Canal Route France Middle

23 June 2010

Langres, on the Marne a la Saone Canal

Weather: Sunny and warm ca 25-28C

We couldn't have chosen a better spot to be stuck for a few days. Dan has been talking to other

boat people and everyone talks about how often they have to empty their water intake filter on

their engines when cruising on the canals. Since we don't have any such filter we immediately started worrying about our engine as the canal water is anything but clean and it must be just a question of time

before our engine overheats and shuts down. So Dan got on the phone and called Volvo Penta in Lyon.

After much difficulty as no one at the Volvo Penta office in Lyon spoke English and the Volvo Penta

office in Gothenburg did not want to order the parts and send them to us through Lyon, Dan finally

managed to get the Lyon office to order the filter and hosing and send it to the Tourist office in

Langres as that was the closest town of any size around here. So here we are waiting for it to arrive.

Meanwhile, we are enjoying ourselves in the town, eating lunch and shopping for cheeses, jambons

and sauccisson sec, our favorite sausage. Ever since we entered the Marne ala Saone, at Vitry-le-

Francois, we have really enjoyed ourselves.

The scenery is beautiful, as always, but even more so now in the Champagne-Bourgogne region. Lots

of farming, rolling hills and dales, happy cows grazing with their calves nearby. We are still being

escorted by the VNF and will be until we enter the Saone River in roughly 5 days, depending on

when the filter shows up.

Last weekend Madeleine and Marcus came to do some canaling with us. They joined us in Froncles,

a tiny town just north of Chaumont. We had a French lunch of baguette, pate, cheese and rosé wine

and then took their rental car and drove to a champagne vineyard for tasting. You may ask how we

could drive after drinking a bottle of wine. Well, it wasn't that much and thank heavens for Marcus

who took the responsibility of being the sensible one. We went to a place called Mocquart-Esmard

in Argentolles right near Colombey Les Deux Eglises. Of course every champagne tasted divine and

we ended up buying 8 bottles of Brut, 2 bottles of Rosé and 2 bottles of blanc-de-blanc. Dan looked

at me and asked where I expected to stow these bottles, but I mean honestly, when it's champagne,

the possibilities are endless! No worries I told him, I'll fix it. And I did, at least until we get to the

Med when I will have to protect them a bit more. One of the great things with having a boat on the

canals is that you never have to worry about where you put things, they don't roll or pitch anywhere.

We continued on to Chaumont where we found a lovely restaurant to celebrate our 29th wedding

anniversary. Next day we met up with our VNF escort and traveled to Chaumont where M/M had

left their car the night before. We passed through 11 locks which the M&M:s managed beautifully

once they got the hang of it. We had a champagne lunch and then arrived at Chaumont where we said

good-bye to Madeleine and Marcus.

28 June 2010

St. Jean de Losne on the Saone River

N 47 06.296 E 05 15.629

Weather: Sunny and 32C during the day

Since I last wrote we have been at the following places:

N 47 37.541 E 05 20.224 Cusey, Marne a la Saone - 29.5 km and 24 locks

N 47 23.998 E 05 23.970 Réneve, Marne a la Saone - 29.4 km 17 locks

N 47 11.740 E 05.23.087 Auxonne, on the Saone River - 28.4 km 6 locks

Well, we finally got the what-for on the weather side, after all our commenting about how chilly it

has been, the hot summer weather arrived about 4 days ago and we have been huffing and puffing

ever since. Not that we're complaining mind you, we are doing our best to enjoy the 30-34C sunny

weather. And it is lovely for the most part, we just have to learn to slow down and ease our pace.

You would not recogize me by my brisk walking style now. I'm down to about 50%. We've moved our

dinners to 21.00 when the sun has gone down and we cook as little as possible. Dinner is most often

a salad with some grilled chicken or quickly stir-fried shrimp and our favorite baguette washed down

with a chilled rosé from the Bourgogne district. In the afternoons, once we have docked and gotten

the boat in order we go into the town and stop at the first bar-brassierie and order shandies. If

there's a soccer game on we watch it, otherwise we enjoy sitting under parasols in the shade. On the

way back to the boat an hour or so later, we stop at a store to buy food for dinner. The biggest

down-side we find right now is being on the water but not being able to swim. The canals are pretty

dirty, with all kinds of stuff, most of it may be natural, cut/mowed grass or hay from the threshing

going on but also the odd dead cat, rat, and believe it or not even a drowned deer. One of us is wearing

plenty of sun-screen but still get quite tan even with sun hat/baseball cap. When we are on the go,

we get a nice breeze from our increased speed of 12 km/hr now that we're on the River Saone instead

of the 6 km speed limit on the canals.

Cusey was just a picnic area out in the country with electricity and water that we spent the night at.

For once it was deep enough for our 1.6m draft. There was an English boat there, Roving Spirit,

whose owner, David was very helpful with tips for the towns ahead. Especially about Pontailler sur

Saone. There's a quay to tie up at but it has a ledge that sticks out about a meter and is invisible as

it is 1.2 m under the water. We would surely have cracked right into it docking had we not known

before hand. There were no warning signs. We said good-bye to him early next morning and headed off for Renéve about 29 km down on the Marne a la Saone Canal. At one of the locks we came to, I took out our little remote control box that the VNF people gave us for this series of locks and we use it to start the lock

process. They are very firm in admonishing us to take care of it as replacement will cost us 500

Euros. I pressed the button but nothing happened so I stood up to get a higher perspective and in

doing so bumped my hand on one of the winches in the cockpit knocking the remote control out of

my hand. Both Dan and I watched with bated breath as the remote spiraled into the air, hit the

top of the cockpit, bounced down on the deck and then ricocheted off the boat and onto the lock

ledge, high and dry. Whew! What a relief. I picked it up, dusted it off and it worked just fine.

Cost: one good luck chip.

At the very next lock, we went through the process as normal, I was at the helm and as the lock

gates started to creak open and I prepared to steer us out of the lock, we were met by a frightening

sight; a great big fat barge was waiting right at the exit and starting to move into the lock towards

us. All we could see was the towering bow filling our exit and realized with horror that we were

invisible to the pilot. As the barge inched her way in through the gates Dan scrambled for the fog

horn which was not to be found. When he was about 15 m from us, Dan grabbed the Swedish flag,

jumped up onto our mast and waved it frantically. The barge driver saw it and immediately started

backing up out of the lock. We were as far back in the lock as we could be and in a few more seconds

would have been compacted like an accordion against the thick steel doors in the back of the lock.

That was an incredibly close call. As we came out of the lock and passed the barge, he came out and

apologised most profusely. Anyway, we gave him a wave and then wondered to each other if this was

a good time to take a big swig of whiskey... We figure that's another good luck chip and all in one day.

Must be careful not to overspend.

We spent quite a bit of the day with a VNF employee who kept having to come to our summons as

the lock sequences were not working properly. The lock would open so we could go in and then not

close and start the process, so I would jump off the boat and press the red button on the lock house

and a voice would come on, I would tell the problem "L'ecluse ne fermer pas" and she would say that

someone would be there in a minute. And he was. He was a mutterer, walking around looking at all the

different parts, scratching his head, calling someone on his mobile, yelling, and then would go into

the lock house and get a lever to do the whole thing manually while groaning through the whole

procedure. 3 times he had to come to our aid and once it took about 45 minutes before he had it going.

This delay caused us to be late for the 18.00 shut down of the locks on our route. As we came up to

the last lock of the day, it was 18.20. Dan was convinced it would be closed and we'd have to tie up

along the canal bank. I was just as certain that they must be keeping it open since they are the

reason we were delayed. We came round the bend and saw the lock ahead of us and the light was on

showing us that it was preparing for us. Thank you VNF. We cleared the lock and tied up at a silo

which had a good breakwall for us to tie up to and 2m of depth. Had dinner and then took a walk into

town to see if we could find a café and watch the end of the World Cup soccer match for the day.

But this town of Renéve was like so many other French towns, not among the living. There wasn't a

single shop, café, restaurant, or even a living human being to be seen. We did see a cat or two.

Very strange. We see this often on our travels and always find it strange. So back to the boat and

listened to Swedish news on the radio instead. Next day dawned sunny and hot, we dropped our lines

at 08.30 and moved out into the canal for our last 5 locks of the Marne a la Saone Canal. All went

smoothly this time. After the 5th lock, we came to an intersection that marked the end of the

Marne a la Saone Canal and the beginning of the Saone River. As soon as we entered the river

through a lock, the scenery changed again and we were on a big wide winding river surrounded by

farmland and gently rolling hills. Lots of pleasure boats were about, some skiing, some jet-skiing and

others cruising like us. We saw alot of rental boats called "Le Boat". They look like white plastic

pansars with fenders all around. The people driving them don't appear to be very sea savvy so we

steer as far away from them as possible. It's nice to see all the activity though.

We were traveling with a French motor cruiser through the locks and we both decided to stop at

Pontailler sur Saone to get lunch. As we couldn't dock directly at the quay due to the underwater

ledge that we'd been warned about, we managed to raft on to the French boat so we could run

ashore and buy bread for lunch. We continued on to Auxonne where Napoleon attended military

academy in 1788-91 when he was about 18. Although he was only there intermittently due to leaves

of absence to go home to Corsica and get involved with politics there, the town celebrates him

thoroughly. There's a square named for him, a statue of him in another square by the big church

(12th century) and several bar-brasseries named after him.

The marina was a municipal one but had good depth, 2m, and had water and electricity and of course

was right in the center of town. We were met by the Capitanaire, a youngish girl, that boasted a

name tag with an english and german flag on it which indicated to us that we had the good fortune to

run into a Frog that was not only bi-lingual but multi lingual. The surprise was short lived. She knew

not a full sentence in either language so we could only conclude that either the qualifications to

advertise a language skill were ridicoulously low, or that she was informing us of the next game of

the world cup. The day was too hot to play tourist so we just found a bar that was showing the

Germany-England match. We were all for England winning, but since we were among a whole bar full of Germans, we jumped right in and rooted for the Germans and were very happy when they won 4-1; although having a goal not counted soured the end result.

Went out to dinner as was much too hot to cook and there was a lovely restaurant with tables

near the water under great big chestnut trees, just 50 m from the boat. Had a divine dinner of

Pate de fois gras, entrecote with potato timbal and a cheese platter for dessert.

Early next morning we got up early before the heat got oppressive and did the walking tour of the

city of Auxonne. When we got to number 9 on the map we were at the military academy that Napoleon

attended and the troops were doing their morning drill. It was just 07.00. About 250 of them

standing at attention in their units in the square and as they raised the French flag, they all sang a

resounding rendition of the Marsaillaise. It was quite impressive. When we finished our tour we bought

baguette and the best croissants so far on our travels. After breakfast, we took off for St Jean

le Losne. We had a very nice trip down the Saone, just one lock and yes, our heron accompanied us

for part of the way, before disappearing over the tree tops. Today's trip took just 3 hours, 25 km.

I did most of the steering so Dan could work on his knot for the flag pole. It's coming along beautifully

and is going to look very smart. We are at the H2O marina. Tons of boats here, all for sale. But we

found a slip and this marina is plenty deep (1.80) and has all the facilities including WIFI and laundry. So tomorrow will be laundry day and clean up day on the boat. We need to pack down our comforter as it's too hot now for it, and also are going stow away alot of the winter clothes we've been using up until a week or so ago. With this heat, we feel we need to have more space about us in the boat. Dan is going to rig up a new tarp for us too, one that lets in air on the sides. It's nice to have a whole day to putter and catch up on correspondence and get organised again. We will set off again tomorrow and see how far we get. Right now it has clouded over and thunder is rumbling off in the distance. Don't mind a bit as I love thunder and lightning and it brings a welcome breeze By the way, the water intake filter is working beautifully collecting grass and what not.

28 June 2010

Auxonne - St Jean de Losne

N 47 06.296 E 05 15.629

17.9 km

1 lock

29 June 2010

St Jean de Losne - Verdun sur la Doub

N 46 53 788 E 05 01.534

34.5 km

2 locks

Fueled up before leaving early early. 2 great big locks. Nice market here.

1 July 2010

Verdun sur la Doub - Chalon sur Soane

N 46 46.653 E 04 51.701

26 km

0 locks

2 July 2010

Chalon sur Saone

Weather: Sunny and 35C

Today we are the marina in Chalon Sur Saone. it's just across the water from the old town. A beautiful place with crookedy old buildings and little squares packed with lovely restaurants. For once, the marina is good with nearly all the amenities, except for WIFI and laundry. The price is thereafter too. As we move southwards we find that the harbour fees increase successively. But the service is good; they very kindly told us where we could access free WIFI at a cafe on the old town. It's lovely sitting in a café working on our laptop and enjoying a Panachet (half-beer, half limonade). The weather is very hot and we are still adjusting.

By mid-day it's about 35C. At night it gets down to about 20C. We normally go for a run around 16.00, but it's too hot at that time now, so we figured it would be cooler for running around 19.00 but were soon put right on that score; it's still around 32C. So today we tried running at 07.00. Dan was up since the boat behind Roam was scheduled to leave at 7 a.m. and having seen him moor the boat the previous day - rubbed the paint off two boats and punched our mast bouy- Dan thought it best to help him on his way. It was lovely and cool for running but a bit of a struggle to wake the body up. After the first 15 minutes it was fine though so we'll stick with that. We have also decided to move dinner from 19.00 to 21.00 when the sun has gone down. We neglected to move our cocktail hour coterminiously and started sipping rosé wine at 18.00. 2 bottles of wine later, we were ready for dinner. A bottle of red bourgogne wine accompanied dinner and we thought at the time that "This is the life", but did not feel so great the next day. So now, we have

adjusted that too and it is working out perfectly. Cocktails at 20.00 and dinner at 21.00. We try to stay under cover during the hottest part of the day; either in the cockpit under our "bimini" or in a café under a parasol. We walk slower, in fact, we do everything slower. During the hottest time of the day, Dan sits in the cockpit working on a braided knot for our flag pole. He finished it yesterday and it looks beautiful.

What we find curious about Frenchmen

There are some things that we find curious about France and the Frenchmen. For instance;

Language:, any town of size has a tourist bureau. Having a tourist bureau must mean that there are tourists to cater to, and being a popular country for international tourists, you would think that at least one of the employees would speak another language other than French. But no, not a one and not a word of any other language. Sometimes they say they speak English, but as soon as you start to talk to them, you can see their eyes glaze over with incomprehension and you realise it's a lost cause. Dan always starts by asking Frenchmen if they speak Swedish. They look at him and then burst out laughing. But somehow it seems that they try harder to understand our extremely poor French. We don`t require them to speak English only that they have at least a working knowledge of a foreign language. Be it Spanish, English, Cantoneese or what have you.

Croissants in France. I have to say that we are bit disappointed here. The quality of croissants is not at all consistent. At some places they have almost no taste at all, at others they taste really good but something happened in the process and the inside layers refused to separate so you end up with a nice flakey crust with a compact middle. To be perfectly honest, Statoil gas stations in Sweden and Denmark seem to be the only ones that have kept the old secret of perfect croissants.

Lock system. France is only second to Russia in terms of an inland water way network so they have over the years built hundreds if not thousands of locks. You would think that there was a kind of template. But no. Each lock has to have its own touch of the engineers' creativity. When you start a sequence of locks on a canal, you try to take note of the bollards - where they are placed, the space between them, if they are stationary, floating or submerged- , you also figure out where the ladders are and where the start lever for the lock is placed. After a couple of locks in a sequence you see a pattern and set the boat up for it. Levers on starboard, bollard right in the middle on the starboard side next to the ladder. Perfect!. You set your lines to starboard and you are ready to throw lines over the middle bollard and grab the start lever. But suddenly, the start lever is on port and there is no bollard in the middle on the port side. The ladder is far up on the starboard side. So now you have to jump over to port and get yourself collected for a port lock process. The bollard could be way in the back of the lock or way in the front, depending on what the engineer decided on for just that lock. After a couple of more locks, the positioning changes again and you wonder, why?

Small towns out in the country are many and very pretty. Old stone buildings, beautiful flower arrangements on all the window sills, and cats walking around. But no people. They are like little ghost towns. No patisserie, no boulangerie, no neighbors talking to each other, no one washing a car or walking on the carefully tended sidewalks. No kids playing or youngsters loitering about. Many of the houses have

shutters that are closed which makes them look entirely abandoned. We can't figure out where the people are. Are they in there behind the shutters watching us or have they all left town for some town event? We don´t know.

5 July 2010

Since last time we've been at the following locations:

N 46 19.437 E 04 50.817 Macon - 60 km 1 lock

N 45 48.939 E 04 50.977 Collanges-au-Mont Dor - 73.7 km 2 locks

Today: N 45 45.200 E 04 49.483 Lyon - 9.5 km 0 locks

We got to Macon in time to walk into town, have a look at the old Eglise St Vincent which is a hollowed

out ruins and then went to a cafe that was showing the Germany-Argentina Soccer match. During half-time

I went walking on the main shopping street and looked at the old buildings. (Believe it or not!) I have a picture to prove it:

It was a blistering hot day so we were very happy to sit in the cool bar watching the game.

Met some Danes at the marina who had lots of advice about what we should and should not do in the

Rhone River and in the Med.... So were very happy to motor out of there early next morning and away from their admonishing finger wagging.

We continued down the Saone through 2 more locks, these locks were very big and modern.

This weekend was the first holiday weekend for the French and as the weather was super, they were out on the Saone in force. The entire Saone River was full of rowers, motor boats with waterskiers, jet skis. We got bounced around quite a bit by the waves but Dan did such a good job with our mast supports that it was steady as a rock. We finished our last lock on the Saone at 18.00. Had to share the lock with a 150 meter long canal cruise liner. He just fit in the lock width-wise with about 20cm on either side. We had a few meters to squeeze in at the back.

We found a Halte Nautique, which is basically a floating dock on the side of the canal at Collonges-au-Mont Dor, which was empty so we tied up there for a very pleasant night. This morning we only had 9 km to Lyon where we found a quayside place to tie up for the day so we could go touring in the old city. There is no marina in Lyon, only the quayside. I had no idea that Lyon was so beautiful and had so much history. We climbed all the way up to the Fouriere Basilica which is dedicated entirely to the Virgin Mary. It's not very old by French standards, only 150 years or so but is huge and the most ornate church we have seen yet. The floor was entirely covered in Mosaics and there were 6 gigantic murals all in mosaics on the walls. Down below the church is the crypt which is dedicated to Joseph. It's much smaller and not as grand, but still big and beautiful. From here went to the Roman Odeon, right near the basilica though a bit higher up the hill. Lyon was once called Lugdunum and was the principle city of Roman Gaul as France was called by the Romans. This odeon is 2000 years old and was kept up and used for 400 years until the Romans pulled out of Gaul. Though now it's just a ruins, it is still used for concerts in the summer months. The view of Lyon from here was amazing. We looked out over the city spread below us with its red roofs and many chimneys, glimpsed the waters of the Rhone and Saone Rivers glittering between the blocks of buildings and and could see the hills and beginnings of the Alps off in the distance; we could even see Mont Blanc very vaguely against the horizon. After a brief rest in the shade we started the walk back down to the river. Lost count of the steps, there were just too many but the narrow streets with flowers and trees giving shade kept us entertained all the way down.