himself; he always came back to us, although one day he did decide to take a swim and wasn’t too happy about it; fortunately he got out of the water, we are not quite sure how, and came back to us shaking the water off his body over the land, our boat and our bed!!

We got to meet some people who had been there, since the marina opened, so we decided to hang out ourselves for a couple of weeks before heading back to the UK. We tried out a few restaurants, took a few trips, found the local grocery stores, opened a bank account and arranged to get our teak deck and bent pulpit fixed.

Since it was such a hassle taking the cat back to the UK, we decided we wanted to move to France so that we would be midway between the boat in Spain and kids/grandkids in Switzerland, and of course have better weather than in the UK. After a few weeks we drove back to the UK to set this in motion arriving there early October. During that time we spoke to a few estate agents to arrange valuations and sale of the house and we also had a great time at the club Laying Up Cruise dinner at Boulters, getting the chance to meet with some of the BCC members there catching up on things.

During mid November we drove back to Sant Carles to check on progress of boat repairs and get the boat lifted for a for a scrub as there is a tendency to grow barnacles underneath; in our case the hull was fairly clean but the props and rudders certainly did have some barnacles on them which the marina staff pressure washed off.

After several weeks we decided it was time to go back to England for the winter although we did enjoy some games of boules with other marina members; we went to the local chandlery to buy some small heaters for the engine room etc to keep it warm when needed but the chandler told us he didn’t sell them as it does not freeze there!! We understand it does get cold and windy at times but does not go below zero; we did experience some of the wind coming over the mountain or from the north, (Mistral) some times.

On the way back to the UK we decided to swing by Lyon for a week to look at properties; we stayed in a small hotel just north of Lyon with a list of properties to take a look at, having surfed the internet.

At the time of our visit to Lyon the snow came down, (about 8 inches or more, unusual in Lyon), so it was quite exciting driving between places we were visiting.

After a week we left Lyon to drive back to the UK; despite the snow the motorways were clear all the way to Calais, we managed to drive straight on to the ferry and were on our way back to our house. Chili, our cat, was amazing on the boat journey down and the car journey back; he just settles down for 8 or 9 hours and then eats and does anything else when we finally stop.

Unfortunately we arrived back in the UK after our BCC club AGM but we did manage to get to the Xmas social meeting a few more BCC members which was great fun. We also selected the estate agent to sell our house in the UK which went on the market just before Xmas. We had a search agent come and look based on word of mouth just before the house went on the market; coincidentally whilst visiting the “For Sale” sign went up. A day or so later a couple came round to view the property and 3 hours later made an offer. After several days of negotiation and a revisit they made an offer which we accepted and so we were getting contracts organised, unfortunately however before contract exchange they pulled out which was a bit unsettling.

In the meantime we shall continue try to sell our UK house and to be looking for a place to buy near Lyon whilst living on the boat in Spain. We are looking for a place near the river Saone or Rhone; anyone making the trip through the waterways of France can always moor up nearby and come and visit us.

We stayed in the UK over Christmas/New Year and returned to Sant Carles, via Lyon and Avignon for about 10 days property searching in March 2011. During our time at home apparently there were some big storms at the marina but fortunately we had our boat tied well, facing the direction to give least problems with North ‘Mistral’ winds or winds coming over the mountain from the west above the town.

The only issue we had was an electrical spike in the marina knocking out large parts of the town and marina and damaging some components on some boats, ours being one. Whilst in Avignon on the way to Sant Carles we started getting text messages from our burglar alarm/battery monitoring/bilge pump monitoring system to say the alarm battery was low on power which was a bit puzzling. We called the marina for them to check the boat and they reported all was OK. When we arrived we found our Mastervolt battery charges/inverter was damaged on the charger side so the batteries, (including burglar alarm battery) were not being charged. We have had to have the charger taken out to be repaired so in the meantime having been relying on a car charger and the solar panels to maintain charge and the AC power to be wired directly to the distributer units rather than going through the charger/inverter but that’s OK it works. Of course we still need to figure out how we get re-imbursed for the costs, is it the marina, or the electric company who caused the problem in the first place and what is the process to do this??

Other than that we are glad to be back; the weather has been variable but the last couple of days have been sunny and 15 to 17 deg C!! Chili, our cat is glad to be back out of the cold and wet weather and we have been enjoying the local carnivals.

We plan to stay here until mid April and then come home for a week or two then return. Of course if our house sale moves then we shall be into planning mode for moving and buying in France.

Zum See Cruising Log

2010-12-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

Attached below is the log of our journey over the summer to Sant Carles de la Rapita, Spain.

I noticed the difference in NM from the boat log seems not to be exactly the same as the trip difference given buy the engine management system however they are in the same realm of values.

You may notice that we sometimes only did a few km or nm some days this was deliberate on our part so we could see some of France and the towns and villages. Our trip took 3-4 months, we could have reduced that if we had not stayed in Paris 5 weeks, and some other places a week or several days at a time. We probably could have shaved off 2 months if we were in more of a hurry, but we didn’t and thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

If anyone has any questions then feel free to email us.

We intend to keep Zum See in Spain over the winter and then motor around the Med next summer after which we will have to see where we go next.

Mike and Joan

Palamos to Sant Carles De La Rapita – Chapter 15 – WE ARE HERE!!!

2010-09-17T11:11:00.001-07:00

Postscript to Palamos

That afternoon we were wondering what the weather would be like next day as it was somewhat windy so we walked up a hill along the coast to look at the sea state and then we walked into town to the local beach where we paddled in the sea for a short time.

After walking around the town we headed back to the marina and checked the weather forecast again. It seemed that it was going to be F3-4 around Palamos but it was supposed better south toward Barcelona so we paid our bill (80 Euros for one night!), grabbed a quick sandwich at the marina bar and decided to set off to Barcelona.

The sea state was not too bad so we set off at our cruising speed of about 20 knots for a 3 hour journey or so. As we were motoring along we heard this whistling sound; since it was not Joan or Chili I went downstairs to investigate. It seemed that if we slowed a bit to about 17 knots it would disappear; anyway I looked under the galley floor, and the galley steps and that was where the sound was coming from but it was hard to figure out what was causing it. I did notice some water swirling in the generator raw water filter so I thought maybe I should turn off some stop cocks, lo and behold when I turned off the waste tank outlet stop cock the whistling stopped; very strange!!

As our journey progressed the sea state improved as per the weather predication.

As we arrived in Barcelona, we passed a multitude of super yachts.

We moored in Port Vell which is near the old town. It had become a little windy and we were trying to figure out the weather for the next few days to decide whether to stay in Barcelona an extra day or so.

The Capitainerie was quite some distance away (by the super yacht moorings), we went to check in and pay and then went to a chandler just around the corner to buy a new Catalan courtesy flag since it seemed ours blew away on our journey from Palamos. When we got back to the pontoon we met a couple on a Broom 35 who had been in the Med for some years and also a couple. There seemed to be quite a few British boats who were wintering in Port Vell. That evening we ate at a local restaurant just next to the marina which was very good.

Next morning we had a slow breakfast trying to decide whether to leave or stay an extra day. On reviewing the weather forecast it seemed like the next 2 days were going to be good weather, force 2 or 3 so we finally decided to go.

We fuelled up and then set off on a ripply sea and the wind of 3-4. We had a good journey to Tarragona our next stop, Port Esportiou De Tarragona, a new small marina conveniently located near the town centre and a beach.

After we had settled in and done a few chores we went off to the beach; it was great sand, well supported and the sea was wonderful.

Later we walked into town up the hill into the old town. Most Spaniards don’t eat until about 9 or 10 pm so restaurants were just beginning to open. We both had Sangria and Paella, what else!! We had a great view over the sea at night and then walked back to our boat.

Next morning we set off for our last leg of the trip to Sant Carles de la Rapita. We had low winds and a calm ripply to glassy sea state but there was some haze which made land difficult to see at times.

We continued on and finally saw land again.

We cruised across the bay until we came to the Delta noticing quite a few fishing boats.

As we got closer tiny flags began to appear on the surface of the sea; we found it necessary to keep a good lookout to dodge these lobster pots bobbing on our port and starboard sides.

It was a bit like an obstacle course; fortunately we avoided them all and made it to the channel into the marina.

As we approached Sant Carles de la Rapita we radioed the marina but couldn’t get the staff on the VHF or phone so we just motored in and moored at our pontoon.

Hew on Pommes de la Mar came by to help with our lines. We tied up, adjusted ropes and sat down; WE HAD ARRIVED!!

We went to reception to find there were staff there and picked up our pack containing our pass cards etc and then had lunch in the bar/cafe on-site. After doing a few chores we then cycled into town to get groceries.

Upon our return we decided to use the swimming pool which was very refreshing as it was quite humid.

Sant Carles is quite a big town with mountains behind, it is a fishing port and also already has a full other pleasure boat marina.

We have met a lot of nice people and are also organising to get our pulpit fixed as well as getting the boat cleaned and polished.

We are now planning to stay for a week and then go back to England for a month, after which we will drive back here in October/November for a time to be determined.

This is the end of our blog of the journey but we will post more info on journey time, distance, places, locks, fuel etc once we have analysed our log.

Sete to Palamos, SPAIN………… – Chapter 14

2010-09-12T13:40:00.001-07:00

Postscript to Sete, the crossroads between the French canals and the Mediterranean…

We were moored next to the yacht with its white sail up in the photo above.

We had heard that Sete was “a bit rough” but we thoroughly enjoyed our stay there. I have never seen so many boats! We thought that it was a great town with its Venice type canals and thriving fishing business.

We visited three art museums one of which included work by Joan’s university tutor, Hew Locke. At the Contemporary Art museum we saw sound and light installaltions by Claude Leveque. The exhibition was entitled The Diamond Sea and included a huge floating paper boat in one gallery.

On Thursday, September 9 2010 we decided to leave Sete as we had been told that the weather was supposed not too bad in the morning but deteriorating in the afternoon; we hoped to make it to Port Vendres before the winds reached F6. We prepared ourselves for sea and then went around to the fuel pontoon to top up after which we headed out of the port and ventured into the Mediterranean. The sea state seemed not too bad at first just some small white caps but as we motored along the sea became bumpy, it was very difficult to drink our coffee and eat our breakfast. Rather than turn back we decided to continue on to Cap d’Agde which was relatively close and hope for the weather to improve the next day.

After mooring up we had a great lunch of moules (mussels), and frites at a cute restaurant, Le petit marin du Cap on the marina quay.

We have had moules many times on our trip but these were definitely some of the best having been cooked with a wonderful provencale sauce.

Cap d’Agde is a huge marina resort; it takes a long time to get to the Capitainerie office by foot so we only did this by boat!! There were several chandlers there and we did manage to get me some new boat shoes and a couple of plastic drinking glasses. We were not keen on staying at this marina as it is too huge, also the town is set too far back from the marina so we were looking to get a good weather report to leave ASAP.

The weather forecasts that we had managed to get hold of indicated that the weather was going to improve with wind shifting to the north and decreasing around lunch time. We cast off in the morning and motored over to the Capitainerie to pay our mooring fee. The wind was still from the South west so we had breakfast and waited until noon. Our passage plan was to to head to a place called Port Vendres as you could get fuel there and we had heard it is the closest mooring to Collioure, a picturesque town that we wanted to visit.

At noon the wind had not changed direction or decreased but we decided to “poke our nose out”. We left Cap d’Agde in a force 4/5 promised to go down to 2/3 in the afternoon and had our bolt holes plotted just in case. Whilst our journey was not as smooth as we would have liked it was bearable and the sea did reduce later so we had a little bit bumpy journey to start but not too bad.

We arrived at Port Vendres, planning a two night stop and moored up on the quay as directed by the Capitainerie.

We ate at a nice restaurant on the quay that night, the mooring place was on the main drag of this very small place so there was some noise but it was great fun.

Next day while waiting for the bus to Collioure we met a nice couple from New Zealand who were staying there and told us about a great restaurant for lunch; and it was!! We visited the art museum and the castle where there was a music feste going on. Collioure is a very popular tourist destination largely because Henri Matisse and Paul Derain produced some of their best work here.

At the couple’s recommendation we took the Petit Train which takes you up to to a fort passing through vineyards on the way and getting a great view of the town from 300 metres up.

We then wandered the streets of this town with itsart galleries, many beaches and several marinas, caught the bus back to our boat.

We had booked a meal in a well known restaurant so it was a bit disconcerting when ‘our bus’ came by at the time on the schedule and did not stop!! We were wondering with several other people whether we would have to wait an hour for the next bus or to walk. We hung around another 10 minutes and the real bus did arrive, the other being something else so that at least avoided the walk back. We got back to the boat, had a shower and then wandered off to our restaurant, little did we know it was an uphill walk, however we did find it and had a grea tview and a great meal including a wonderful starter of anchovies with onion and peppers.

Next morning we woke to a great day so we hot footed it out of Port Vendre to make our way to our next destination, Palamos where we would actually cross the border into Spain.

We were planning to fuel up in Port Vendres but found that they stopped providing this service in January but they did tell us the next place to get fuel was over the border in Spain at a port called Port Bou in Spain!!

Our journey along the Spanish coast was on a sea that was glassy or slight ripples,

so we motored at about 20 knots to the port to fuel up which was not a problem.

At around 12.30 pm we arrived at our planned stopping place of Palamos and moored up there. This is a very pleasant well managed port and it has boats of all sizes from small day boats to huge racy yachts/motor cruisers.

We plan to leave tomorrow Monday 13 September to arrive in Barcelona, weather permitting although it did rain a little tonight but seems to have died off; we have also noticed that the days are getting much shorter!! is summer over??

Avignon to Sete – Chapter 13

2010-09-08T11:36:00.001-07:00

Next morning September 3rd we fuelled up and set off down the Rhone towards Séte which leads into the Med. On the way down we were held up for 2 hours at a lock. We had followed a peniche down but the lock keeper said we should not go in the lock with the peniche as it was carrying a dangerous load, it was a fuel or gas tanker, and that we should go in the next lock about 20 minutes later. After 2 hours we finally got through having been held up by 3 upstream barges and a further downstream passenger ship.

Further on we reached the canal de Rhone á Séte where we went through another lock relatively quickly especially as it only dropped about 1 foot. Just as the gates were closing, they opened again to admit a hire boat. We had roped onto a bollard built into the lock wall but they decided to connect to a ladder just behind us with their kids holding on to the ladder with boat hooks and even straddling the ladder with one foot and the boat with another!! Joan and I decided to move further into the lock and in the meantime the lock keeper told the people to use a rope before he would operate the lock. Fortunately everything went well and off we set again.

As we moved down the canal we found that the canal was pretty straight and tended to be in between lakes on either side of us, there were some some slight bends but mostly it was straight.

We did however see some pretty sights on the way such as the Camargue white horses that we saw on a number of occasions. and also a large flock of flamingos.

We decided to stay overnight in a town called Gallician which has a port de Plaisance along the canal. We arrived and there was plenty of space so we reversed into a place and tied up for the night; this was the first time we had done something like a Mediterranean mooring with ropes only tied to back cleats but nobody had any forward lines out so we decided to drop our anchor anyway although most boats did not!!

We left Gallician September 4, 2010 as planned and continued along the canal de Rhone a Séte. On two occasions we went through a cross roads between crossing canals so had to slow right down for these and sound our horn. During the journey we came across several large barges coming towards us in this narrow channel and it was quite tight passing them.

En route we decided to take the channel through Agues-Mortes where an English couple we met moor their boat, this meant taking 2 sides of triangle on the canal so it was a little more distance. When we got there we found a red stop light at a bridge so I called up the bridge keeper who told me we had to wait 10 minutes, finally it went green and off we went again.

On the canal we passed a number of holiday home resorts on the canal with their small boats moored alongside.

We later arrived in a town called La Maguelonne which had a pedestrian bridge across the canal under which even a row boat could not go, but as we approached the bridge keeper jumped on one part of the bridge, started a motor, and the bridge suddenly swung to leave a gap for us to pass through. This town also seemed to be somewhat of a tourist resort with a small road train taking people from the town to a big beach area, all very quaint. We then reached a Frontignan which was really pretty (despite having an oil refinery installation). Several boats were waiting for a lifting rail bridge which only opened three a day; fortunately we arrived at 3.55 and it opened at 4 pm (the last opening of the day)!. On the recommendation of a couple we had moored beside in Gallician we decided to bypass Sete and head for Meze, a small port on the Etang de Thau, (pond of Thau). They had said that it was a pretty place with a nice beach and lots of restaurants.

So we exited the Canal and headed across the Etang past mussel beds, fishermen and leisure boaters.

We arrived at the port and found a hilarious boat event going on, the famous Camargue boat jousting! There was a red row boat and a blue one each with 8 rowers; there was also an extended platform going from the stern of the boat out over the water.

On each boat there was a guy with a lance and a shield and the object was that the rowers would row the boats towards each other alongside and the guys on the platforms of their boats had to knock the guy on the other boat off into the water. There was lots of band music, cheering, splashing of guys into the water. They had a panel of judges to determine which team’s contestant was the overall winner, who turned out to be the heaviest set man in the entire event. At the end the two boats and all the contestants created a carousel on the water which turned as the crowded clapped to the music. It was great fun!

We had moored alongside the wall at the entrance to the harbour but there seemed to be a lot of boats coming and going and most were moored stern to with just 2 stern ropes; most of these were hire boats. We looked for the Capitainerie and I telephoned his emergency number but he was nowhere to be seen so we just stayed put since there was another boat laying alongside as well.

That evening we went looking for somewhere to eat and had a great meal of local mussels and frites which were not expensive and very tasty. We returned to the boat and got talking to a German couple with some American friends with them and they invited us for wine which went on till late in the evening.

The next morning was beautiful, calm and sunny. We went to the huge local market to buy groceries then we went to the beach and swam in the lake/pond of Thau (our first Mediterranean beach).

Later we finally saw the Capitainerie and registered and paid; it seems his actual hours did not match those on the door and in fact later he took the note down with is hours and emergency number!!

During the evening it was chaos as all sorts of hire boats came in looking for moorings and one was turned away; we felt a little guilty mooring alongside as we effectively took up 3 ‘Med’ spaces but the Capitainerie did not mention this, in fact where we were we did not have electricity or water at the mooring either. We would have happily taken someone alongside, preferably not a hire boat, but there was no one asking.

On Monday September 6, 2010 we left Meze for Séte, just across the lake but we had to be there at 10 am for the railway bridge to open otherwise the next slot was 19.10 in the evening, it only opens twice a day!! We had asked people in Meze about the bridge situation at Séte and I also telephoned the bridge keepers several time; my French indicated that there would be a problem but I was still concerned as some advice had been it was impossible to pass through Séte with our boat. I then telephoned the marina in Séte where a woman spoke excellent English; she that there was no problem as long as you went round a deviation in the canals after the railway bridge rather than in a straight line down the main canal.

As we left the weather looked a little threatening but turned out OK, hazy but no rain or high wind. We arrived at Séte passed under the opening railway bridge after which we had to turn left to go round the deviation and then this was followed by 4 other opening bridges.

When we passed through five lifting/turning bridges on the way to the marina. When we arrived at the Vieux Bassin I called the marina office and they told us where to moor and that an agent would come and help us.

We reversed into our place, tied on the 2 stern lines, picked up the bow line from the sea bed by picking up a ’lazy line’ with a boat hook from the pontoon, walking down the deck until we could lift the mooring rope out of the water, which we then tied on to the bow cleat; this was our first Mediterranean mooring!

The opening to the Med was just around the corner from us; unfortunately this also meant there were a lot of fishing boats coming in and out causing wash and our boat was jumping ab0ut so we quickly fitted compensators to our mooring ropes and also some additional safety ropes. We noticed that almost all the boats on our pontoon were making use of the metal spring compensators. The wind increased as the afternoon progressed.

We had moored next to a sail boat called Loani with owners Roger and Janet from Plymouth who had been sailing round Spain in the Atlantic through the Gibraltar Strait and had arrived in Séte coming in the opposite direction to us; they were planning to drop their boat off at Port St Louis, just along the coast for the winter and then tackle the canal de Midi next year making their way back to Plymouth. We invited them on board for wine and also picked up some useful info for our journey to Spain.

Next day it was even windier and looking over the pier wall at the Med it was 3’s to 5’s gusting 6. We cycled into town, visited some chandleries, had lunch, looked at some art, got groceries and returned to see the Med very choppy 7’s and 8’s and spray coming over the pier wall!!

We arrived back at our boat to see that several other boats had come in and tied up; it doesn’t seem like we will be out of here for several more days. We had wine with our neighbours on their boat and then settled in to do some chores during which we had some calm, some thunder and lightening and a change of wind. We are not quite sure what weather tomorrow will bring but we plan to stay at least one more day and see if the weather calms. It did seem calmer at sunset and on Wednesday the seas had definitely calmed so we may leave on Thursday if the weather holds out to be calm.

Valence to Avignon – Chapter 12

2010-09-06T08:34:00.001-07:00

CH 11 Postscript.

The next day in Valence we went to find a bus to go into town which we finally did after about 1 Km walk. We then went to the tourist office and picked up some info on the area and then walked around the old town looking at various buildings and Roman ruins. We then found ourselves a place for lunch and then caught a bus to a hypermarket to get provisions after which we returned to the boat by bus. It was a very hot day and in the evening when we got back there was a southerly Sirocco wind blowing, breezy and warm.

We had dinner on board and made our plans to move on to Viviers the next day.

On August 27, 2010 we headed down the Rhone after fuelling up, the weather was very calm and the river smooth. We passed through 2 locks each with a 13.75 m drop; it took an hour to get through each. We opened up the boat to check out the speed which was great fun, of course not exceeding the speed limit, passed quite a number of towns including Montelimar and then reached our final lock with a drop of 18.5 m but only took 15 minutes to get through as it was already open for us so that was lucky. We arrived at Viviers after more than 50 km, which is a small marina with empty spots available to us. Later the wind started to pick up with a Mistral from the north force 4, 5 gusting 6. Later a French boat came to moor at the finger next to us so we were out there with ball fenders etc until he was safely secured since now the wind was quite strong. The town was very pretty built high up on some ramparts, although there were flat areas below with a baker and paper shop. The moorings had electricity and water and there was also several restaurants at the mooring due to the fact that this was also a campsite for caravans and motor homes. That evening we ate at one of the restaurants where there was also live music. During the evening it seemed like the whole town congregated around this area. On our way back to the boat we passed one of the other restaurants which had music playing and dancing so of course we got ourselves a drink and had a dance.

On August 28 we departed Viviers, after picking up bread and pastries, and being on hand at 7 am when we knew the French boat would leave as it was quite a strong wind. After we departed we motored down the Rhone with the wind pushing behind us. As we went there was a point on the river with a sharpish bend so we had to cross to the ‘wrong’ side of the river, as per the river signage for about half a kilometre and then cross back; this is to allow the barges more room to turn the bend. We then arrived at the ‘big lock’, a huge 23 m drop but fortunately it was ready for us and only took 20 minutes to pass through. We had 2 more locks to traverse before we arrived at Avignon, each somewhat smaller drops of 10 m each and crossing time of 20 to 30 minutes. We had to wait on the waiting pontoon at one of them which was quite close to the lock passage way so would be difficult to leave for some boats especially due to the strong wind. In our case we did our boat handling thing of springing off and reversing out and that seemed to work very well.

Having arrived at Avignon, 80 km later, we were looking for the marina marked in our pilot chart, although we had been told it did not exist anymore but that there is a town quay. We arrived at the confluence of the river Rhone with the river Rhone!! or at least a bypass of the Rhone. We came out of one part immediately under a bridge, turned to port, went back under the bridge to the other part of the Rhone looking for our mooring spot. We came upon the Avignon bridge, which is only a half bridge now, it doesn't quite cross the whole river but is maintained as a tourist attraction, (you know that bridge you hear about when you start to learn French with the song “Sur le Pont d’Avignon, l’on y danser, l’on y danser………..”). After this bridge we noticed the marked marina was indeed not there, apparently it was washed away in floods several years earlier but we did find a mooring on the town quay with water and electricity so that was good. It was difficult to moor due to the wind and not too many bollards on the land. Just as we finished mooring the Capitainerie came by and suggested we move to a spot further back which we did and was more convenient for getting on and off the boat but still did not have too many bollards; Oh well we managed. That evening we walked into town having to go through some gates in the ramparts and had a wander around then ate at a restaurant, amongst many others in one of the town squares. We returned to the boat, it was still very windy and all night with the Mistral blowing through; next morning the wind continued but it was very sunny and quite warm.

Since the wind was quite strong force 5 to 6 and was forecast to be that way for a few days we decided to stay until Friday when our guests would be taking the train back to Paris and to the U.S. We rented a car and so we could go and visit the local area.

On the 29th we stayed in Avignon and visited some of the historic sites there. We got a late start due to the fact we had a visit from the Douane, (Customs) just as were having breakfast, who wanted to see our ships papers, our passports and they then took a look around inside the boat before satisfying themselves that we were OK We were not the only boat they checked, it seemed like each other boat was getting a visit. Finally we finished our late breakfast and went into town to see the Pope’s Palace and the Petit Palais as well as walking around the old town.

On the 30th we drove to the Pont du Gard, built around 19 BC, which is a historic water viaduct over the river Gard which would transport water over a distance of 31 miles from near Uzes to Nimes; a daily volume of some 4.4 million gallons. We then drove into Nimes and visited the 1st century Roman amphitheatre which was used for gladiatorial fighting, chariot racing and other such events; it seated 24,000 people. We also saw the Maison Carree which is the best preserved Roman temple. We then looked around the old town, had dinner and returned to the boat.

On the 31st we drove into Arles; we had planned to go by boat from Avignon but heard from the Capitainerie that there was no place to moor as it had been washed away several years earlier. When we arrived we saw the hotel where Koba was working when she met Joan’s brother, Steve over 30 years ago after which we went to see the mooring place and quay side, which was right next to the hotel. We walked along the quay and noticed that the only possible mooring was a single new floating pontoon but was blocked by a work boat doing repair to the quay, in addition the wind was extremely strong and nearly blowing us off the quay so we were glad we drove there instead. Next we went into town, visited another Roman arena, ate lunch at the restaurant where Steve and Koba would go on their dates, had a drinks at the bar where they used to go and then we saw a number of art exhibitions in the town. After this we drove into the Camargue region to see the famous white horses, but more importantly for Steve to visit the research station where he worked when he met his wife; in addition he also managed to contact several workmates who happened to live nearby who we went to visit for an hour or so; they had not seen each other for many years.

Each of these days continued with the strong Mistral wind so we had to ensure the boat was well tied; it was definitely very bouncy each night as we were sleeping!!

On September 1st the wind had abated and the river was like a mill pond. We stayed closer to Avignon and visited a place called Villenueve-les-Avignon, on the other side of the Rhone, where we visited two 14th century monuments, Fort St-Andre enclosing a small town and monastery and the Chartreuse du Val-de-Benediction which was once the largest charterhouse in France. We then walked around the old town, and then did some grocery shopping.

On September 2nd Steve and Koba packed up and went off to the train station starting their journey back to the US. We in the meantime caught up on all our chores had a very nice dinner at a restaurant run by the famous French Master cook of France, Christian Etienne.

Tomorrow September 3rd we will set off down the Rhone towards Sete which leads into the Med.

Lyon to Valence - Chapter 11

2010-08-26T09:09:00.001-07:00

Ch 10 postscript…

After posting our last blog at St. Germain we set off to find the grocery and check out the restaurant for dinner. The Capitainerie had said you could walk to one that was up a steep hill on the other side of the road so we took our bikes and headed that direction. The route turned out to be up a gravel road through the woods.

At the end of the woods we came to a new development of houses including a new supermarket and bakery so we got what we needed and then cycled back down the hill past the development which was very nicely laid out.

Once we reached the bottom we came across the restaurant we had been told about and decided we would go back that evening. We cycled back to the boat, unloaded and then at about 7pm walked the 300 metres back to the restaurant and fortunately got the last non-reserved table (others got turned away); we had an excellent meal at a reasonable price on a lovely patio set among the trees.

The next morning, August 21st we left for Lyon and arrived there at around 1 pm. We had read that Lyon is not well geared up for leisure boats and there might be security issues if you left your boat unattended. When we arrived we checked on possible mooring spots and then went to fuel up at the nearby fuel station but a Peniche beat us to the pumps so we continued down the Saone and turned left onto the Rhone to go to a second fuel place; which was actually a roadside fuel pump for cars with a riverside pump as well.

Once we moored there we found that the fuel nozzle was hanging down off the pump in the river; as we thought that we did not want water in our fuel we decided not to get fuel and went to find a mooring spot. There were several other boats moored around K3 just across from the VNF offices so we felt a little bit more secure there

At around 5.30 pm Steve & Koba ( Joan’s brother and sister in law) arrived from Amsterdam having taken the train, subway and TGV to Lyon and then a taxi to our mooring place to join us on our boat.

That evening we went into Lyon for dinner and found a street full of restaurants so we picked one, had a reasonable meal but an obnoxious waiter!

Next day, 22nd, Steve and Koba hired bikes and we went cycling around Lyon. We went up a funicular to a church high up on a hill and had lunch at a local restaurant overlooking the city.

We then went headed down the hill to see the remains of a Roman Aqueduct, rested our feet and then continued down.

At the bottom we got on our bikes again and cycled along the river front where we saw a new marina under development along with some other buildings some of which were quite something.

Joan’s favourite was this orange building which was still under construction.

We then went back to our boat and got ready for setting off down the Rhone.

We left Lyon and headed down the Rhone planning to top up fuel further down river. We found that the wind was building up to a southerly (force 3-4) so we had wind over tide which in some places was quite choppy with white caps; this made it exciting or Steve and Koba’s first day cruising on Zum See.

We continued on for about 40 km going through one lock with a 11.60 metre drop and then another with a 6.70 metre drop. These locks are equipped with floating bollards so it relatively easy even though it is a big drop.

We decided to stay at a nice place called les Roches-de-Condrieu. It was a nice marina with lots of facilities.

We went out in the evening to find a restaurant but they were all closed, it being August when France is on vacation!! We had walked quite a way looking for somewhere and there were two hotels also claiming to be restaurants but they would not serve us as it was August break and they did not have enough staff. We had passed a pizza place on the walk and decided we would not cook on board that night so we bought pizzas and they were quite tasty (especially after our long pre dinner walk).

Next morning as we were getting ourselves organised, Joan walked into town having heard there was a market that day and got some provisions. We organised to use the marina WiFi and then fuelled up at the marina fuel station. We left the marina heading for a nice town called Tournon which had a lot of facilities passing through a lock of 15.30 metres fall and a 2nd of 11.80 metres fall. When we got to Tournon we found the mooring space too tight and shallow so we continued on our next mooring possibility, Plan B, which was a small mooring just down a side channel at a place called Glun.

We got there to find the longish pontoon taken up by a 45 foot German boat and a small yacht with no space for us, but we did notice some short finger pontoons nearby and went into one of those. Although the depth gauge had a good reading when we got on the finger pontoon but I think we were touching bottom or just inches off; although it was silt underneath.

This was a VNF mooring but there was no water or electricity so we planned to use the generator to cook dinner. When Joan started the generator she noticed that it made a funny sound and then switched itself off. We discovered that no water was coming through. We didn’t really feel like tackling the problem that evening so we cooked on a single camping gas stove although Steve did get his swimming trunks on and felt around underneath to see if there was anything blocking the water intake.

Next morning we took up the floor and checked the impeller where we found there were no blades left; fortunately we had a spare so put that on and all was fine again.

We then left Glun in beautiful weather with a fresh northerly wind, went through a lock with a 12.5 metres fall, although we were held up waiting for a barge to come through and hung around for about 1.5 hours until we finally got through.

A British sailboat from Portsmouth were already waiting for the lock; this was their first boat and only had it 3 months and here they are on the French canals!

We stopped at a big Port de plaisance just down river from Valence which has many pontoons, fuel and chandlery. We bought a replacement impeller to replace the spare that we had used to fix the generator. When we went to the office to check in they were at lunch till 2 pm so we decided to lunch at the restaurant in the marina and had an excellent menu du jour which included a lovely rum baba!

After lunch we booked into the marina for two nights planning to go sightseeing in Valence the next day.

Saint-Jean-de-Losne to Lyon Chapter 10

2010-08-20T05:29:00.001-07:00

On Saturday August 14, 2010 (Day 82) we departed St-Jean-de-Losne after spending five very relaxing days there. This small town is ideally located to be the ‘Inland Waterway capital of Europe,’ on the river Saone at the intersection with the canal de Bourgogne (going northwest back towards the Seine) and the canal du Rhone au Rhin (going east towards Basel). Here there were two large marinas, each of which had excellent chandleries and offered engineering services. We chose to moor at the H2O marina primarily because they had wifi and their fees seemed quite reasonable. There was quay side mooring available on both sides of the river and we saw large peniches and pleasure boats moored there. H2O also had the advantage of being closer to the town centre and only a few steps from the Casino supermarket as well as a very serious butcher which had a counter for regular customers with an excellent selection of meats.

Joan had her final stitches taken out here and was very impressed with the doctor and the pharmacy. There only a few restaurants but the two we tried were good and cheap (our favourite was the Cafe National with a 3 course Menu 13 Euros). One evening we were entertained by impromptu bank side music from some boaters.

We spent one entire day cleaning the boat; Mike took the dingy around the hull while Joan scrubbed the awnings and upholstery. Mike also did some small repairs from a kit Broom had sent to us. One day we took the train to Dijon for some sightseeing. After arriving we used the free bus service around the centre of the town visiting several museums and churches.

We had an excellent lunch at Le Bistro des Halles (a restaurant we recommended by our France guide book) and picked up some pastries from a bakery.

On the train back a couple sat opposite us and were speaking German; I reckoned that they were also going to the marina so I asked them and they said yes they were just returning from Hamburg. We struck a conversation with them in English and German; they were bringing their sailboat up from Marseilles and were then planning to go to the Rhine and back to Germany. Its interesting the people you meet on the way.

We left around 11:00 after Joan picked up some more groceries and then went round to the fuel pontoon which is conveniently located on the River Saone. We noticed a Broom Ocean from the UK came by and waved.

We set off after refuelling going at speeds of 15 kph; the speed limit is supposed to be 30 kph but we were not in a hurry and it was better from a fuel economy point of view. We only had two locks to worry about; the first was already open and had three other boats in there so that was fairly easy. We overtook these boats and continued on. When we finally arrived at the second lock it was also open and there was a green light so we headed down the channel; then the lock keeper decided to turn on the red light and close the gate as we were only about 2oo metres away from the gate; I was not pleased!! We had to wait and of course the other boats caught us up but at least we were ahead of them so could go at our own faster pace.

This area of the river beyond the second lock seems to have a lot of water sports with fishing, jet ski’s water skiers and miscellaneous others enjoying the river; the jet ski’s enjoyed jumping our wake as we approached Chalon-sur-Saone.

Shortly before Chalon-sur-Saone we passed the entrance to the canal du Centre which goes South and then joins the canal lateral de la Loire where it heads North also to the Seine.

We stopped for the night at Chalon-sur-Saone which has a large port de plaisance with bankside fuel. (Fuel stops are very important to know although we have not used them all). To reach the port we passed an island (with a lovely flower planting) and then turned upstream to port passing under the bridge.

As we entered the marina we saw a pontoon in front and to our starboard side with a gap at the back, (you can see the space in the picture), so we just pulled in, tied up, went to the office and paid and then we were all set. Although this is a lovely town we decided to stay only night as the mooring seemed expensive (twice as much St Jean de Losne). We have gotten spoiled by the free VNF moorings which include water and electricity.

Sometime after we moored and just as I finished writing this blog, about ten French Customs people arrived with a sniffer dog. They started investigating two German sail boats just a down the pontoon from us. They spent three to four hours searching the boat but fortunately they satisfied themselves without involving us and did not appear to arrest anyone; the next morning the sailboats left early.

In the meantime a ‘Le Boat’ hire boat came in to our right next to a small sail boat which was on a thin finger pontoon, unfortunately there was no finger to our right, (his left), and so the only thing the boat could moor on was the sail boat. As we did not fancy this boat, along with the sail boat, potentially swinging round and hitting our boat we helped him to moor alongside the sail boat and also put land lines onto the pontoon that the sail boat was moored to.

We then set off for a restaurant that a Dutch couple we met in Paris had recommended, (they had sent us an email with notes about their experience since they are now ahead of us heading in the same direction). As we walked over a bridge, we noticed that just behind our boat to our horror we saw a long barge coming behind our boat and trying to moor alongside the ‘Le Boat’; we did not like this and shouted down to them ‘Pardon! You are drifting toward our boat!’ Luckily they spoke English and explained that they had booked a place and were trying to find out where to moor. I explained that he office was closed as it was now around 7:30 so they would need to find somewhere else and suggested the fuel pontoon since it was long enough and didn’t open until 9 am. This is where they went and we were finally able to go to the restaurant where we had really great meal. Fortunately it was only a short walk from the marina as a rain storm blew in during dinner and we were glad we had our umbrella.

The following day it was pouring down rain so we decided to relax take advantage of the electricity to do some more laundry and ironing. We knew that we only had two to three hours of cruising to our next stop so we did not leave until just after midday.

The journey to Tournus, our next stop some 30 –40 km on, was on a nice wide river passing by some pretty places. It was a quiet cruise down the Saone at about 15 kph except when slowing for other boats and fishermen, and where the wash may bounce other boats around. We saw several boats at anchor having lunch we guessed.

En route we passed a nice mooring place at Gigny where an ancient lock has been turned into a port de plaisance.

It had been a little colder overnight but soon began to warm up after lunch and some blue sky began to appear. It was very nice when we arrived at Tournus just after 3.30 having had to go through one more lock.

We found the mooring places full so we rafted up against a Belgian couple who were very obliging and very friendly. Just as we finished tying up then a boat behind us left so we re-arranged ourselves so we were now alongside the pontoon.

Soon after an Australian boat rafted up to us, we had seen them previously in St-Jean-de-Losne and had a nice conversation with them. They moored with their stern to our bow and vice versa which seems to be common practice here allowing you to be friendly or maintaining your privacy as the case may be.

We plan to stay here two nights as we have plenty of time to get to Lyon before Joan’s brother and sister-in-law arrive from the US. As I was taking some pictures of the moorings Chili decided to escape from the salon and wander out on deck without his lead but fortunately Joan managed to round him up.

On the second day it was raining, so we walked into town; we went to an exhibition of Salvador Dali’ prints, visited the old Abbey, found a little bakery and had lunch at a local cafe (11 Euros including wine!). In the afternoon a ‘Le Boat’ hire boat was trying to moor in front of our boat but did not realise there was a 3 or 4 knot current after the rain!! I gesticulated to him and told him what to do, mindful of him drifting back and hitting our boat (Joan was standing by on the gunwale with ball fender in hand jus in case); finally we got him moored after he made a bow landing onto the pontoon.

While we were there we saw this a boat going by with a ‘trailer’/extended bathing platform attached; a unique solution to the problem of where to put all your stuff!

Several large passenger ship made stops here.

Next morning we decided we should leave before the hire boat in case he let go the lines and drifted backward into our boat. We left just after 9 am for the 32 km trip down to Macon; it was a beautiful day, no rain and not too hot. We decided to take it easy over the next few days to Lyon so this trip meant we arrived at about 11.30 am and moored across the river from Macon at St Laurent.

We found a nice mooring spot, courtesy of our Dutch friends who had gone before us and emailed us the info. We then did some bits, had lunch and took our bicycles into town where we saw a church, an old wooden building and went to a wine cave to taste and buy some Macon wine.

We noticed the weather significantly improving, (more than 30C) and also that there were not many boats on the river (maybe due to the recession), in any case we have not had to ‘fight’ moorings and many have been completely empty.

We plan to eat out tonight at one of the several restaurants on the quay. After perusing their menus we decided on the one that Joan thought had the best atmosphere and view.

As we were preparing to leave for dinner I noticed a large log slowly making its way down river in our direction so I stood on the bow with a boat hook and gently pushed it away from us to continue on its way. In addition a large amount of weed had also hit our anchor chain; I had the anchor down as the river was running fast, just as an extra precaution. It took some effort to get rid of the weed as there was a lot of it, there was all sorts of vegetation floating by.

We had a lovely menu de jour at a relatively reasonable price at Le Bouchacourt (deciding against the Paul Bocuse Brasserie next door whose menu de jour was more expensive and with selections did not appeal to us.)

On our return from the restaurant we relaxed on the back deck to enjoy the view of the St Laurent bridge; we were quite awe struck by the lighting of the arches which resemble the stages of the moon which was just rising behind the bridge;

then a large group of swans glided in front of the bridge and up river past our boat; it was very beautiful.

We decided to move on towards Lyon tomorrow stopping over somewhere on the way as we do not need to be in Lyon until the 21st to meet Joan’s relatives. We will take it easy do a bit of biking, go easy on the fuel, etc.

We woke up to an overcast day but warm enough, we planned to move on about 4o km which would only take a few hours. First of all I had to raise the anchor but of course had to clear more weed from the chain.

We set off and went down the Saone at a sedate pace to make for a place called Villefranche-sur-Saone. We noticed that the river was running fast so although we were travelling at 12 kph the GPS read 18 kph! In addition there was a large amount of logs to be avoided and preferably also the weed.

We passed some nice stopping places such as Belleville and finally reached a lock having caught up with another boat in front of us which was a large hire boat.

We entered the lock with the hire boat way at the front of the huge lock and us at the back end as we could see that their boat was swinging all over the place. Finally they got close to the lock wall and four people jumped off onto the lock side, leaving one person on the boat the people on the land then started winding their ropes around the bollards (about 4 times around each bollard!); we thought that they would end up hanging on the bollard so I got my big knife to hand in case we need to help cut them off and we considered going down to the boat to assist but the lock keeper did come out of his cabin.

As it turned out the water only fell about a meter or so (rather than the 3.4mt mentioned in the Navicarte) so the boat was not hanging up but the 4 people on the land were having trouble getting back on the boat and one by one they leapt from the side on to the boat!!After the lock we continued on, avoiding the floating debris which seemed somewhat diminished after the lock.

We decided to stop for lunch at a place called Montmerle-sur-Saone where we had spotted a Spar super market. so we got rid of our recycling, took on more water, had lunch got some groceries and headed off again toward Villefranche-sur-Saone.

Arriving at Villefranche, we checked out the various moorings, according to the Navicarte and settled on a new pontoon with free electricity at Jassons-Riottier that had been recommended by our Dutch friends, (by email) where we will stay overnight. What we have found amazing is that there are these great mooring places provided by the VNF and local communities with free water and electricity and that there are so many empty mooring spots, we suppose this has to do with the recession this year!!

Next morning we left at about 10:00 am planning to stop for lunch at a Trevoux about 12 km down river (reputedly ‘the fairest landscape on the Saone; perhaps the fairest scene in France’) and then move on to another marina further down river. We arrived at about 10:45 found a great mooring place with electricity and water for €5 per night so we decided to stay the night.

We got our cycles down, went off into town, did some exploring, had some lunch at a nice restaurant, did some more exploring and then came back to the boat.

It was so hot that we both decided to put on our swim suits and take a shower on the back deck; that was a big relief!!

We lounged around a bit and to our surprise Lady Rhiannon, a Broom 450, arrived that we had met in Paris and are members of the Broom Owners club.

They decided to stay the night as well; they are on their way to the marina in Sant Carles de la Rapita where we intend to end this trip. They have a tight schedule to meet so we will probably follow some days/weeks behind them as we are taking it easy. Tomorrow we will move another 12 km or so then move on to Lyon on Saturday in time to pick up Joan’s brother and Dutch sister in law.

On Friday, August 20th we left Trevoux and slowly went down river looking for somewhere to stay outside Lyon. We had tried to call ahead with no luck. We passed what looked like a great place to moor, the Yacht Club du Rhone (actually on the Saone).

As we approached the pontoon a woman came down from the clubhouse to take our lines. She said that the mooring was 10 Euros for the night and that they had WiFi!!!! which is exactly what we were looking for so that we can post this blog!!! The sun came out and we logged on onboard (a real luxury). Apparently there is a local supermarket within walking distance and a restaurant; we feel very lucky to find such a great place for the night.

We had asked about WiFi in Trevoux where there is a huge campsite but the tourist information woman said that the only two places that had internet access were closed for the August holiday (as are many of the cafes and shops).

So this is the end of Chapter 10. Tomorrow we go to Lyon, pick up Steve and Koba and head down the Rhone toward Avignon and Arles!!! The first lock after Lyon is a descent of 9.25 meters and we will eventually go through the Bollene Lock, ‘with a fall of up to 26 meters, passage of this lock is a memorable experience, not least for the speed with which the chamber fills in a mere seven minutes’. Luckily all these locks are equipped with floating bollards!

Chaumont to St-Jean-de-Losne, (The river Saone) – Chapter 9

2010-08-12T13:05:00.001-07:00

The next day, we got ourselves ready to leave and to pay the Capitainerie; she seemed a bit put out that we had not paid the previous evening until I explained to her about the accident; after which she was OK (Joan prominently displayed the large bandage on her arm).

We left and met up with our chaperones at the next lock. As we started to go a VNF van coming this direction warned us to stop as a big barge was approaching, so we hung back until it came by; there is no way we and the peniche could go in opposite directions in that stretch of the channel as it was too narrow.

Of course over the next few days Mike had to do ropes., (sometimes in the rain), whilst Joan was at the helm.

We proceeded through another 15 locks and arrived at our planned stopping point, Rolampont; their was only a small bankside space empty but as we ponder which boat to ask about laying alongside a skipper gestured for us to come alongside. We were welcomed by a lovely British couple who live in South Africa, John and Jenny on Jabulani, who we got on really well with.

We had planned to stop here for several days so that we could go to the local hospital to have Joan’s stitches removed but found there was no hospital here, so we decided to move on the next day to Champigny-les-Langres where we found out there is a hospital; John and Jenny also planned to leave the next day so we would travel though the locks together especially as we had told our ‘chaperones that we would stay 2 days. I called up the control centre to let them know and they were happy.

Shortly after we left a thunderstorm blew in and we had to quickly deploy our tarp; it continued to pour rain all the way to Langres but the tarp we had bought in Paris did a great job of keeping us dry except when I was out doing the ropes. We had our normal chaperones with us assisting the 2 boats.

When we arrived in Langres around midday, settled in, had lunch and then went into town to find the hospital.

We caught a taxi to the Langres which is a fabulous walled city on top of a hill. Langres is the plateau of the canal climb from the Marne to the descent to the Saone and has some beautiful country side.

We checked in to A&E and then they did remove the 2 stitches that were of importance and then re-dressed the wound saying it seemed to be fine but that in 6 days time there were more stitches to be removed so we will now plan our trip to include another hospital town in 6 days time.

We planned to stay 2 nights here so we can explore and have a meal in town. We are nearly at the top of the climb through France and on Saturday will go through the last 2 ascending locks, through a 4+ km tunnel and then start the descent to the river Saone through 43 locks, which I have been told can be done in 2 days but we will probably take it easy and be a little longer than that.

We did some chores and then in the afternoon took the bus up to the town where we took a ‘petit train’ ride around the ramparts of the town. This is a great city on a hill overlooking below some magnificent countryside and lakes; apparently the town was never ‘taken’ over the centuries. We had seen inside the cathedral the day before when we were doing our recon of the town but now sampled the city centre. We the decided to eat there where we had a great meal but it was chaotic trying to pay. We knew that the buses had stopped running to the canal so we decided to walk back down (luckily we had the town map) which took about 45 minutes but at least it was downhill.

Next day we left at the appointed hour, 9am, we got up earlier to get ourselves ready for the tunnel, take on some water and pick up some croissants and ‘pain au chocolat’ from a mobile baker who happened to come by.

We left following a Danish boat, ‘C’est la Vie, (this is the life). We had seen this boat in Vitry and later in several other places one of which they moored alongside us as mentioned earlier.

We had booked to leave at 9 am with our chaperone; the Danish boat left about half an hour earlier but when we got to the first lock they were already in there, so I guess the VNF made them wait for our arrival. We exited the lock and went into the single lane channel which was the approach to the 4.8 km tunnel, neither of us knew whether we had to wait or continue as there were no lights, but of course the VNF are keeping an eye on you and everyone else so they would soon tell you if you had a problem. Both boats continued on down the approach and all of a sudden a VNF van came towards us and waved so we knew we were OK; they have a variety of vehicles, students on motor scooters, mini cars, small white vans, and bigger white vans with roadwork's signs on top but they all say VNF on the side.

We entered the tunnel which was lit by fluorescent lights on one side and had to keep a straight line down a narrow channel for 4.8 km at a speed of 4kph so more than hour in the tunnel.

After we exited we had to continue in a single lane channel which then opened into a wider channel where there were several other boats waiting to enter the tunnel in the other direction, since it is one way only then they have to wait until boats in the tunnel have exited the tunnel and approach channels.

At a lock some 73 locks before we had picked up a great document from the VNF about stopping places etc, which whilst not totally accurate was a great help so this had helped us to plan, along with the Navicartes, our overnight stopping points. We had plan A and plan B in mind when we entered the tunnel and we were surprised at how quick we did this so we went for plan B which meant going through 22 descending locks, not to mention the 2 ascending locks and the 4.8 km tunnel.

At the first lock after the tunnel we were given a hand control which was to control locks 23 to 43. In the interim locks 1 to 22 were radar controlled with the pole thing in the lock to start the lock sequence after you entered. Of course this was automatic for the next 21 locks; but we always had our chaperone keeping a watchful eye and he would turn up every so often.

We arrived at about 5 pm at a place called Cusey where there is a nautical stopping point; it has a picnic area, free water, free electricity, toilets, etc not to mention a roving Kebab van who appeared shortly after we and the Danish boat arrived.

The Kebab van did not seem to be doing much business but a bit later a bunch of cars arrived with families to have picnics and also do business with the kebab man, for our part we did buy some Frites.

Whilst we were there we met a hippy English couple who were going in the opposite direction in a multicoloured old Dutch boat. They asked us about bridge heights as there were afraid there boat might not make it under some of them; we had passed through some low bridges on our way. They explained they had been in Greece and Italy and …. in the Med and were on their way back to England; good luck to them.

We are doing more laundry, thank goodness for a washer/dryer on board and the free electricity; we will eat on board and set sail tomorrow with our VNF shadow’ taking care of us.

Next morning August 8, 2010 we set off at about 9.20, our Danish boat had decided to leave earlier than us as they wanted to make the river Saone that day as they were out of groceries and bread. We got ourselves organised and left on a sunny day with some clouds threatening, so we got the tarp out and set it up and then as the day went by it became hotter and hotter as most days have been. At the first lock there was the Danish boat just exiting, so having left about 45 minutes earlier he must have been held up somewhere, we thing that it was because the VNF chaperone was not ready for him.

We passed through some very country channels which in some cases were quite narrow. We found a number of places where locks were really close together less than a kilometre apart. There was not much in the way of stopping places on this side of the tunnel but we finally arrived at a mooring just past Oisilly, a little country town, which only had one mooring sport with a picnic table at the place and nothing else.

We moored up at this one boat landing place in the middle of the country, which reminded Joan of East Texas, middle of nowhere and all alone. It was very picturesque and the sunset was wonderful. We had a wonderful dinner on our boat and retired for the night.

In the morning we got up at our normal 8 to 8.30 am in anticipation of finishing our journey over the hills or mountains of France and completing our descent to the river Saone.

We left our mooring and completed the last 5 descent locks of 43 and then came to the junction with the river Saone which involved creeping out a canal into the main river and entering a lock. There was nothing really in the way of stops along the way so you just had to keep going, although the VNF guy would pop up from time to time to make sure we were not having any problems.

At lock 43 at the end of the descent we had to hand back the control unit we had picked and place in a box.

We did have a small problem with the operation of the lock as the instructions on the box were not clear and Joan could not understand the instructions given over the phone but ‘as they do our VNF chaperones appeared out of nowhere and all was well.

As exited the Canal de la Marne a la Saone and approached the lock entering the Saone we found several ‘Le Boat’ hire boats waiting to enter the lock. We held back thinking we might wait for the next lock, however the lock keeper enticed us in and all was well.

We exited the lock with no problems and then we decided to increase our speed from the 6 to 10 kph of the waterways to the 15 kph of the Saone so we then overtook the hire boats and made our way down this really wide river, of course taking care of our wash with other boats and fishermen. We went past a town called Pontalier-sur-Saone where we had thought about stopping and found the Danish boat moored there as we went by.

We continued on and passed by the entrance to the canal du Rhone et Rhin.

We arrived at St Jean De Losne around 5:00 pm and found we had arrived in boat heaven with fuel, chandleries, boat builders and several marinas which had all that you needed and a multitude of different boats such as barges, peniches, steel boats, cruisers and small craft. We noted that a number of English people left their boats here for long periods at about €1500 per annum for a 12 metre boat!!!

We moored at the h2O marina where the wifi actually works on the boat! On the Saone there is a very nice waterside fuel pontoon.

There are several small restaurants and bars overlooking the river.

Besides the marinas, there is a large area bankside moorings on the river with electricity available (but without wifi).

When we arrived we found our mooring space and just had to relax as it was soooooooo hot; as has been the case most of the time, we have only had one day of rain out of 76 (although we have had some at night). It seems as though there are a number of boats here on long stay moorings, quite a few from the UK.

We have now completed more than 700 nm, 200 hours trip time and 290 engine hours and a log of 1100 nm sine we took over Zum See. We have been living on our boat for more than 2 1/2 months now and have found our boat to work very well so our design and specification seems to be great. We plan to stay here until Friday so we can get Joan’s stitches taken out; we will then move on down the Saone to Lyon where we will meet with Joan’s brother and Dutch sister in law from the US. In the meantime we will relax clean the boat do our laundry and visit Dijon by train; it is only 30 minutes by train but by boat it is 21 km and 15 locks and we were told that it takes all day to get there!

We will finish his log here and the next one will be covering our trip and down the Saone and Rhone.

Joinville to Chaumont - Chapter 8

2010-08-12T13:01:00.001-07:00

Note: We changed the last blog to end at Joinville not Chaumont.

We arrived at the VNF halte nautique at Joinville, passing a new quay which was under construction and did not appear to have water and electricity yet, and arrived at a very nice and popular mooring where a large number of people were enjoying the sun in their bathing costumes. Luckily there was one bank side place left although we did have to disturb a fisherman again. The spot was also popular with caravan campers as the parking lot had them parked side by side. There was water and electricity here with sufficient outlets for both the caravans and boats.

Shortly after we had gotten settled in we were boarded by the Vikings! C’est le Vie, a 47’ cruiser flying a Danish flag which we had seen earlier at Vitry and then St. Dizier decided that we were the best boat to lay beside. Joan was a bit perturbed as they did not even pause to ask permission and began to climb on to our gunwale before we could even get up on deck. We are used to having boats moor alongside us on the Thames (and in Paris) but we are also accustomed to them introducing themselves first. There were two couples on board and although they spoke English, they did not seem to be particularly friendly (they did not offer us a beer!

We did however meet a very nice Dutch couple on another boat who also live in Spain; she had helped us with our lines when we came in. They came on board after dinner and he brought us a special Belgian beer. We had a few drinks and a lovely chat about boating and Spain.

We found it to be so hot so when were in Paris that we ordered a ‘Blue Performance’ tarpaulin from a chandlery there. The tarp is designed for a sailboat and is very well engineered made of light grey ripstop nylon with a reflective top surface, a multitude of rings, clips straps and reinforced areas not to mention the red and green patches at the front just so you know which way to put it on!!. It has been a great boon to us as we have kept our mast and arch lowered during the day to get under the 3.5 m bridges; it has stopped us from melting and will also protect us if it ever decides to rain. So far we have only had rain in the late afternoon or evening.

Before we left England we made sure we had all the Navicartes/ Fluviacartes, for each of the waterways, these being excellent pilot books for the various sections of the waterways; despite them being out of date and some in reprint they have been a great source of information, not to mention our Navionics wide chart and also the literature you pick up on the way as well as a couple of other books that talk about going to the Med. A lot of these publications are out of date as things are always changing but a lot of stuff is definitely current but in any case is a good basis.

Prior to departing Joinville we filled the water tank and checked the raw water filters. When I tried to close the sea cock it would not close so I gingerly unscrewed the cap to get to the filter (fortunately no water came in, I thought we were above water level anyway.) To my horror I found a half inch thick stick about 1 foot or so long in there, along with packed grass, weed, green stuff etc. I found the cause of why I could not close the sea cock; the stick! For some reason Broom’s do not fit a grill under the hull to the entry of the raw water so anything can, and does, get sucked up into the filter, I had asked them about this and they said that they were concerned about not restricting water flow and/or something stuck to the external grill which would be difficult to clear, so instead you have to check every day.

Tomorrow, August 2nd we continue climbing through locks and lift bridges, helped by our VNF ‘shadow’. I had called the VNF the night before to give them our approximate start time and end stopping place for the night. Just at 9;00 a young man on his motor scooter came to us to say he would be our chaperone for the day; his name was Simon and he spoke very good English so we had several conversations with him during the day. He is studying mathematics in university and this is a summer job for him during August. He said that he thought “it is a very good job.”

At 9:40 we set off and using our hand control for a couple of locks at which there would be a shout of the person in front of “Here comes the water” meaning that the torrent of water on the ascending locks was starting and to hang on to your ropes and also we were in the lock at the halfway point and not the front.. This was our experience of locks since our incident in the St Quentin canal. Later when the locks were manual it was somewhat less problematic as the water did not come in so quickly.

The following locks needed hand cranking so Simon was way ahead of us in each case cranking the sluices and gates, so we could go straight into the locks after which he would hand crank the gates open for our exit.

At several locks there was a second eclusier to help Simon and later in the day Mike got off and helped. We have been using hand sanitizer after handling the locks and ropes especially when we might be eating lunch on the go

On the way we had passed a VNF mooring at Froncles which had very good services but we wanted to continue farther up the canal. It seems to be common for caravans to share the facilities at the VNF moorings which seems like an excellent way to utilize these resources.

This lock process was followed at each of the following locks; we went through 12 locks today and several lift bridges finally arriving at a halte nautique at a place called Vieville in the middle of the countryside, we took the last mooring places. The skipper of a barge from helped us with our lines Holland; he and his wife had been there 7 years!!

Just as we were finishing dinner a huge thunderstorm blew in making Joan feel like she was back in Texas; actually much of the French countryside a lot like East Texas.

Our Navicarte had said that these last locks had slanted sides so we were concerned this might be a problem but when we got there they had new straight walls; all along the canals we have seen work in progress improving the locks and the moorings.

We have given the VNF our departure time for tomorrow and expect a chaperone again at least part of the way as we will come back into some automatic locks later. We are now more than halfway up our ascent over France and expect to reach the summit in 2 days time and have to pass through a 4.4 km tunnel at 4 kph and then start our descent to the river Saone through 43 more locks.

We have found a lot of nice places to stop on the canals supplied by the VNF as well as local municipalities providing free electricity and water and often close to some shops; fuel river side is a bit more difficult but you can more easily cart cans of fuel from nearby garages to your boat if you are feeling energetic, my intent is to try to avoid this.

We left Vieville at the appointed time (9:00) and found we had 2 chaperones this day, 2 girl students on their mopeds.

At every lock it was prepared for us to enter and then manually they cranked our exit. We passed by a couple of lift bridges and also a tunnel about 300 metres long which illuminated as we entered as also it was possible to pass through in both directions at the same time.

We were heading for a mooring place at Reclancourt at Chaumont which was a relatively short hop of 20 kilometres; we arrived at about 12.30 pm a little earlier than we had anticipated. We arrived to find most of the mooring taken up especially with some small craft badly positioned and most of the boats unmanned. We moored alongside an unmanned barge flying an American flag and then went to see the Capitainerie to figure out what to do. Of course the Capitainerie was at lunch until 4 pm so we paced out a place in between the barge we had moored against and another moored barge to see if we could go bank side in between and figured we would make it. We untied our lines and gingerly moved into the space with about 2 or 3 feet front and aft. We felt very pleased with ourselves to have nestled our craft into this tight space.

We then decided to check the place out. Our trek into town was 2 km uphill and we were also pushing our bikes!! We made it up the hill and enjoyed cycling around the town; saw the Cathedral, the town hall and a war memorial.

After some shopping and sightseeing we started back down the steep hill to our mooring. Near the top of the hill Joan’s bike slipped in some loose gravel and she fell, luckily not into the road. She scraped her knee and hand but also had a quite deep cut on her left elbow which necessitated a quick bandaging with the two handkerchiefs I always carry.

We decided she needed a doctor to stitch her arm wound and were just trying to decide on the next course of action when a woman came by on a bicycle and a friendly motorist stopped on the other side of the road. Anyway it turned out there was a clinic just above us which the guy took Joan to and I brought the cycles there as well, about 50 to 100 metres away; they couldn’t help but A&E was just around the corner so we moved on to there.

The guy turned out to be an off duty gendarmerie on vacation and we were very grateful to him not to mention the woman on the bicycle pointing us in the right direction.

After several hours in A & E Joan got sewn up and then we had to go to a Pharmacie to pick up the antibiotics prescribed, after going to the local police station first to get the prescription approved!!

In 2 days time Joan has to have the stitches removed but this should not be a problem as we plan to be in Langres either tomorrow or the next day and the hospital in Chaumont gave us a letter to give them explaining everything.

We had to pay for the prescription charges of about 12 Euro but did not pay any hospital bills, so far!!

We finally got back to the boat at around 9 pm after cycling back down the steep hill. It was too late for the restaurant across the road to feed us, and too late for the Capitainerie to give us electricity; good job we had food in the fridge and a generator.

Epernay to Joinville Chapter 7

2010-08-06T10:04:00.001-07:00

Having arrived in Epernay on Tuesday 27th July 2010 (day 64) we decided to stay there a couple of days. The first evening we settled in, did our laundry, did some email stuff and then had dinner at a local restaurant recommended by the Capitinarie. The restaurant, Chez Max, was obviously frequented by locals and the food was excellent.

Next day we had organised for delivery of Croissants and Pain au Chocolat through the Capitainerie as well as a fuel by truck for ourselves and a Swiss boat (we didn’t need much but like to keep a full tank so took this opportunity to top up.)

Later we took our bikes out to visit some of the many champagne houses. The marina lies just below the flamboyant Champagne de Castellane tower where we toured the museum, climbed the tower and finished with a tasting of their Champagne.

The Mercier Champagne tour was quite a spectacle; the tour included a glass sided elevator ride down to the cellars past a illuminated models of company history including the 1900 Paris exhibition where they displayed a giant oak vat (along side the Eiffel tower)

In the cellars a train took us through cellars with English commentary explaining the champagne product process. The enormous tunnels with lines and lines of champagne bottles in various states of maturity was quite impressive. Of course the tour price included a champagne taster.

We stocked up on supplies at a the Carrefour supermarket not far from the marina which had an incredible array of merchandise in addition to the grocery selection.

We left the next day heading to Chalon-en-Champagne. Our first lock leaving Epernay involved finding a pole overhanging the river, motoring up to it, grabbing the pole, twisting it and then waiting for the lights to indicate that the lock was preparing for our approach. The lock resets itself, empties, opens the gates and then gives you a green light to enter. Once in you lift up a blue rod located in the middle of the lock to start the fill process which involves closing the sluices and gates opening the other sluices until the lock was full and then opening the gates to allow you to exit. Previous locks we had been through had either been manned, operated by radar where the radar was instead of the overhanging pole, or operated by a hand control which we picked up at the first of a series of locks and hand back at the end lock.

Arriving at Chalons-en-Champagne we found several boats moored to the town quay and the rest of the mooring space taken up fishermen who did make space for us after we asked to throw our line on to a bollard so that we could moor.

We settled down then went for a bike ride into town for some sight seeing. We found there was due to be a concert outside the Hotel de Ville at 9pm; we also found that there would be a market the next day from 6 am to 1 pm. We had our dinner on board and then cycled into town, watched the performance by an American jazz singer .

Next morning we set our alarm early planning have coffee and croissant at a cafe and then go to the market; we were disappointed to find no place to have coffee and croissant and that the market was shut, presumably due to summer holidays, although we did find an open bakery.

We went back to the boat, had our breakfast and set off for Vitry-le -Francois, our planned stopping place prior to heading along a new canal the Canal lateral de la Marne a la Saone which would take us from the river Marne to the river Saone and then south. We arrived at Vitry at around 2 pm and looking for somewhere to moor but the Port de Plaisance was full (we did go down a narrow channel into the marina as were were told there was a mooring but it seemed too shallow and the narrow channel did not give us room to turn into the space. We reversed out and tried to find somewhere else along a grass bank; this was unsatisfactory due to the sloping canal sides. We went back towards the marina looking for a place on the bank when a German guy told us that in fact a big boat had just left. So we headed back down the narrow channel of the marina and lo and behold there was a more accessible space and people to assist including the Capitainerie (who we had been unable to reach by phone earlier.) We were very relieved to have a safe mooring for the evening!

Our next journey across the high Langres Plateaus of France involves climbing thru 73 locks and descending through 42 locks to reach the Saone and should take about 6 days, so that is our next task!!!

At 9:30 we crept out of our tight mooring space and started into the canal del la Marne a la Soane, (recently more romantically renamed the ‘canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne’ to show it is a canal between the Champagne country and the Burgundy country of France.

The entrance to the first lock was very narrow and as the water rose in the lock it covered the edges; we wondered what we had gotten ourselves into!

At this lock we were given a hand control to cover us for the next 34 locks. We were exhausted at the end of the day as it was so hot! (more than 35 degrees most of the time.) We managed about 30 km in all through 14 locks averaging 4+ kph; at this rate it will take some time to cover the 200 plus km to the Saone probably 8 days or so!!

Every so often during the day we noticed a VNF (Voie Nautical France) van at some of the locks. We eventually realized that in fact they were tracking us as we went so that in the middle of deserted France there was actually someone taking care of you.

We have also realised after our incident in the St Quentin canal that a pleasure boat should only moor in the middle of the lock and back, as the surge of water is so great (for barges (peniches) it is not an issue but for leisure boats it can be a great problem in ascending locks). We have seen signs in some locks telling Plaisances only to moor in the middle; if only we had seen similar signs before we had our accident, we would have known better. I am emailing the VNF about this issue as it is not mentioned in their literature and only at a few locks .

Approaching St Dizier we noticed some towers and bunkers which looked like remnants of WW II; we had read that the Germans had filled in a canal channel to extend the airport. The in fill then became the Port de Plaisance that we were looking for.

We found the Port de Plaisance abandoned (and no fuel available as advertised in the pilot books although we are no longer surprised.) As we came through the last lock the VNF was waiting for us;the guy in the van then asked us if we planned to stay the night here and what time we would leave in the morning, (so that he could take care of us again in the next stretch of the canal, isn’t that nice??!

Joan is definitely building up her arm muscles with rope throwing, as am I and when you have a new lock every half hour or less it can only get better!

We continued up the canal and moored on the town quay next to a very new cinema complex and a large new swimming complex on the opposite side of the canal.

We walked around the town and checked the movie listings. They had Inception showing which we thought about going to see as we are in a bar scene. Several of Joan friends have commented on seeing us, but it was all in dubbed in French so we decided to wait until we can see it in English. We got some groceries and then we ate out at a local restaurant, La Pierre Gourmande, which was excellent food, great value and very close to our mooring. Our mooring was great but it coincided with a wedding party in the car park next to us honking their horns and so on for about an hour, but finally they left and then later, being Saturday night, and being we were moored nearby a night club; well it was about 5am before the noise subsided, good job Joan and I are sound sleepers and even when we wake up we can go back to sleep again very quickly until the proper hour.

We left Saint Dizier at the appointed hour 09;00 or so and continued up the canal through some beautiful country and our VNF guy watching over us.

With our hand control we could set locks for our entry and then operate them inside but then at certain points there were lifting bridges that required operation by the lock keeper, in some cases electrified, but in other cases in the old fashioned hand crank way; it was a very hot day and we gave the VNF a beer for his efforts as we passed through).

Our journey took us through a further 13 locks at an average speed of 4 to 5 kph when you count speed and lock wait. We only have a further 44 locks before we reach the summit followed by 43 locks to descend to the Saone or to put it another way about 160 km with little chance of waterside fuel, unless you would like to carry cans of the stuff to your boat. Fortunately our computer tells us at the speed we are going then we have more than 700 nm worth of fuel left so hopefully that is the case!!

We have seen beautiful countryside and small towns and have been reading about other tunnels we will go through and viaducts over valleys we will cross, it is all an adventure. We have also met a lot of people from Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and of course UK who have all been very friendly.

We arrived in a place called Joinville at a halte nautique which has a nice picnique are, free electricity and water, and a town centre within 500 metres to get groceries, bread etc..

For the next day August 2nd we had informed the VNF we will leave heading in the direction of Chaumont; we have to let them know so they can take care of us on the way!! Its so nice and caring that you have an organisation who cares about you as boaters. We found the boat fee for the waterways was about €430 which in fact covers us for a year, it is nice to know what great care they are taking for you, not only in the chaperoning us through all the locks but also they have many small halte nautiques which often give free electricity and water not to mention the good care they take of these sites.

Zum See – After Paris to Champagne Country – Chapter 6

2010-07-27T08:20:00.001-07:00

On Wednesday July 21, 2010, (Day 58), we finally left the Port de Plaisance de Arsenal Paris after spending 35 days there, leaving about 12.30 pm heading for champagne country at Epernay.

We locked out and turned left heading for the Marne river. After a short while we reached the fuel barge moored just before where we turn left to go into the Marne and fuelled up. After fuelling we continued on and turned left into the Marne coming to a lock where we had to wait a little while to lock through, it was not a very deep lock about 1.5 metres rise. After the lock we continued on for about 3 km and came to a point where we had to turn left again and go through a further lock, we went in with ‘Mi Amigo’ a French boat and followed him through the 600 mt. Chalifert tunnel and on to the lock just down river from Meaux.

En route we passed the lovely Paris suburb Joinville which which had a nice marina. At Neuilly sur Marne we joined a pretty narrow canal which bypasses part of the Marne river, (a bit tight when passing oncoming Peniches). When we rejoined the Marne through a lock with a 4.5 metre rise as well as having corrugated iron walls where your fenders could disappear into and have no effect on cushioning the boat; this is why some people carry planks of wood between their fender and the lock wall.

We stopped for the night around 6 pm at the town quay of Lagny sur Marne. As there was only one space left we moored alongside an American boat, Grampy whose skipper we had met at Paris de l’Arsenal) and had been following through several locks. He keeps his boat in Holland and comes over every year for three months cruising.

The following day we stayed in Lagny to do some sightseeing. and took a long bicycle ride the Parc Cultural Rentilly. stopping for a Sushi lunch on the way back at a restaurant we had spotted on the way. After lunch we dropped into a wine Cave to buy supplies. We rode around the town and saw a magnificent cathedral which had a lovely purple light created by the blue and red of its stained glass windows. Later we went looking for a restaurant and all the ones we had seen were closed except one and it turned out to be an excellent place.

The following morning we set off at about 8.45 heading for Meaux which is supposed to be very nice but did not seem to me to be far enough along on our journey so we decided to call in and check it out and then probably continue on. We had to go through several locks of usually a 12 foot rise in each case and a tunnel. At around 12.30 pm we reached Meaux and decided to stay the night and take some longer trips the next few days.

Whilst there several other boats arrived including a really long single level boat with a man of 70 to 80 helming, and his wife. They tried to moor in several places with lots of people trying to help and lots of others trying to fend off their boat, finally he landed without damage and we all wiped our foreheads in relief. We got our cycles out and went to LeClerc to buy a new vacuum sweeper as our previous one decided to emit bright lights and black smoke!! We then spent a leisurely evening doing odd jobs and dinner on board.

Next morning, Sat July 24^th we left at about 08.30 and thought we would take a long run. The weather was great, after some overnight rain it was a bit overcast with blue spots as well and the temperature was just right after some really hot days beforehand. We were glad to see the German boat moored in front of us had left which made it really easy to go. We went through some pretty scenery on the way and stopped for lunch at a place called La Ferte sous Jallou which had a new mooring pontoon and apparently is a favourite place to stop. We then decided to continue on to a place called Charly which has a new pontoon for one boat and opposite the quai with access to a supermarket and the town, arriving at about 5 pm after more than 60 Km.

During our journey we went through several locks which had pipes in the wall to connect your warps to such as in Limehouse marina; this was the first time we had seen these. In addition at one of the locks you had to pick up a hand control to allow you to ‘tell’ the automatic lock you are arriving and it then prepares the lock automatically for your entry. The hand control covers you for 7 locks and you press a button as you approach the lock to reset the lock and get it ready for your entry. Once in the lock and roped up you lift a blue pole and the automatic lock process starts with closing gates, resetting sluices, opening sluices and finally opening gates to let you out. Joan loves locks and lifting those blue handles, you can see from the picture she is looking forward to the lock we are just approaching!!

At the end of the 7 locks you hand back the control unit. This was similar to what we had experienced on the St Quentin canal for 17 locks previously. A lot of locks are automatic and if there is a problem a lock keeper drives in his van between locks to fix any issues. We are now debating our next few days since we are in Champagne country and lots of places have tours and tastings, (Yum!); of course we want to make our way to Spain but on the other hand we don’t want to miss out on French delights.

From Charly we were looking where to stop to sample champagne, and the sites of course, and also make some headway.

We left Charly and arrived at Chateau- Thierry at around lunchtime and stopped at a long mooring on the left just before a big bridge and opposite a sign of the town name made up as a flower bed, just on the other side of the river. We took a quick look in the town, saw quite a few monuments for World War I and II, got some groceries and set back off again.

We decided to head for Jaulgonne for an overnight stop although once we arrived it did seem to be a bit of a rickety mooring place, however we did manage to get the stable part as a British barge was actually moored there when we arrived but was planning to leave in about an hour, so we took it over once he left. We also decided to have dinner at a local one star Michelin restaurant called Auberge le Relais in a place nearby called Reully-Sauvigny. We called them up to book a table and asked them to come and pick us up and drop us back again as it is about 5km from the mooring stop; we found that being picked up was an option mentioned in the pilot guides we had from Fluviacarte. At 8pm the driver arrived, we think it was actually the chef!!, and took us to this magnificent place overlooking the champagne country and vineyards. We had a fabulous meal including little titbits in between the menu courses. It was expensive but excellent and there was plenty of good food and you felt like you got value. After the meal ‘the chef’ drove us back.

Next morning we were just preparing breakfast and a German boat arrived looking to moor at Jaulgonne but there was no place. We told him would leave in about an hour and he could come alongside in the meantime; we had seen each others boats moored in Paris as it turns out. Following some conversation he also decided to go eat at this same place that evening. We set off and only had 3 locks to encounter to our next destination which we decided was Reuil, about 25 km further on as we had read some interesting stuff about champagne and also a place where they had a 75 square metre model of the process of making champagne from the vine to the bottle. On the way we passed through a few more locks one of which had sloping sides somewhat like a v shape; fortunately this had a floating pontoon attached so we had to moor to the pontoon and it was quite smooth ride. When we arrived at Reuil we found a mooring place there and tied up and then went for a bike ride to find this model. Unfortunately it was Monday and in France often places are closed that day! The whole town seemed to be asleep except for a couple of champagne houses where we bought some champagne for about 12 Euros a bottle. The mooring places often quote that they have electricity and water but sometimes they are difficult to attach to due to distance or the facility being locked and no one around to unlock them. The weather has been considerably cooler about 25 degrees with rain overnight so has been more peasant than the really hot weather we had recently. We had a beautiful sunset at Reuil.

Tomorrow, Tuesday July 27^th we plan to head fo r Epernay as it is the capital of the champagne area. It is not a long distance but we want to make sure of a mooring, get fuel as we are now down to 85% and also sample the champagne houses there such as Moet & Chandon and we may stay a couple of days.

We left Reuil as planned about 10 am and passed through several locks with slanted walls but thankfully a floating pontoon in each case.

At the last lock we had to hand back the hand control unit that controlled the 7 locks we had been through to the lock house there.

We arrived at Epernay at around 1pm and found ourselves a mooring spot at the Port de Plasaince with water, electricity, shops, showers, toilets and fuel can be brought in. We plan to spend a couple of days and look around the champagne houses. Next to the marina is a champagne museum as below.

End of Chapter 6 blog

Zum See Paris Stay

2010-07-19T09:36:00.001-07:00

June 15^th- July 20^th Port de Paris l’Arsenal Have you ever been to Paris?

Paris has been special to us ever since our first trip together in the spring of 1997. We have made a long stay mooring here and plan to remain until July 20^th, effectively living here for a month, going to the market, biking around the city, visiting art museums, hosting visitors and adjusting to the climate. Port de Plaisance De Paris Arsenal is a fabulous marina in many ways. The central Paris location means that we can walk to many attractions and easily travel to any part of the city by metro, bus or bike. The mooring fee seems quite reasonable when you consider it includes an apparently unlimited supply of electricity, showers, Laundromat, excellent staff, an air conditioned lobby with a big screen TV, Wi Fi and pontoon pump out service. We are moored next to the pontoon on the east side of the marina which means that we have a lovely view of the Bastille Monument and Opera and access to the beautiful park that runs along the marina where children play, workers lunch and lovers spend the evening until the park closes at 11:00 pm. Boats on the west side have more privacy as they are next to a high wall but this also means that they have to climb a serious set of stairs to the street level or walk around to the park side. The marina has finger pontoons but most of the boats 40 feet or larger are moored alongside the pontoon or rafted. For the first two weeks we were next to the pontoon and had a series of boats rafted next to us; most only stay a few days and we have had several days without someone along side. This last week we have been rafted to an old steel boat where a young Parisien businessman lives. In some ways we prefer being rafted to him as we have a greater degree of privacy from the park visitors and we know that no one will be mooring to us on the canal side and walking over our boat. He had several parties when he was rafted to us and then he was gone for a week so we moved to the outside. We had visited the marina previously on our trips to Paris and knew that it was just upstream from Notre Dame but we had not realized that the marina is actually located on the St Martin canal which along with the St Denis canal forms a connection with the down river portion of the Seine; boats pass through the marina from time to time. Some might object to the traffic, passenger ferries and an occasional barge but we enjoy being part of an active river community. The passenger ferry departs from the marina taking trips out on to the Seine and also up the canal. When our friend Ninalou visited we took the evening cruise (9:00-11:00) out on to the Seine down to the Tour Eiffel and enjoyed it so much that we took it again when our friends Darren and Debbie visited. The boat was smaller and much less crowded than the large ferries that depart from the Seine moorings. www.canauxrama.com

We have settled in quite well, walking up to the wonderful Bastille market on Sunday and Thursday and riding our bikes to the supermarkets MonoPrix on St. Antoine or the closer Fran Prix for miscellaneous groceries or to BHV across from the Hotel de Ville, (city hall), for hardware. There is a small boat chandler near the marina and he is the one who sent us to BHV, which appears to be a normal department store. In the basement there is the largest selection of hardware items that I have ever seen staffed by very knowledgeable and helpful staff. They seem to have everything imaginable except food!

The weather has been very hot and sunny here with the exception of a few of days of thunderstorms which temporarily cooled the temperature somewhat. We are very glad that we have the two air conditioning units as they have been a life saver. We have rigged our sunbrella top over the bow hull to shade the roof and hatches as well as a small tarp over the stern hatches so that we can keep them open in the rain. We ordered a large white tarp from the chandler to use as an additional sunshade which will cover the saloon window and the entire roof of the bow cabin. The heat in the boat is a particular concern since we need to provide good ventilation for our cat Chilli when we are not on board.

With the heat we have found the bikes to be the best means of transport. Walking to the bus or metro can get pretty hot but cruising along on the bike feels wonderful. We are using our folding bikes but our friend Ninalou made us of the Paris Velib scheme when she visited. You need a credit card as a deposit but as long as you turn the bike in before 30 minutes the use is free; the second 30 minutes is 1 euro; from there it gets expensive; the idea is to pick up a bike ride it to your destination turn it in and then get another bike for your next journey. This worked really well; we managed to bike all the way from l’ Arsenal to the Hotel des Invalides, visit Napoleon’s tomb and the Musée de l’Armee and back in the rain without incurring any rental charges.

Despite the heat we have made lots of excursions visiting monuments and museums either by bike or when we have visitors, by bus or metro (in the metro station you can purchase 10 tickets for 12 euros which can be used on the bus as well). When Darren and Debbie came the weather was much cooler than earlier so we took L’Open Tour bus which has four routes and audio guides in multiple languages; the bus allows you to get on and off and seem to come every 20 to 30 minutes (www.parisopentour.com, 29 euros for one day or 32 for two days). We thought that it was a very good way to get familiar with the city before deciding what places to visit. We got off the main line at the Louvre and had a lovely lunch at one of the small cafes in the Jardin des Tuileries which has a collection of outdoor contemporary sculpture.

Eric Dietman, Dubuffet, Le Bel Costume, 1973

L’Ami de Personne, 1992

Since we were very keen to see some contemporary art, our first trips were to the temporary exhibitions. The Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris/ARC and the Palais de Tokyo collaborated in presenting Dynasty, in which 40 artists presented 80 works in the two venues. We biked to the museums and had a wonderful lunch in the Palais de Tokyo restaurant before seeing the works.

Vincent Ganivet, Centenaires, free standing cinderblock arches installed at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris in front of Raoul Dufy’s La Fee Electricité

Another day we biked to the FondationCartier pour l’art contemporain to see a playful and amusing exhibition by the Japanese comic/TV celebrity/artist, Beat Takeshi Kitano, ‘designed for children, but speaking to adults.’

Other exhibitions we visited included, Du Greco a Dali at the Musée Jacquemart-Andre (another lovely café), a large exhibition of works by Edvard Munch at the Pinacothèque de Paris as well as William Kentridge and Bruno Serralongue at the Jeu de Paume.

At the Centre Pompidou Sculptor/architect Tadashi Kawamata had erected wood huts perched on the exterior framework which reminded us of the many refugees throughout the world living in makeshift housing (along the St Martin canal near La Valletta there is a sizable village of people living in tents). Inside we visited several large exhibitions, The Promises of the Past, A discontinuous History of Art in Former Eastern Europe, Lucien Freud, l’Atelie, and Dreamlands (named after the 1904 amusement part at Coney Island and dealing with the larger issue of spectacle in art closing with Mike Kelly’s Kandor Con. I had not known that Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano’s Pompidou design was inspired by Denise Scott Brown and Robert Ventury’s unrealised utopian Fun Palace.)

When our friends arrived we visited the major attractions of Versailles, Notre Dame/ St Chapelle, the Tour Eiffel, the Louvre and Montmartre. The train to Versailles left from the Gare d’Austerlitz a short walk from the marina and we arrived around 12:00; taking the umbrella really paid off as we stood in line for two hours in the bright sun to get our tickets. At the recommendation of the ticket agent we then toured the gardens since the line for the house itself is considerably shorter after 4:00. It was all very opulent but seemed a bit decadent reminding me of the films Barry Lyndon and Dangerous Liaisons. While you can admire the skill of the craftsmen, the salon of Peace and the salon of War brought to mind the high cost paid by those who made such a lifestyle possible.

On Sunday we went to mass at Notre Dame with Ninalou and also visited St. Chapelle where they are currently restoring seven of the stained glass windows.

It was so hot and the line so long at the Tour Eiffel when Ninalou was here that we opted to see it from the ground. After trying unsuccessfully to book a trip to the top of the tower when Darren and Debbie visited, we decided to brave the line and try to get to the top. After walking to the Gare d’Austerlitz we caught a direct train to the base of the tower; luckily the weather was breezy and cool and the line not too long when we arrived around 11:00 am and by 2:00 pm we were at the top drinking a celebratory glass of Champagne.

The Louvre is not one of our favourite places to visit, it is so large and there are so many visitors that it can seem intimidating; that said there are some awe inspiring works to be seen. Joan’s favourites are the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the paintings of Paolo Uccello, Jacques Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Theodore Gericault. This summer several contemporary artists have responded to the permanent collection installing their work in the galleries including a ceiling by the American artist Cy Twombly, sculpture and painting by the German artist Anselm Keifer and graphic works and video by the South African Artist William Kentridge.

We had lunch in Montmartre on our 1997 visit to Paris and made two trips back this month. Late afternoon is definitely the best time to visit, as the sun sets and the heat lets up. When Darren and Debbie visited we decided to take the bus tour to the stop at Montmartre and find a restaurant for dinner after visiting the Sacre-Coeur. On our first visit a jazz band was playing at the park nearby and on our second a string quartet was playing at the base of the steps to the church. After wandering through the picturesque village we walked down the rue Lepic and found a lovely small restaurant with a view across the city to the Invalides and had a delicious meal (Bistro Lepicurien, 86 rue Lepic, www.bistro-lepicurien.fr). Afterward we walked down to see the lights of the Moulin Rouge before taking the metro back to l’Arsenal.

Mooring at l’Arsenal we are very much in the heart of the city’s activities. On the day we arrived we heard loudspeaker voices which turned out to be coming from a group encamped in front of the Opera protesting the difficulty undocumented workers face. The Colonne de Julliet at the Place de la Bastille is a memorial to those who died in the street battles of July 1830 that led to the overthrow of the monarch and the French Revolution; appropriately this seems somewhat of a bohemian area promoting ‘Liberty, Fraternity and Equality’; there were musical celebrations around Paris on June 21^st, the first day of summer then on June 26^th this was the ending point for the Gay pride parade. On the eve of Bastille Day a ‘Concert of Diversity’ took place on a large stage with an elaborate light show. Despite the somewhat raucous activities in the Place, the marina park is always emptied and quiet by 12:00 pm.

We were hoping that there would be Bastille Day events at the Place de la Bastille but it all took place in the Champs-Elysees and Tour Eiffel areas. We got up early and took the Metro to the Champs-Elysees Clemenceau stop to catch the parade which started at the Arc de Triomphe and ended at the Place de la Concorde. Just as we emerged from the Metro a formation of fighter jets flew overhead with a trail of red white and blue smoke; they were followed by other planes in formation; the sound was deafening! After the fly over, came the parade of troops. A huge crowd lined the pavement straining to see the parade which we often watched on someone’s phone held high enough to catch action. After the troops there was a lull and then came a horse mounted band followed by troops on horseback all in very elaborate uniforms. The horses were followed by an incredible array of military vehicles. The parade ended with a fly over of helicopters and parachutists floating down to the Place de la Concorde with red white and blue chutes and flags. Although we could not actually see everything it was exciting to be in the midst of the throng of people especially when the skies opened up and rained down ‘cats and dogs’ and a canopy of umbrellas was erected. After the parade we were soaked despite our umbrella and were happy to find a local café where we warmed with a lovely Croque Monsieur and frites before making our way back to l’Arsenal.

During our month here we took a couple of cruises out of the marina, one up the Seine to a new marina at le Port de Cerise’s with our friend Ninalou and a second cruise on the St Martin/St Denis/Seine loop with Darren & Debbie.

Our trip up the Seine took us thru two large locks and ended at le Port de Cerises. This marina is located in the suburbs of Paris not far from the Orly airport; the area seems to be quiet and residential. The marina has new finger pontoons with quite a few long enough to accommodate large boats with new electricity and water hook ups. Moorings here are almost half the price as those at l’Arsenal so this may be a good option for those who want to leave their boats in the Paris area for an extended stay. We had lunch here and then cruised back to l’Arsenal.

The journey up the St Martin canal passes through a two kilometre tunnel lit only by occasional sky lights and then through four double locks in a two hour period. The canal is very scenic lined with tall trees through a residential are. Arriving at La Villette, a recently developed area with another Ports de Paris marina we stopped for brunch. Boats who moor annually in l’Arsenal are required to move up here for three weeks of the year to make space for tourist boats. Continuing our cruise we began our descent through the locks of the St. Denis canal; although passing through a more industrial area the canal has nicely developed parks with some moorings along the way and we stopped at one for lunch.

St Martin Canal St Denis Lock

Exiting the St. Denis we turned up the Seine and then through the large Suresnes Lock, past the Statue de la Liberté , Tour Eiffel, under the beautiful Pont Alexandre III, past Notre Dame and back to l’Arsenal marina.

We have spent our last days here in Paris doing the laundry, writing this blog and editing our photos and video. We were planning on leaving Tuesday but our new tarp still has not arrived at the Chandler so I guess we will just have to stay a little longer (what a shame). We still want to visit the amusement park at the Tuileries to ride the swings and the Ferris wheel before we leave and we might make one more stop at BHV and our favourite ice cream shop Amorino (just by the Bastille Monument, you can get multiple flavours even in the petite size!) We have thoroughly enjoyed our stay at l’Arsenal and are finding it difficult to leave but we know we have many more adventures ahead of us. Our next destination is the Epernay where we plan on touring the Champagne houses and we are looking forward to all the other lovely towns and cities of France as well as eventually making it to Barcelona.

Many thanks to Ninalou, Darren & Debbie for making the trip to Paris to share the experience.

Zum See Name, where did that come from …….

2010-06-27T07:01:00.001-07:00

I expect some of you may not know where our boat name came from so this is the explanation with some other comment.

When Joan and I first met we were both skiing in a ski class in Zermatt, Switzerland, just below the Matterhorn. We met riding a chairlift and then had lunch with the class in a small mountain restaurant called Zum See; which also has a few rooms for people who might want to stay there, you can see more info on www.zumsee.ch.

When we bought our first boat we were trying to think of a suitable name for her, as we did not like the given name, and we then thought of where we had met as well as it meaning ‘At the Lake’; since we were living by Lake Zurich at the time it seemed a good choice.

When we decided to buy the Broom boat we decided to call her ‘Zum See’ since this name was no longer in use in the UK as the owner of our first ‘Zum See’ had renamed her to something else.

Later when cruising the river Thames above Henley one of the lock keepers recognised the name as he loves Switzerland and knows well this very small mountain restaurant so this was something of a coincidence. On another occasion we were at Brundall, Norfolk knew ‘Zum See’ and were speaking to a guy who had his boat there and he had skied there several times. More recently, at the London Boat show, we were talking to the son-in-law of Mr and Mrs Broom who were enquiring about the name; we told him the story and he said that was quite a coincidence since he was going there the following week for a ski trip.

For us the name embodies all our fun time boating and how lucky were to meet each other. We also like the way it sounds like zooming across the sea.

Compeigne to Paris Chapter 4 updated with photos

2010-06-24T04:09:00.001-07:00

ZUM SEE SUMMER 2010 Chapter 4 Compeigne to Paris

Sunday, June 13

We slipped our lines from the town quay around 9 am following 2 Belgian cruisers, NYNIX and PATRYVAN both of which seemed very experienced.

The locks on the Oise are much larger and further apart than on the canal St-Quentin and always seem to be manned; as we approach red, changing to green, lights direct us into the appropriate channel; although there is increased peniche traffic we move right along. Following the example of the two ahead we are putting on only a bow line using the engine to maintain position; the drop is very slow with no turbulence. Today the bridges are higher so we have only put the mast and antennas down.

We had a very easy trip down river passing through only 5 locks in seven hours.

Around 4:30pm we arrived at L'Isle d' Adam, (described as 'paradise on earth' by Honore de Balzac). According to our reference material there was 'a splendid floating pontoon with electricity... and water in front of a restaurant', (McKnight). We found a pontoon big enough for only 2 boats with a yacht taking the centre, (the electric and water were broken). We were 3 boats trying to moor but we found a solution; the two Belgian boats rafted on one end of the remaining pontoon.

We tied up to A’Dam Abel, a Dutch barge with a lovely young couple from Amsterdam, (who have been living on their boat for 15 years in Amsterdam), who we had moored behind in Compeigne. They had moored to the quay with their stern held several feet out to avoid a shallow area bank side. Rafting to their bow and putting on a land line we avoided pushing their stern in and accessed the land via their bow. Having secured our mooring, we had a stroll through the picturesque resort loved by Parisian’s, (the largest inland beach in France); we decided to have a pizza at the Italian restaurant overlooking our boat, (not wanting to disturb the atmosphere by running our generator.) We both ordered the 'Picante' with lots of pepperoni, thin crispy base and fabulous caralamised onions, some of the best pizzas we had ever tasted!

Monday, June 14

Today we completed our cruise down the pastoral Oise; the weather was beautiful and sunny. At 11:00am we passed into the River Seine at Conflans Ste-Honorine passing under much larger bridges and a much more industrial area. As soon as we rounded the bend and entered the Seine the skies clouded over and the temperature dropped.

We followed along the Seine for a while ‘on the wrong side of the road’ according to the traffic scheme at that point of the turn from the Oise. As we were approaching the point where we needed to cross back over to starboard to be on the ‘correct side of the road’ a huge ship was heading in our direction with his blue board out meaning that we should pass starboard to starboard and not the normal port to port; on the other hand we were at the point where we should get back into our normal right hand side of the river positions, so what to do? Anyway we made it abundantly clear that we were turning sharp to starboard to get to the right side of the river and that seemed to work out OK and the big ship did go by on our port side.

Further along we entered another lock, the huge Ecluse Bougival, with some trepidation as we will now be ascending again; our fears were not unfounded but a concerned, helpful Eclusier came from the watch tower motioning for us to move way back because of the turbulence to come. A cruiser from Denmark was with us in the lock and the Eclusier helped with their lines. We seemed to handle it well using a long line on the front cleat through a ladder and looped back to the second bow cleat which could be pulled in as we ascended and easily released. Mike had the stern line on a bollard in the wall but it was not possible to hold once we ascended to a certain level of water as it was built into the wall and at some point the ropes were above the wall cleat which did not really have a top to keep the rope on, also the bollards at the top of the lock were too high and too far back to be able to reach easily. Being now about 30 metres from the lock gates the worst of the turbulence did not hit us.

Shortly after this lock the skies were looking very threatening; we decided to tie up for the evening at a very nice floating pontoon art Rueil MalMaison, (an area somewhat like Canary Wharf), where we found modern restaurants and a grocer nearby; there was no electricity or water but there also was no charge! We purchased sushi for a starter and cooked on board.

Tuesday, June 14, we arrive in Paris!

We left Rueil MalMaison at about 9 am; the weather was overcast and a bit chilly. We continued down the Seine following our pilot guides, (Navicartes), and kept right whenever we found some islands, although some you can go around either way. During one stretch we came across a lone rower! Further along we went down the right hand side of Ile St Denis and as we came near to the end of the channel, to rejoin the main channel, we found ourselves passing by a huge barge workshop with barges being worked on; we did think about seeing if they could fix our front rail! After we went by them we came back out into the main channel and went through a couple of bridges whereupon a Seine passenger boat decided to do a U turn in front of us, without bothering to let us by first; she was coming in the opposite direction and then just went around! Finally further on we came to our last lock (other than Port de l’Arsenal entry lock) which was very big but also had a number of peniches coming behind wanting to go in; this was somewhat daunting. Anyway we followed a large commercial peniche and a house type barge into the lock which was having some difficulty preventing his front hitting the lock wall as he manoeuvred alongside the large peniche that had gone in.The barge did finally go alongside but managed to hit the peniche at the back end; we kept well back from both of them. As the lock started to operate suddenly both barge and peniche were turning their props really fast to counter the water surge; fortunately we had our bow line held tight on two bollards and had the engines ready to help if needed; the weight and size of the boats in front took most of the surge and we were fine.

We left the lock and finally managed to pass by the commercial peniche and barge, since pleasure craft were allowed to go at 20 kph in this stretch, being quite wide. As we motored along we saw the skyline of Paris centre coming into view and then there it was the Eiffel Tower, of course Joan was out there videoing it all. Later we came to the íle de la Cité followed by the íle Saint Louis after which would be the Port de l’Arsenal. At these islands, going in our direction, you could either go round to the right or to the left of the islands. Going the left way however involves waiting for one way lights to turn green which they do 15 minutes in every hour so we went to the right side where there are no lights. Unfortunately if at a later time you want to go the other direction the only way is to go through these lights so you have to know which 15 minutes in the hour are one way and which the other way to avoid hanging around in the river for up to 45 minutes. I assume the other half hour of the hour is to allow time for the traffic to pass through the one way system prior to changing the light direct to the other way.

Once we passed the island the entry to Port de l’Arsenal came into view, we radioed the Capitainerie who told us that it was OK to enter as another boat was in the process of going in as well. We entered the lock to find a German flagged Nimbus boat, already there so we came in and tied to a ladder and a floating bollard.

The gates closed and the water surged in; we were fine. We realized however that the German boat was only being held on one rope midships held by one of the people standing on their gunwale; their engine was off with no one at the controls. As their bow started swinging round to which Joan started shouting to them and grabbed a fender whilst hanging on to the bow line. Since I was on a floating bollard, I tied off and went to the front to help fender or look after the bow line. Fortunately we all survived with no incident and went into the port. The Capitainerie told us our mooring place so we went into the marina and found we had to moor between boats rafted 2 out either side of our place with less than a metre to spare at bow and stern!! We did get in OK and moored up next to a lovely quay side park with a pretty view of roses and hollyhocks. We finally tied up and went to get ourselves a drink and found we had forgotten to bring champagne to celebrate our arrival in Paris! Oh well alcohol is alcohol so it was wine instead.

We have told the Capitainerie we intend to stay about 1 month; it is not cheap mooring but the marina is very nice with all mod con facilities, electricity, water, black water pump out valves along the pontoon every few places serviced by the staff, showers, washing machines, WiFi not to mention the shops are very close by, since we are near the place de la Bastille; the staff are very welcoming and professional with an information pack showing you all the local services. The weather is beautiful; the marina is beautiful and we are having a wonderful time!

Well here we are 420 nm from Bray after 196 engine hours, 950 litres of fuel, 58 locks and 2 tunnels. Phew!!

Wednesday June 15 2010 until ……….

We stay and do stuff in Paris as well as having our friend Ninalou from LA come and visit in June and Darren and Debbie from Bray in July.

St-Quentin to Compeigne Chapter 3 updated with photos

2010-06-22T09:31:00.001-07:00

ZUM SEE SUMMER 2010 Chapter 3 Saint-Quentin to Compeigne

Thursday, June 10

We departed St-Quentin just before noon continuing on the canal St-Quentin toward the canal latéral à l'Oise having spent a day and a half taking advantage of the facilities at the Port de Plaisance, (a friendly Capitainerie, electricity, water, showers and WiFi internet). The sign on the canal and most books say there is fuel available here which proved not to be the case; luckily we were 96% full, (previously purchasing fuel at Dunkerque and Cambrai), a Dutch boat who was not so lucky was trying to arrange a fuel truck as he had missed the pump at Cambrai and was into his reserve. The weather was not great which was why we had not left earlier, then we decided to go anyway.

The St-Quentin port is located about 600m from the town square and supermarket. Our first night we walked into the town square for dinner with Louis and Annilese, the very friendly Dutch couple who had followed us on the passage through the Riqueval and Lesdins tunnels the day before.

It was raining as we left and continued until about 3 pm. Since there were many low bridges and locks, (all of which seem to require lowering the arch), we spent a lot of the time with all the awnings down. Utilizing the awning covers, the new sunshade and instrument cover as well as the awning from an old sunbrella we managed to cover the aft and helm seating. It was actually not at all uncomfortable; it was a gentle rain, the temperature was around 20 and it was not particularly windy.

We were now going downhill in the locks, (which are considerably easier than going up); we got into a routine of Joan throwing the bow line and then the stern line while Mike, trapped behind the lowered arch manoeuvred the boat. Mike would then hold the stern line while Joan lifted the green bar to start the lock action which takes quite some time to start letting in water after closing the gates and sluices. We have all our fenders deployed with some high and some low. The walls of the locks, though old, (the St-Quentin canal was built by Napoleon), did not seem any grimier than those on the Thames. We passed a crew refurbishing one lock and several that had already had their lock houses, ladders and controls redone.

We moored up at a very lovely Port de Plaisance at Chauny around 5:30pm where two boats we had seen in Cambrai were moored.

The Capitainerie indicated a mooring for us alongside the quay, (slopping sides with tires holding us away). Facilities here as in St-Quentin were equipped with finger pontoons, electricity, water and WiFi. The mooring fees in the various marinas were very reasonable such as €9, €10 and €15 to include showers, toilets, water and electricity.

As we arrived a fuel truck just happened to be on the quay so we topped our 'gazole' with another 60 litres. At this time the sun also came out so we put our awnings up to dry, had a glass of wine and settled down for dinner on the aft deck.

At 9:30 pm the sun was just going down, it is still 25°C and we decided to retire for the evening. The only disadvantage to this mooring seems to be a very noisy factory on the other side of the canal although we are pretty sound sleepers.

We had also planned on a short day again tomorrow making our way to Compeigne.

FRIDAY, June 11

Since we left Cambrai we have been without a Navicarte for the area as the Picardie Navicarte #16 is out of print; we have been unable to find one despite searching the internet and every chandler we pass. Cruising the French Waterways by Hugh McKnight (4th edition, 2005) has been invaluable even though some info is out of date, particularly fuel sources; that combined with our electronic chart which shows locks, bridges and K markers which coordinate with McKnight's detailed descriptions have guided us without difficulty.

At 12:57 we passed the other end of the canal du Nord; we were very glad that we took the St- Quentin canal and didn't get scared off by the tunnels. Although barge traffic has become heavier, yesterday we saw no other boats out in the rain. At K28 we entered a large lock and were followed in by a large Peniche pushing a second one. We were a little nervous, checked our fenders and had one in hand. We needn't have worried, we are still descending in the locks, there is not too much turbulence; the Peniche eased in very smoothly beside us filling the length of the lock, lying 8-10 feet off our port side. Peniche skippers seem a pretty friendly and relaxed lot; they generally wave as we passed; one was manning the helm in nothing but his speedo (French swimsuit).

At K33 we saw our first bank side fuel since Cambrai; this is Longueil-Annel apparently home to many Peniche folk. On the port side a large FINA sign marks the fuel pump and bank side parking is reserved for fuelling. They also appeared to sell gas as there were cans in sight as well as a fuel truck.

As we entered the Oise river a group of children on a barge greeted us.

Arriving at Compeigne around 4:00pm, we moored on the town quay next to a park and across the river from a large fuel barge and also a large excellent chandlery where we purchased Guides CHAGNON, Carto-guide fluvial 4, Île de France Champagne Ardennes (2004) Picardie which seems to have all the info we were missing and then some, with more detailed maps than our Navicartes.

This is the third time we have moored on the main channel and we have not had any problems with the passing peniche traffic; we are well fendered and do not mind the occasional rocking motion. Joan prefers to see water out the window rather than another boat. We did first poke our bow into the Port de Plaisance at Compeigne but the entrance seemed too shallow and the moorings full.

By the time we returned from our bike ride to the chandler, right next to the fuel barge opposite to us, and tourist office we were exhausted; with a temperature approaching 30° we opted for a shower and dinner on board during which we were entertained by a jazz orchestra in the park next to us. Around dusk the wind picked up and the temperature dropped making for a very good night’s rest.

Saturday, June 12

This was an exhausting but very satisfying day of sightseeing in the Compeigne area. Here is shown the Hotel de Ville, (town hall) and of course Joan of Arc!!

There had been rain overnight which had washed the boat and cooled the air. The overcast skies were perfect for our bike ride out to 'one of the most historic sites of the 20th century, the Clairière de l' Armistice, deep in the heart of the forest' where Germany surrendered to the French General Foch in 1918 ending WWI, ('the solitude of the forest of Compiegne was chosen to ensure not only calmness, silence and isolation, but also the respect of the defeated enemy').

Later in WW II France surrendered to Hitler in 1940 in this same place. There is a clearing, General Foch's tomb, a monument and a building housing a recreation of Gen. Foch's train car in which each armistice was signed. In 1940 Hitler covered the monument with a large Swastika and brought the train car out over Foch's tomb for the signing. The museum also housed a large collection of glass 'stereoscopic photographs which were actually taken in the midst of the battle fields', displayed in old wooden flip viewing boxes; the scenes of devastation and life in the trenches was all the more chilling seen in this manner. The bike trip was around 14 kilometres round trip so we rewarded ourselves with a hearty lunch at a bistro in the centre; €10 for a thick tournedo in green peppercorn sauce for Joan and a very tasty beef hash (cottage pie) for Mike.

Later we visited the Imperial Palace, built by Louis XV and XVI and improved by Napoleon, a luxurious country retreat for the royalty and their court, quite a counterpoint to the Armistice museum. We ended the day with an excellent meal at the Bistro de Terroir, (€20.60 for three courses and a glass of wine), near the Hotel de Ville.

Dunkerque to St-Quentin Chapter 2 updated with photos

2010-06-22T08:52:00.001-07:00

ZUM SEE SUMMER 2010 Chapter 2 Dunkerque to St-Quentin

Wednesday June 2

At the prescribed bridge opening time of 08.30 we left our marina mooring in brilliant weather, turned left towards our first lock in Darse 1 to enter the canal de Bourbourg and into the French waterways system..

So far so good. We found that the bollards available were well placed for barges but for pleasure craft they leave a lot to be desired. We joined the derivation de la Colme down to Watten where we joined the canal coming from Calais, the canal d’Aire and continued on down to a place called Ayres-sur-la-Lys where we moored overnight (down a small side channel, on a VNF (French Waterway Authority) mooring, where we had a great barbecue.

Prior to our overnight stay we had entered some larger locks, one with a 10 foot lift and the next (Les Fointenettes) with a 40 foot lift at a place called Arques!! These needed careful rope work on a number of different bollards set into the wall as you rose.

Thursday June 3

We continued our journey stopping for lunch up a side channel in the canal de Beuvy which was a pretty place and the mooring was well provided.

We then continued down the canal until we reached the junction with the canal du Nord where we moored overnight at Arleux. This mooring had a multitude of Peniches (barges) there and this was obviously a stopping place for them prior to continuing down the canal du Nord.

At this point we had to decide whether to go down the canal du Nord which is shorter and was built as a faster route to L’Oise, or to take the canal St-Quentin which is prettier but longer and involves a 5.6km tunnel!

Friday June 4

After mooring overnight at the entrance to the canal du Nord, we set off to the slightly longer but more scenic St-Quentin canal assuming that with our 8 years of locks on the Thames and having gone through those larger locks earlier, that we should not have too much difficulty.

We left Arleux and found ourselves in some narrow channels and also going under some very low bridges. As we approached the first lock, of 17, at Estrun, 2 other Plaisances (pleasure boats) came up behind us. Here we also had to pick up a control unit to operate the next 16 locks. Following Thames custom we picked up the most forward bollard, @ 1.5 m from the lock gates; the others came in; a 10m French steel followed by a Dutch yacht which filled the lock. The Dutch couple had great difficulty getting their lines up to the bollards. We were feeling quite pleased with our rope work but that feeling was to be short lived. Finally we were all ready so the lock was started; the gates closed and we waited for the water to lift us. The locks are operated by someone lifting the green rod as in the picture and this closes the gates behind, and works the sluices all automatically; the red pole is to stop the system in emergency. The controls are set in the middle of the lock so only the middle boat in our case could operate the lock as he was where the control is placed.

Several minutes after the downriver gates closed water began to enter the lock quickly turning into a tidal wave which initially pushed us back and then sucked us forward with such force it was impossible to pull in the lines as the water rose. This picture is at another lock and does not really demonstrate the full force but it is really fierce. Joan realized at this moment that the bow ladder which extended past the pulpit rail was soon going to get caught on the lock gates and began shouting and gesticulating; Mike managed to pull the boat back using the engines whilst also holding the stern line and succeeded in pulling Zum See off the gate but not before the bow ladder and front rails suffered a realignment.

We now understood that on this canal the lock is the weir! We opted to let the other two boats go ahead so that we could avoid any more close encounters of the lock kind until at least we felt more confident after our incident. We have found that most locks are built for the barges, who can take a heavy surge of water and not for leisure boats, and that in locks you stay back from the lock gate to avoid the surge. In the case of the lock in question we unfortunately had the 3 boats packed in there, us being at the front, and had not realised the extent of the surge that was to come.

That evening we moored up at lovely small Port de la Plaisance in Cambrai;

Mike managed to remove the twisted ladder and Zum See looked almost unscathed; we comforted ourselves that we had boat insurance and did not suffer any injuries to ourselves.

We decided to stay for several nights to fuel up; we were down to 86% after all, do laundry, visit museums, take on water, do laundry and eat at some great restaurants. We saw an exhibition of Raoul Dufy in the art museum there showing many scenes of the sea side, boats etc which seemed very appropriate for our trip.

Monday June 7

We departed the Port de Cantimpre (Cambrai), ready for about 12 locks and then being towed through a 5.7km tunnel so this was going to be an experience especially as we did not have Navicarte 24 – Picardie, as apparently they are out of print, so we are relying on other books which are people’s experiences rather than navigation pilot books which we have used for everywhere else.

We continued through many locks and stopped for lunch bank side at a place called Vinchy following which we continued on to Honnecourt where we moored two locks before the tunnel. We were exhausted and hot after working about 12 locks; we ate on board and then went for a walk back to the lock we had just passed through before stopping and noticed that a Dutch boat had moored just before the lock so we went and said hi to them and they kindly offered us drinks.

Tuesday June 8

We set off at about 8 am to go through the last 2 locks prior to the tunnel tow departing at 9.30 am accompanied by our Dutch friends.

At around 9.15 am, at the tunnel entrance, the electric chain pulled boat came and gesticulated to us to tie their tow rope to our boat, after which the Dutch boat tied to our stern with 2 cross ropes at least 30 metres long.

The tow then commenced and it took 2 hours to go through the tunnel at around 2 kph; we had to straighten the boat every so often to avoid hitting one side of the tunnel or the other. The tunnel was well lit and the Dutch boat attached to us was not having any problems.

We came out the other side of the tunnel all in one piece; we were well fendered anyway but you never know. As we exited there was a whole bunch of people looking on and cheered us out so that was fun.

We disconnected ourselves from the tow boat and the Dutch boat and set off to the next tunnel which was a fair distance away especially at the prescribed speed limit of 4 kph so took some time. As we reached the tunnel there was no indication of whether we should enter or not but we could see through the 1 km tunnel and there was nothing inside or approaching from what we could see so we held our breath and went for it under our own power. The tunnel was lit but nevertheless it was somewhat dark along each side however we exited fine; we then noticed that there was a red traffic light at the other end for traffic coming the other way so we assumed one direction has priority thus no light and the other direction is stopped when someone is already in the tunnel.

Having negotiated the 2 tunnels we then had a series of downhill locks to go through which were tame compared to the uphill ones!!

Finally we arrived at Saint Quentin and pulled in to a Port de Plaisance there for an overnight stop where we met up again with the very pleasant Dutch couple, had drinks on board Zum See and then went out to a restaurant together; they are on an 8 week trip from Holland to Paris and back.

Here Mike and Louis are sorting out a hose connection as the tap was a little way from the boats.

We decided to stay an extra night as it was a bit rainy but the Dutch couple left, so we said we would catch up with them in Paris.

Bray to Dunkerque – Chapter 1 Updated with pictures

2010-06-22T03:30:00.001-07:00

ZUM SEE SUMMER 2010 Chapter 1 Bray to Dunkerque

This summer our plan is to cruise from June to September making our way through France to Spain. We are entering the French canal system at Dunkerque during the 70th anniversary of Operation Dynamo when British small ships evacuated 340,000+ British, French, Belgian and Dutch troops; from there we will travel down the canals to Paris, then over to Basel (via Strasbourg). Re-entering the French canals at Mulhouse, we plan to make our way down the Rhone to the Med then port hop along the French and Spanish coasts to our MDL mooring at Sant Carles de la Rapita between Barcelona and Valencia where we will winter and plan next summer.

MID MAY RECONNAISANCE

A week before our planned departure we drove to Switzerland to visit the kids and see our new grandson; we decided along the way to check out some of the places we hoped to visit by boat this summer.

Before boarding the Dunkirk ferry from Dover we stopped into the

Dover marina office to have a look at the harbour and check out the mooring booked for 26th May.

Arriving at Dunkerque we stopped by the Bleu Marine chandlery just across the road from the Yacht Club Mer du Nord (where we had spent several nights a few years ago). Unfortunately they had just closed for lunch (12-2) so we set off to Zurich to see the kids

After a great visit and lots of fun playing with the grand kids we headed back toward England making several stops along the way.

Just outside Basel we had a taste of things to come…

Using Navicarte 32 we stopped by a lovely small marina at Kembs along the Ancien canal du Huningue (which runs parallel to the larger shipping canal and the Rhine River.

Since the Capitainiere was closed for lunch (12-2 seems to be the norm), we decided to sample the meal of the day at the marina bistro Le Peniche which is in a converted barge. We were offered an aperitif of lovely Alsacien wine and enjoyed a beautiful and delicious meal of house made terrine followed by main courses of pork medallions for Mike and fish for Joan; each was served with a variety of small tasty vegetable offerings.

On the drive we visited several locks and moorings:

Canal du Rhone-au-Rhin and Town moorings at Mulhouse and Douai.

At Coulchettes we found a lovely quiet floating pontoon up a small channel just up river from the lock. We look forward to discovering many such moorings.

BRAY TO DUNKERQUE, if anything can go wrong....

We had a few hitches in the start of our trip...

On the Sunday 23 May, before our departure the new electronic chart card became corrupted during the plotting process (i.e. would not work at all).

On Tuesday 25^th May we departed Bray, (the weather was beautiful, sunny but not as hot as the weekend); the locks were practically deserted. Darren and Debbie on Unwinder accompanied Zum See down to TMYC. On the way we stopped for lunch just past Runnymede and there was Triple G, Dandini and Harlequin of Bray waiting to meet us and wish us Bon Voyage, actually they were on their way back from their London trip.

On our way down river we planned to stop off at Penton Hook to pick up our new chart which had been shipped there by Navionics but it failed to arrive (it turned up the next day apparently!!), despite Navionics sending a new card by next day delivery by Royal Mail!!. We then continued our way down to TMYC, without electronic chart for a short stay prior to departure, where we met up with Amadeus-M from UTMYC, Mike Thomas.

That evening we had a nice meal at a Thai restaurant nearby, with Darren and Debbie; Mike and his crew had just arrived to their boat so where still unpacking and getting sorted out, so they went to eat later.

At 1 am, Wednesday 26 May, we started off on our trip to Dover, Dunkirk. Debbie and Darren also got up to help cast off lines and bid us a fond farewell.

At 2:00 am, as we left Teddington, we found that our cabin door had somehow become locked, (not sure how we think it may have been the cat!!). Joan was especially concerned about the prospect of a long passage without access to the head! Remembering that she had neglected to latch the small semicircular hatch in the roof of the front cabin, Joan splayed herself on the deck and managed to unlock the large hatch by reaching through the unlatched small hatch. As the cat looked on she dropped in and unlocked the cabin door, phew!

At 5:00 am after passing through London as day was breaking with the city lights etc, our cruise leader Amadeus-M developed a vibration in her starboard prop.

Soldiering on, as one does, we made our way down the Thames into the estuary with our paper chart and waypoints plotted into the chart plotter (showing only the basic land & water display); we knew where we were but had to refer to the paper chart to see what was there. Reassuringly, Amadeus-M graciously allowed us to follow in their wake.

Amadeus-M and Zum See restricted their speed to 8 knots and continued down river until the vibration problem resolved itself.

A lot of things did go really well.

Although several boats dropped out of our planned convoy, our fearless leader Mike Thomas did a wonderful job of planning the trip.

Aside from locking the cabin door, the cat Chili seemed perfectly adapted to the voyage spending the trip, snuggled down between Joan and Mike on the helm seat.

All was going well but the weather forecast was threatening wind increasing to possibly 10 or 20 in the estuary and Channel. We agreed to turn up the Medway and overnight at Chatham should conditions warrant. After passing thru the Thames barrier wind did begin to increase. By the time we reached the Medway we were all, (including Chili), hanging on as our ships took flight at times in a very rough sea, high wind and incoming tide. We all agreed a change of course was a prudent. Passing the Montgomery we turned into the Medway surfing the tide toward Chatham where we were greeted by sunny skies and the friendly MDL staff.

Wednesday evening after warm showers and well earned naps the two crews gathered for drinks on board Zum See to recap the day. Later we shared a delicious meal and drinks at Chimichanga restaurant nearby; Joan said it was the best Margarita, Pico de Gallo and crab cakes she had eaten since she had left Texas! With a weather forecast of improving weather with winds turning southerly of 2-4 we went to bed looking to completing our journey to Dunkerque on Thursday.

Thursday, 27th May

By 8:00 am Amadeus-M and Zum See were cruising down the Medway in calm seas a turning tide and a light drizzle. Exiting the restricted speed area we increased our speed to 15 Knots and headed toward the channel. The sea state was calm until we came around North Foreland when it became a bit bumpy but nothing like yesterday. As we approached Mid Falls we began hearing radio broadcasts regarding the Small ships. After fuelling up (600 litres) and taking on fresh water, we entered the Tristam lock at 3:30 making our way into Dunkerque. Amadeus M and Zum See had entered the Dunkerque harbour just before the small ships; on our starboard a brass band played on the top deck of a large ferry while on the port side a British contingent including a decorated Dunkerque veteran waved flags and there was also a lone Scottish piper playing.

That evening we celebrated our crossing with a wonderful meal at a restaurant on the town square

Friday 28th May, we woke up in France with beautiful sunny skies, flags flapping in the breeze and French music on the radio. It is all so romantic!

Saturday 29 May

The ceremonies commemorating the evacuation of troops from Dunkerque were very moving bringing to mind not only the sacrifice of those soldiers and civilians but also the hardships that so many have endured in so many places and reminding us that we are currently at war.

The small ships sailed out for a ceremony at sea while we dressed in our blazers and attended the very impressive ceremony on the beach front Allied Monument in Malo-les-Bains, ‘in the presence of civil, military and diplomatic authorities, a Czech delegation... With the participation of ... British, Belgian and war veterans, the flag and guard of honour of the 43rd Infantry Regiment, two sections from Cambrai Air Base 103, the crews of the Belgian and Dutch Royal Navy vessels, the command and supply ship "Marne", a delegation of army Cadets and ... the band of the 43rd Infantry Regiment.’

The fragile state of some of these veterans became apparent when one collapsed in front of the memorial just before the ceremony; three ambulances responded to aid the veteran and what appeared to be his son who had rushed to the front. It was the presence of these veterans and their families which made the event especially poignant. The most moving part of the event was the reading by a local schoolboy, (in French and English), of a historical account of the Battle of Dunkerque written by a resident of the city at the time. The ceremony ended with the playing of the national anthems of the various nations. After lunch there was a parade of the various troops culminating with the playing of the European anthem at the town hall.

Sunday 30 May thru Tuesday June 1

We decided to stay in Dunkerque for several more days to visit some museums, get our waterways vignette, visit some other boats for drinks, get groceries, do laundry etc. We then planned to leave next day.