We made it

Kalessin reached Calais on Wednesday evening after three very full days on the industrialised and busy northern canals.

Here we are on the mooring pontoon in Calais just before the Pont Mollien, where officially you leave the canals and enter the port. It’s very handy for the station and the town hall, but possibly not a place to leave the boat unattended.

We had to arrange locking out with the Calais harbour master, and the impression we received is they are more concerned with ferries than with us, not surprisingly. High tide was at 1123. Eventually they opened the first lock for us at about 1010 but we were stuck in the Bassin Carnot – the Carnot lock was open but the bridge was shut, with a red light. So we lowered the hood and the other tall bits and squeezed under the bridge with about 2ft/0.6m to spare... Ben is still having nightmares. We just missed the bridge opening into the marina and had to spend about 45 minutes on the waiting buoys.

Sadly the chandlery, which operates the mast hoist, is closed until 3 September - otherwise conceivably we could have brought the boat home this weekend. Instead Ben and I came home by Eurostar (incredibly quick) and National Express East Anglia (stuck for an hour five miles south of Diss). Sam is in Calais, cleaning, de-fendering, fixing rigging and occasionally talking to visitors - the marina is very empty. We hope to return in a couple of weeks, weather permitting, to bring Kalessin home.

A typical canal mooring - quite close to the bank on this occasion


Ben helped out with some of the manual locks

Early morning on the Marne a la Saone

Chauny

Our plan today was to get to Pont L'Eveque at the start of the Canal du Nord. (This is our revised plan - originally we planned to use the older, quieter, but much more heavily locked Canal Saint-Quentin, but sadly we don't have time).

Somewhere around lunchtime I re-read the entry for the Pont L'Eveque halt in the Almanac Fluviale and discovered that it only takes boats up to 8m long (ours is 10m). So we cut short our day and diverted slightly to Chauny, the first place we've been with wifi for around two weeks. It's nice to have a short day, time to shop (especially for loo rolls), make a few checks and repairs, and to read my emails. I have 51 and there's almost nothing interesting in there at all.

This is a mini marina with finger pontoons, showers, power etc, and even a nice Dane for Sam to blether to (although listening to the conversation right now I think Sam is doing less blethering and more listening...)

According to my calculations we have 250km and 29 locks to do if we want to reach Calais in the next five days, which seems feasible if nothing goes wrong.

Updates from the canals

On the canals - 22 August 2008

After 10 days on the canals it seems as though we have never been anywhere else. It has become normal to have 0.7m of depth under the keel and to be aground every night. There’s a lock every 20 or 30 minutes. Today we had a interval of 23km between locks which is by far the longest gap since the Saône.

The Marne à la Saône started to feel like “our” canal. On average we met one or two barges a day and two or three pleasure boats. In 224km we never met anyone going the same way as us. On the ascending side, montant, most of the locks were automated, but on the descending side, avalant, we had fantastic support from VNF who provided students or VNF people to escort us from lock to lock, open and close the gates and sluices with little winding handles, open the opening bridges, and check every night when we would be starting the next morning. They did take a break for lunch, which forced us to stop too – very civilised.

On the whole the canal was extremely rural with just a few little towns and many delightful villages. We stopped in Langres, which was a very steep 2km climb to the town but very rewarding when we got there – medieval town walls with great views.

The Balesmes tunnel is one of the longest we go through at almost 5km. We didn’t like it. There seemed to be no ventilation so the tunnel was foggy with diesel fumes, and halfway through all the lights went out. Our 500,000 candlepower searchlight, which isn’t supposed to be used for more than a couple of minutes at a time, did sterling service for almost 30 minutes.

On the avalant side we alternated between mooring to the canal bank in the middle of nowhere, and tying up to little VNF haltes fluviales, with a pontoon, loos, possibly electricity, and sometimes even hot showers. Possibly our favourite was Froncles, which had all the above plus a car boot sale, where we purchased a crêpe for Ben, a whizzy game controller for his laptop, and a lump hammer for beating in the mooring stakes. Froncles even had a supermarket that opened at 8am – getting supplies has been a bit of a challenge.

From the Marne à la Saône we have zigzagged in a series of different canals which are confusingly named: the Canal lateral à la Marne, Canal de l'Aisne à la Marne, the Canal lateral à l'Aisne, the Canal de l'Oise à l'Aisne where we are now, and the Canal lateral à l'Oise tomorrow.

In the course of all that we spent a rather splendid night at Chalons-en-Champagne, moored in a park, with a really excellent meal in the town. It was followed by a night in Reims, where we visited the cathedral which was absolutely fabulous, bought some champagne, and spent the night between the A4 autoroute and the ring-road, under a flyover – probably the noisiest night we’ve ever spent on board.

And tonight we are back in the middle of nowhere, just across the canal from a huge reservoir, in total peace and quiet. Although Sam cycled off and managed to find a Camping Gaz supplier (8am tomorrow) and a fuel station for diesel (9am tomorrow, from the next lock down), which should see us to the end of our journey – all we really need now is toilet paper (we have eight kitchen rolls but no loo rolls…). We’ve had several goes at getting diesel but each time either we haven’t been able to get to the bank to tie up (too shallow, or full of rocks), or the filling station has been closed.

On the canal, 13 August 2008

Well, after around 500 km of rivers today we’ve finally entered the canal network. After all yesterday’s rain the Saône was very full, running with about 1.5 knots of current, and full of logs and mess. Above the lock at Auxonne we entered the shallow navigation, minimum 1.8m, but in fact it seemed not different from below the lock.

The locks on the upper Saône are automated – you head up to them, turn a bit of hosepipe to tell it you are there, wait for the lock to open, enter, tie up, and lift the blue bar to set the lock filling. That’s the theory, but in practice there might be someone else in the lock, or the ladder is on one side and the blue bar on the other side, or there aren’t enough bollards to tie to… who knows.

At Heuilley we turned sharp right into the Canal de la Marne à la Saône. Unlike the other canals we have passed there was only a tiny sign telling you the name of the canal instead of a big notice. We got to the first lock after 1km and it was totally closed – no traffic lights, nothing. Ever the pessimist, I was convinced the entire navigation was closed. However, it appears that (a) it was lunchtime and (b) they are automating these locks too and the works stop the traffic lights from working. Eventually we were locked in. So far we’ve done four and then stopped for the night – a bit modest out of the 114 locks on this canal, but I felt we needed a break.

We hoped to stop at a picnic area but ran aground about 10m from the bank. So we’re moored up on the other side, using our new “spikes”, driven into the bank with ropes threaded through the top, to hold us against the piling. This side we went aground only about 1m off so it’s possible to cross to the bank. Let’s hope we can get off in the morning! Sam and Ben have gone off exploring but I’m made a bit nervous by the breeze (maybe 8-10 knots?) so elected to stay on board. So far of course the boat hasn’t moved. In almost three hours, two boats have passed us.

The speed limit on the canals is possibly 6 or possibly 8 km/h. Either way our speed will be determined by the locks so it will take us a while to complete the 224km to Vitry le Francois.

A few pictures


The Saone at its most gorgeous - early morning mist rising from the water. Just after I took this we went aground

Moored to the quay in Lyon...

... and leaving very suddenly

An old steamship abandoned in Valence

The famous Pont St Benezet at Avignon, in the early morning light

Getting shallower

We're in St Jean de Losne, just south of Dijon, for a day of rest and stocking up with food and chandlery before we head up the seriously shallow canals (with supposedly just 12cm depth under our keel...). It is bucketing with rain here, which probably makes anyone in the UK feel better. Over in the boatyard they are operating an immensely noisy sandblaster, but the sound of the rain on the cabin roof is sometimes loud enough to drown it out completely.

St Jean de Losne is the capital of the French waterways - where the Saône joins the Canal de Bourgogne, with the Canal du Rhône a Rhin heading off a few km further north, and "our" canal, the Marne a la Saône, a bit further on. There are lots of Connoisseur boats built in Wroxham, the marina is totally full of Brits, and what with the pouring rain it feels just like the Norfolk Broads.

We've had three excellent days on the Saône since we left Lyon. There's very little current, it's wide and deep, and there are only five locks on the section up to here, so you can make good progress without too much effort. As on the Rhone, we are surrounded by names we know from labels of wine bottles - Nuits St Georges is about 15km away.

We spent a peaceful night in Macon (pictured above) and ate out at the Poisson d'Or, a modest establishment by French standards but with a terrace with a marvellous view of the Saône, good service, delicious food and a splendid white burgundy. On Sunday night we were at Chalon sur Saône and spent a lovely evening with Mike and Dee on Annie-Cathie, before they headed towards Paris on a different route from us..

Apparently some people don't like the Saône. I can't think why. It's surrounded by rich, fertile countryside full of Charollais cattle (Charolles is also not far away), with lovely houses, jumping fish, pretty villages, medieval towns and millions of trees to look at. There's a reasonable choice of stopping places, and much of the time it's totally empty - especially if you leave early in the morning, as we have been doing. Not many mountains, I guess.

Lyon, 8 August 2008

Lyon is France’s second largest city and is on both the Rhone and the Saone. At present, however, it has no dedicated yacht harbour. It has very attractive riverside moorings, right between the Presqu’Ile de Lyon and Vieux Lyon, just under the weeping willows. However, I have to report that these moorings have a stone shelf about 2m deep and extending a couple of metres from the bank. If you moor a sailing yacht drawing 1.7m to the bank, and a big motorboat goes past much too fast making lots of wash and bouncing you up and down a couple of feet, your sailing yacht crashes its keel very hard on to the stone step, which is a Bad Thing.

We arrived in Lyon about 3pm. We moored entirely on our own (there are lots of houseboat-style barges in Lyon but apparently no passing traffic) and Ben and I went off to explore, leaving Sam to assess whether crashing on to the step was really a problem or not. It wasn’t… until Ben and I came back. Perhaps we are just heavy enough to push the boat down on to the step. Anyway we left Lyon rather hastily about 6.30pm and fortunately managed to find a sheltered and deep mooring on an old lock about 10km north of the city centre. As Ben said, rarely have we been so pleased to tie up to a rusty old lock gate with no facilities. And it was a really beautiful evening to be sailing through Lyon, almost (as ever) alone on the river.

Vieux Lyon was also lovely, although my back was a bit stressed by climbing to the basilica and Roman theatres, and descending again to the cathedral

We left Valence on Thursday after lots of careful testing proved there was nothing wrong with the alternator (although the green not-charging light is still flashing, but we haven’t established why). We managed not to set off on Wednesday because Sam went to pay the engineers for the testing work at 12.05 – and they were closed for two hours for lunch. Of course. Still, we did have a very nice swim at the hotel pool.

Les Roches du Condrieu has a nice little marina just across the Rhone from Condrieu, where they make one of the world’s finest white wines. We thought perhaps we could pop into the supermarché and pick up a bottle. It is open every night until 9pm – except Jeudi 7 Aout, in the evening, when there was a fermeture exceptionelle. Fortunately we are re-reading Terry Darlington’s wonderful Narrow Dog to Carcassone, in which he observes that, for example, restaurants in France often close because it is a Tuesday, or a Sunday, or August, or February, or because it is dinnertime, or because the proprietor’s grandmamma is unwell. So we are able to laugh at such things.

It buckets with rain in Condrieu and this morning was cool and cloudy. The Rhone said farewell to us with its last worst stretch, the dreadful canal leading to the lock at Pierre Benite. Fortunately we didn’t realise this was notorious until after we had done it. At times the current was running at almost three knots and this is in August. From here, however, there will be almost no current, which is a blessed relief. Depth will become our greatest problem.


Valence, 5 August 2008

We’re in Valence, south of Lyon, for a few days sorting out a problem with the alternator, which is not charging the batteries properly. It’s essential that it works, unfortunately, otherwise the batteries will die and they are even more expensive than the alternator. This is a proper marina with two mecaniciens. Both are closed at the weekend, one is closed on Mondays, and the other on Tuesdays. Ours is the Tuesday closing one. We arrived on Sunday, they extracted the alternator yesterday (Monday) afternoon, today the alternator is somewhere else being bench tested (fortunately somewhere where they do work on Tuesdays), and tomorrow our guys will be back at work and may be able to refit it. Fingers crossed we don’t need a new one.

Valence is pleasant, with the marina in a park-like area. The peace and quiet is only slightly marred by the roar of the A7, the Autroute du Soleil, roaring past a couple of hundred metres away. At this time of year it must be one of Europe’s busiest roads. Apparently 50% of the French take their holiday within 500 metres of the sea, they prefer the Mediterranean, and most French people are on holiday in August. Ergo a lot of them must be on the A7.

Anyway my back is getting better every day, which is good. Today Sam and Ben have gone off on the train to visit friends in Geneva (we planned to go from Lyon, but as we have so much time here it seemed like a good opportunity). I decided six hours on a train would probably set me back several days, so I went into Valence on the bus with them, did a bit of shopping and sightseeing, and walked back by a route described in the guide touristique. It didn’t mention that after going through a very pretty park, the route included 1km along a totally deserted, unshaded concrete towpath, with the empty Rhône on one side and the jam-packed autoroute 20 feet above my head on the other. I don’t often worry about being mugged but this was quite creepy and I was glad to get onto the little road down to the marina. In fact of course I didn’t see a soul on the path.

Our previous halt at Viviers was a total contrast, a wonderful spot, very peaceful (except for the live music at the little Café du Port in the evenings) and surrounded by trees and fields. From the mooring you cross the country road, take a short path across a field which joins a track, and five minutes later you are in the middle of a partly-medieval little French town with a chateau, cathedral, hospital (!), various shops (including a very mingy supermarket), bars, restaurants etc. We spent two nights there recovering from the heat of Avignon and letting Sam’s stomach settle down – he had a bit of an upset.

We woke on Sunday to find one slight snag – the water level had dropped. Only by about 30cm, but instead of our keel just touching the bottom, we were well and truly aground. We were rescued by the wonderful crew of Annie-Cathie who came back to give us a tow. Sadly we then lost an hour at the Chateauneuf lock, where they apparently didn’t notice us for 30 mins (what do they have to do from their control towers all day except watch for approaching boats?), kept us waiting for another 30 mins for another boat who must have left Viviers more than an hour after we did, and then filled the lock a drip at a time. Very frustrating.

By contrast, between Avignon and Viviers we passed through the Bollène lock (above), one of the deepest in Europe with a 23m rise (it’s 195 m long and 12m wide, and Ben and I spent the time in the lock trying to work out how many gallons they pump in to lift us up – we made it 11 million, does that sound right?). The Bollène was open as we approached and we were in and out in less than 15 minutes. The filling itself takes just 7 minutes. Incredible.

Speed of progress up the Rhône has improved from a low of less than 3 knots on the first day to around 4.5 knots between Viviers and Valence (not counting messing about in locks). The river is still pretty empty, although there are a few sailing boats here. Considering the French passion for sailing it’s astonishing there aren’t more, but I guess the Rhône is not often as tranquil as we see it at the moment. In addition there are very few stopping points on the river south of Lyon, so you have to cover at least 60-70km a day – not exactly relaxed pootling. There are a couple of new stopping places, one just open, one being built as we passed, so things could improve.

Merry Christmas from just me

Video of photos made for Sam's funeral    Dear friends and family As I hope you all know, this year has been a difficult one for me. On ...