Canal Route France South

8 July 2010

Lyon

We are still in Lyon waiting for a fuel pump to be flown down from Sweden. It stopped working when Dan was changing the fuel filters on Monday evening. After spending 2 days trying to fix the one we have and then when that was not possible, running around trying to get ahold of one from Volvo Penta distributors in Lyon who do not speak English (although their website says they do) and getting nowhere, we called Sweden this morning and got them to send it by express delivery. Sweden tried to contact Volvo Penta in Lyon by email on Tuesday giving them all the info regarding article number, engine serial number etc (all in French) but got no answer from them. So we lost patience and called Volvo Penta in Lyon yesterday and asked if anyone there spoke English, which of course they didn't and promptly hung up on me. I called back but no answer. Feeling very frustrated we went to an internet cafe and found a girl that spoke a little English and asked her to call for us and order the part. She did this very happily though I think she thought we were ordering a car part because she kept referring to the distributor as a garage. Anyway, he told her that if we called next morning at 09.00 he would tell us if/when he could get the pump. We went back to the boat (by now it was 19.00) and spent a nice evening with a big salad with chippolata sausage and my mustard dressing and of course; baguette. From where we sit on the boat we can

see the Notre Dame steeples up on the hill all lit up along with the old city walls curving along the Saone river. It is truly beautiful and majestic. We took an evening walk to Fourviere near St Jean Cathedral. There were restaurants everywhere with traditional Lyonnaise food. and the buildings were all old and crooked just like the cobblestone streets. We went past a Danish Pub; (pub Danois) we went in and ordered two large glasses of Carlsberg beer in Danish. The guy looked at us like we were speaking Greek. "you don't speak Danish?" "Non". "Does no one speak Danish here?" "Non" "But this is a Danish pub" to which he shrugged his shoulders and waited for us to order in French which of course we did. We watched the WC soccer semi finals: Germany vs Spain and were disgusted with Germany's performance. We walked back to the boat over the pedestrian bridge St George. feeling very hopeful about receiving our pump in the morning. Just so you understand the urgency of receiving this pump, we have no access to water or

electricity at the quay where we are docked and cannot go anywhere until we get the pump installed.

This morning after breakfast we called our guy at Volvo Penta in Lyon at 09.05 but no answer. We kept trying and finally at almost 10.00 the secretary answered. She spoke no English so I struggled along with my French and asked if the pump had arrived. She had no idea what I was talking about so I asked to speak to Denis. She answered that he was not in the office. "When will he be back?" "Je ne sais pas". "Does he have a mobile phone so I can call him?" "Non". So helpful. I explained that we needed a pump and that Denis told me to call today. She knew absolutely nothing about it and tried to take a new order asking for a description of the necessary part, I tried to explain that Denis had the info. Well, it seems that he neglected to tell her and probably went fishing instead. Honestly, these French are killing me. At this point Dan and I gave up and called Volvo Penta in Sweden and ordered the pump. Of course, in order to do this we needed an address for DHL to deliver to, apparently they don't deliver to boats. So we went to our friends at the tourist

office and asked if we could have it delivered to them. They adamently refused. We went over to plan B and went to the post office. They were much more accommodating and so the package will now be delivered to them. Sure hope this works. Tonight we are going to eat genuine Lyonnaise food in the old town. Must remember to take French dictionary along as do not want to get tete de veau. By the way I am struggling with a French keyboard which is a joke on its own.

At our mooring here in Lyon, we discovered a ledge jutting out from the wall about 1 m down under water. It sticks out about 50 cm. Of course this worried us to no end when big boat waves on the river caused Roam to rock up and down and side to side. We were afraid that she would slam down on the ledge and damage the hull, so Dan did a double layer of fenders and planks to hold us off.

On Friday, it was apparently graduation day for the high schools in Lyon, or at least some of them, there has been an inordinate amount of celebrating (read: drunk teenagers) every night since we got here. The riverfront seems to be a popular venue for late night consumption of champagne. Around midnight we were trying to sleep up in the cockpit to catch any stray breezes when we were alerted to someone jumping onto our deck. It was a slightly inebriated teen who was celebrating his graduation and just wanted to see what it felt like to look at the lights of Lyon from a boat.... We got to talking and then some of his friends showed up and sat on the quayside talking to us. They seemed to love speaking English to us, after we suggested Swedish and that didn't fly. They were all nice boys so when they got the dumb idea to jump off the pier and into the water, we strongly urged them to be careful as there was a ledge just 1 meter under the water and they could hurt themselves, whereupon they all jumped from our bow instead and used our lines to climb back out again. We didn't mind, it was fun talking to them and hearing their plans/dreams for their futures.

12 July 2010

First the bad luck; no pump arrived on Saturday from Sweden. We were so bummed at having to kick our heels for a whole weekend with Roam still not in working order. Tried to get ahold of salesman in Sweden to get the tracking number for the package but he was not answering. As we sat slumped on the boat wondering what to do now, a boat pulled in and docked next to us. Ash and Jennifer were Engish and traveling on a canal boat. They invited us over for drinks in the evening and it turns out he is a retired marine engineer. Now the good news: We told him about our fuel pump and he said "Right, I'll be over first thing in the morning and have a look at it." Sure enough, he came over after breakfast next day and took it apart, found a minute particle on one of the valves which he filed smooth and then put it together again and it worked like a charm. Really, it was the nicest sound to hear Roam's engine again. He said there's no point in putting in the new pump yet as this one will work for a good long time. We still have to wait till Monday though to see if the pump arrives and if it doesn't we will tell our contact to recall it so we don't have to wait another day to get back on our way. The World Cup Soccer final was last night so we invited Ash and his wife Jennifer to the Irish pub for drinks and to watch the match. We had a fun night together, drank too much beer and had great fun sneering and jeering at the terrible excuse for soccer that both Holland and Spain displayed. Lovely to find a couple that enjoys sneering and jeering as much as us:)

It has been extremely hot here all week but worst during the weekend. We have had 38-42C during the day and 28C during the night. Dan and I have abandoned our good sense once and swum in the Saone to cool off and taken midnight showers with our shower bag just to be able to sleep. We had to put the shower bag in the water for a few hours though to cool the water in it as the sun had heated the water to boiling hot. There's been barely a breath of wind and at night little "no see ums" come and bite our ankles and arms. But that's all behind us now. We will leave Lyon and enter the Rhone River this afternoon. Can't wait:)

13 July 2010

Lyon - Vienne
32.7 km

1 lock

We fuelled up at the fuel dock just before the meeting of the 2 rivers; Rhone and Soane.

14 July 2010

Vienne - Valence

N44 54 787 E04 52.357

81 km

4 locks

We escaped Lyon just as a big thunder and lightning storm came in over the city. There was no sign of it when we left the quay but just 15 minutes after we left we saw great black clouds loom up over the hillsde to the west bringing strong gusts of wind. The rumbling of thunder followed soon after, and we were a bit apprehensive, thinking maybe we made a mistake and should go back. But the thought of going back just didn't work for us, so we pushed on and managed to miss most of it. We heard a lot of thunder and saw lightning but we only got some sprinkles and the wind died down as soon as we got to the southern outskirts of Lyon. Weather seems to happen very quickly here. It's difficult to read the clouds as the time sequence is so much shorter than at home. As soon as the "horse tail" whispy clouds appear they have the mackeral sky smack behind and the next thing you know wind gusts, black clouds and thunder are descending on you. We entered our first lock of the Rhone just 6 km south of our mooring in central Lyon. They were very professional at the lock, answering our VHF radio call telling them we were on our way to the lock. When we got there, we had to put life jackets on (this goes for all locks on the Rhone River) and over the loudspeaker there were instructions in French, English and German. This one was an 11.6 m drop but with the floating bollards, it was very easy and surprisingly gentle. The Rhone river has a much faster current than anything we've been on so far. It's about 5 km per hour. It's much wider too, about 300 -400 meters wide. There are all kinds of under currents, and you can see little whirlpools and churning water activity everywhere. As we are traveling with the current, we make good time doing about 12 km per hour instead of our normal 6 km per hour but we have to be much more attentive when steering because the water sort of pushes us around. We don't see many fishermen on the banks and the boating activity is almost non-existent.

We didn't get very far as we got a late start. We stopped at Vienne, a small town with an enormous history. There is no harbour or marina, just small quay on the right bank but very solid and plenty deep. Vienne was founded 2000 years ago by the Romans. It was obviously an important site as there was a forum here that is still in pretty good condition and there is also an amphitheater and odeon that are still used for concerts today. Very similar to Lyon's but smaller and in better shape. The village itself was incredibly old and built up the hillside which is very steep. We know because we got up early next morning and took a walk up to the top to see the view. We wanted to do it before the heat of the day , but even so we came back to the boat with a fine glow about us.

We bought croissants and baguette on the way back and had a nice breakfast before starting off again, this time a long haul to Valence 81 km away and 4 locks. The landscape slowly changed from lush wooded hillsides to steep hills with grapevines and lots of granite rock and dry stunted bushes. We were very surprised to see so little boat traffic; saw only 2 barges and one pleasure boat. All day long. The locks were all ready and waiting for us, which is very nice. About 25 km north of Valence, in the middle of the afternoon, a strong wind from the south came up. We jokingly wondered if this is what they call a sirocco. It's not, it's just an ordinary wind that blows off the mountains and whistles through the Rhone valley at great speed. Anything that isn't well tied down disappears in the wink of an eye. I lost my foam cushion that I sit on when steering when I jumped up to catch a hat that was about to fly off the boat. As the current flows south, the combination of a strong wind blowing northward creates big waves and swells on the river.

We were relieved to enter Valence Port de Plaisance. They have access to a swimming pool, wifi at the camping place next door and good showers, laundry room and a restaurant. The mooring fee is 17 euro. We decided to stay here today as well as it is 14 July, Bastille Day in France and we wanted to experience the holiday. We walked the 3 km in to town this morning around 11.00 and saw the end of some military/veterens' ceremony in the town square. People were dispersing and we walked around the center of town but it was totally dead. The tourist office was open so we went in and asked where the celebrations were held. They said it was in the square but was over. Usually they have a big military parade, but this year the Valence regiment went to Paris to be in the big parade there. So that was it. Tomorrow the wind is supposed to have died down considerably so we will stay here tonight. Temperatures are still about 36C duriing the day and 25 at night, but mainly sunny.

15 July 2010

Valance - St Etiene des Sorts

N44 11.281 E04 42.399

92.9 km

4 locks

We did the Rhone's deepest lock today; 23 meter drop.

16 July 2010

St Etienne des Sorts - Avignon

N43 57.223 E04 48.744

36.8 km

2 locks

We arrived in Avignon at lunchtime today. I have been so excited about seeing Avignon again ever since I was here last with Mom Dad Katy Joesy Libby and Liberty. It made a big impression on us with its history and grand papal palace, narrow cobblestone streets, crowded houses and gorgeous parks. (Not to mention the rats of Avignon which were big as cats and crept around Liberty's decks at night. I can happily report that they have fixed the wall and although people say they've seen the rats inside the city walls, we have

been spared.) We had to turn off the main Rhone river to the old Rhone river in order to come in to the city mooring and the current was not to mess with. The main Rhone has a current of about 5 km per hour; the old Rhone has a current of about 10-12 km per hour and it was against us. The marina was just a quayside place. Dan took it with complete calm. Truly, it was a piece of artistic piloting, we softly glided in along side the quay and very gently touched the quay so I could throw the bowline to another sailor who came to greet us. Dan kept the boat in gear at 22000 RPM (normally gives a speed of 5 knots with no current) holding our speed so we were neutral to the quay while I fixed the sternline. Dan slowly decreased the throttle so there was no violent tug on the docking lines, until we came to a complete stop and the lines were holding us. A couple spring lines kept us steady and safe. We watched other boats come in and crash into the wall. Not graceful at all. I'm so glad I am on Dan's team! We got our gear together and went into town which in this case was just a matter of walking across the street and through one of the portals into the old city of Avignon. We found out very quickly that the annual Theater Festival was in full swing. This festival has been held every year since 1947. There were people everywhere and musicians playing all kinds of instruments, jugglers, gymnasts, mimes, and theatrical groups doing skits etc. It was amazing. We felt like we were at a 3-ring circus. All of this was being performed right under the walls of the old papal palace which is a sight in itself, so grand and beautiful. We spent the entire afternoon walking around marveling at the sights, got lost, but it didn't seem to matter because there was always something new to see

round every corner. Finally got tired so went back to the boat to relax and take showers. There was a Swedish boat moored right in front of us. They were from Halmstad. Very nice friendly couple. And if you think we have had some hair-raising tales to tell over our lock experiences, you should hear theirs! I think we got off rather well in comparison. We decided to go out to dinner tonight and found the loveliest restaurant. We sat outside listening to the sound of the cigales (crickets) which almost drowned out the music of the street players. The weather is still pretty hot, think it was close to 40C today. It was beautifully cool this morning though when we woke up. I've come to enjoy the mornings as the best part of the day. We were woken by the church bells of St Etienne des Sorts which were about 40 meters from our boat.

We had tied up the night before around 19.00 after leaving Valence and clearing 4 locks; all but 1 we rode in all by ourselves. We asked one of the lock keepers if this was usual and he replied "No, it's a disaster for us, normally we lock about 10-15 boats per day. Now we are lucky to get 5 boats in a day". So it isn't so strange that we have felt very alone during our trip down the canals. The wind that was blowing so hard while we were in Valence, died down yesterday. We had thought to stop after 50 km at a place called Vivier, but when we got there, it was crowded and in a side canal that had no wind at all so decided to push on to St Etienne des Sorts which is just a tiny village on the Rhone. According to the guide book there was a pontoon for 10 boats. When we arrived there, we could see that the pontoon was only big enough for 2 boats and there was already a motor cruiser there so felt lucky that we got the last place. This is another thing we find curious with France. Their charts for the rivers and canals are very hard to find and when you finally find one, you think "Eureka!" but when you start to use it, you find that things that are supposed to be there are not, the VHF channels they list for the locks so you can call them and let them know that you are on your way to a lock so they can get it ready for you, are the wrong channels. Sometimes, they list a harbour or quayside at a certain km marker, so you head for it only to find at the end of the day that the harbour or quayside is no longer there. When we ask Frenchmen about this, they just shrug and say, the river books haven't been updated in years because the authorities keep saying they are going to change the canals and rivers so there is no point updating till that is done. So they just keep printing the same charts from 1960 and call them new... It's a challenge! Now when I radio, I do the same message on several channels just in case. Have to run, there's a musician we want to hear!

18 July 2010

Avignon (still)

Since I last wrote, we have learned lots about the theatre festival in Avignon: During the festival which runs for 3 weeks, there are about 1000 performances per day ranging from street entertainers to full musicals, plays and concerts. Even the courtyard of the Papal Palace is used as a huge theater, this year's play is Terremare. The entire city within the ancient walls is covered with posters advertising performers/performances and every street corner that can offer a modicum of shade has some artist giving a preview of the evening's show to entice people to buy a ticket. The various artists hire teams to go around town all dressed up in outlandish outfits (the better to get attention) handing out little cards with name of artist when where the performance will be held and how much it costs. There is an

enormous catalog that you can get for free from the tourist bureau which details all performances. There's a small section in the back listing performances interesting for non-francophiles, but when you delve deeper for more information it sends you back to the French pages so if you don't speak French you are back to square one of comprehension. Still, it is a wonderful time to be in Avignon, the atmosphere is very jovial and festive, and even if you don't go to the proper performances, you can enjoy quite a lot of entertainment

on the streets.

Dan and I wanted to go to a Chateauneuf de Pape vineyard for a wine tour but due to the increased volume of tourists, (900.000 during these 3 weeks) all the tours were fully booked. We decided to try to rent a car so we could go by ourselves, but there was not a rental car in the city to be had. Even the taxis were full up and could not take us. So we had to revise our plan of the day and opted to go to the Papal Palace inside the town walls. For 12.50 Euro you got entry along with an audio phone to listen to the history and description as you walk through the palace. It was very well done and extremely interesting. Avignon was the seat of the popes for 70 years between 1307-1377 when due to unrest in the fifedoms of Italy, the church felt the need to seek more security. The region surrounding Avignon was technically not French territory, but rather part of the Papal States and the fortified city of Avignon was well-suited geographically for the rest of Europe to serve as a temporary solution until Rome was again safe. Pope Gregory XI moved the papal seat back to Rome in 1377. When he died in 1378 he was succeeded by Urban VI who turned to be a violent overbearing despot with whom it was impossible for the cardinals to work with. Less than 6 months after his election, the cardinals fled Rome declared Urban's election invalid and chose Pope Clement VIII as the new pope, who chose to make Avignon the papal seat once again. Urban, meanwhile, refused to abdicate so there were now 2 popes. Thus began the Great Schism which was to last until about 1410. (Another one of God's great but incomprehensible tests we assumed). The end of the tour took us to the wine cellar and here we could buy our Chateauneuf de Pape wines at the same price -we were told -as the wine growers themselves charge. We walked out of there 6 bottles richer:) Dan very optimistically bought a wine pump thinking that since these are rather expensive wines, we could drink just a glass at a time or some such silly idea.

19 July 2010

Avignon - Port St Louis

N43 23.168 E 04 48.401

85.2 km

2 locks

Woke up bright and early this morning to set off for Port St Louis. It is a long trip, 85 km with 2 locks. It was a beautiful sunny day with a slight breeze from the north. The landscape changed once again, this time from rocky mountains and vineyards to flatland swamp. Not terribly pretty or interesting as there was very little bird life and almost no boats. The river is very wide here, about 400 meters across, but very shallow in parts as we had alot of areas where we had to follow a very narrow channel marked out by red and green bouys. We had a nasty intermezzo with a barge on one of these narrows. He was coming towards us at a phenomonal speed and hogging most of the channel forcing us over to the shallow side. To make matters worse, he was throwing up an enormous wake. We had almost no room for manoeuvring and had to take his wake head-on to avoid being thrown onto the banks. I ran down to save the bowl of tuna salad I had made for lunch, quickly clear the galley counters and grab hold of the computer to prevent it from crashing onto the floor, then held on. Dan was at the helm swearing at the barge driver as our bow was sent totally under water. As soon as we steadied some I peeked up and got the name of the barge in case we had any damage. We didn't, though, except for our accelerated heart beats as we indignantly shook our fists at the barge driver. This is really the only rude experience we have had with a barge since our canal trip started, not counting the locks. The last 15 km were a real slog because we were so impatient to reach the end of the canals and get to the Med. When we got to the last lock which is a hard left turn, I radioed in and was told we had to wait for an hour. Normally we just keep the engine running and circle but the current was so strong that we decided to look for somewhere to tie up. But everywhere we looked there were "no docking" signs up. So we went up to a great big ship that was the most outlandish ship we have ever seen. It was painted green and red and yellow with zebra markings on all the railings, great long twisted pipes shaped like deer antlers sticking out of the top of one mast and a huge knaves's cap sticking out of the top of the other mast. We had our doubts about tying up to them but they were very friendly and understood drectly and signaled us to throw them our lines which we did. Turns out they are a traveling theater group. The troup is 12 people, half of them are French the other half from other countries and they go from town to town along the coast and perform right on the ship which is called "Ship of Fools". The stage is mid-ships and they have bleachers that they put up along the sides so they can fit 200 people. They were very kind and friendly and I couldn't get enough of all the decorations and props they had everywhere. The actors themselves were bohemian in the extreme. Long rasta braids, colorful clothing and some walking around half or wholly naked. I had a bit of an uncertain moment when it was time for us to drop our lines and start off for the lock. As I went up to the bow intending to ask the leader of the group if he could slip my line off the bollard, he suddenly dropped his shorts and was standing there naked. I quickly did a "Madeleine" (quick about-face and pretend I didn't see a thing) Dan told me to stop being silly and get the bowline, thoroughly enjoying my discomfiture, I'm sure. But when I turned very slowly, and went back up there he had jumped in the water and was swimming past our boat so I got another guy with clothes on to slip my line off their bollard and we waved good-bye wishing them good luck and to come to Sweden next time. The last lock was ony a couple cm drop, it's meant to be a security measure in case the Rhone over flows. But darned if it wasn't the toughest lock of all the 250-odd locks we've worked on this trip. There was a very strong current pulling us into the lock and then as we tried to tie up to starboard as usual, the under currents pushed us away and started turning us sideways. We had a big motor cruiser from Germany with us and his boat was behaving the same way so we had to watch out for each other and try to get to the side to tie up. Dan managed to get us sorted out and I threw a line over a bollard to stop our forward motion. Once we were tied up back and front Dan went and helped the other boat as he did not have control of his boat at all. Once secured we dropped 3 cm and were let out the other side into the huge bassin that is Port St Louis. We celebrated our completion of the locks with a huge Gin and tonic (with ice) and a BBQ Charolais steak dinner.