Holland, Belgium and northern France

Bees Knees moored near a towpath

It was May and  a glorious spring time when we untied the lines and backed slowly and carefully off the narrow, slightly rickety wooden dock at Jachthaven Roggebotsluis on Drontermeer near Kampen in the Netherlands.

The boat had been thoroughly sand blasted and sported a nice new coat of paint so now looked very smart.

We have extra blue paint for the hull and white paint for the superstructure stowed away below stairs for the paint jobs we plan to do when we are down south. There is a huge cavern under the wheelhouse which will be very useful for storing all that 'stuff' we don’t use all the time. (At the time of review that 'cavern' is getting smaller and smaller - merely a crawl space now)  We managed to get rid of a lot of bric-a-brac from the previous owners and created a bit of space for our possessions.

Glorious swans flying in

We also gave the boat a new name - Tureluur seemed difficult to us - it means I believe, redshank - a wading bird.  Well - to us this iron monster doesn't feel much like a bird.  What we failed to realize however, was that no one apart from those of English background, has any idea what Bees Knees might signify.  I mean - what  is there so special about  the knees of a bee?

Tulips on flower stall

Our berth was very sheltered and quiet we were able to clean up and explore our new water borne home at our leisure. We found most of the things we needed in the town nearby, despite the minor problems of language.   So many people in the Netherlands speak excellent English – putting us linguistic dunces very much to shame. Everyone we met seemed friendly and helpful although the other boat owners in the marina kept to themselves, mainly because they were weekenders and only visiting as it was so early in the season.

Cheese and  more cheese

We were constantly entertained by the bird life on the sheltered waters around the marina.  Flocks of graceful white swans grazed in the shallows just feet away from the boat, and we frequently heard the great whomping sound of their huge wings as they flew in to land on the water nearby. Ducks shyly hid in the reeeds and grasses along the dock shoreline - skittering into hiding with their fluffy specked chicks. Grebes ducked and dived around the boat, appearing in due course with their babies safely stored on their warm feathered backs.  

In the evenings the geese would parade out into the shallow waters, two or three families together, each with an adult at the front and rear of a well ordered line of chicks.

Amsterdam canal

Kampen is a lovely old town on the  lower reaches of the river IJssel, a tributary of the Rhine and which carries a certain amount of commercial barge traffic.  The river flows between what used to be known as the Zuiderzee and the Rhine connecting the Swiss Alps and the North Sea. 

There are several marinas in Kampen and some very beautiful old wooden ships now converted for charter or cruise ships. The most common type (and to my mind the most attractive) are the Tjalk sailing barges – previously used to carry bulk cargo around Scandinavia and across the North Sea, but now widely used for recreation in these northern waters, many converted for liveaboards; I believe some are still raced competitively.

Bike and buggy transport

Nick arrived from Canada as anticipated, (via Iceland for some reason) and Mike started to plan our first passage as we took a few days to acquaint Nick with the area. Amsterdam was only a short train ride away so we spent some happy and interesting hours admiring the city and some of the main tourist attractions there. Nick wanted to see the diamond merchant and Mike wanted to see the red light distract  I was interested in the Anne Frank house.  I find it quite extraordinary that a whole family could remain undiscovered for so long in such a small part of the house and in such a commercial area, right on the canal. It must have been very tedious trying to stay quiet and being unable to go out at all.We also visited the Van Gogh gallery - busy as ever, but such a joy to see the paintings.  

Day sailing

We soon realised that everyone in Amsterdam must own at least one bicycle - the streets are clogged with every size and shape of pedal transport, and I'm sure everyone must own more than one bicycle. I read that there are 600,000 bikes in Amsterdam alone; they stack up by the bus stops and there are special two tier storage sheds at railway stations that always seem to be overflowing; bicycles even have right of way on the roads and roundabouts - ignoring everything else including pedestrians! The streets and bridges over the many canals are very narrow, and parking for cars, at a premium in any city, also costs a great deal here. We saw even the smallest children pedaling alongside a parent on busy roads.

Popular pub

The many canals  in this beautiful old city are only used by tourist boats now, although  they were the main carrier of all traffic some years ago. We thought they were a very attractive sight in the city, particularly when we found a convenient cafe or bar nearby where we could sit and enjoy the sunshine, watch the people and drink really good beer!

We planned a quiet departure, which I am sure went unnoticed by other residents. The river was calm, the early morning bright and clear and the first stage of our new adventure looked promising. We made a careful turn to port outside the shallow marked marina channel and chugged along the well-buoyed river route, keeping watch for the large commercial barges that work the route. 

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Unexpectedly there was a sudden change in the rhythm of the engine noise.

Mike hastily steered closer to the shallow riverbank side of the channel, and slowed the barge. Nick and I hastily dumped the cumbersome and very heavy fisherman's anchor over the front, winding out a length of chain and wire with the ancient hand crank windlass. Then we scrambled to find the secondary anchor - (a new fortress, still packed neatly in it's box,) which we tossed over the back, hoping it would keep us out of the traffic lanes.

Tea house

 Once safe nearer the edge Mike pulled up the large and unwieldy metal lid covering the engine (under the back deck area,) and a horrifying, heart stopping, impenetrable cloud of black smoke billowed out, over and around the boat. 

The pipe where the cooling water entered the exhaust had broken down - rotten through. 

Tied up in Weesp

Nick made a brilliant short-term fix – he finagled a temporary repair to the exhaust elbow using a page from a shiny IKEA catalogue, an old plastic shopping bag, duct tape and string!  With this makeshift bandage in place we cautiously turned and retraced our short route back to the marina and slid quietly back into our familiar slip.   Not the most auspicious start.

Mike was fortunate to be able to arrange an excellent replacement with the helpful marina mechanic and we were very happy to have this newly fabricated elbow installed the next morning - we were on the road again by 10 am – slightly traumatized but ready to face any new challenges.

Market stall

Several attractive anchorages went by as we motored along the quietly flowing river – most already occupied by boats of various shapes and colours, the local population obviously happy to be enjoying the warmth of an early spring.

Eventually we found an appealing little horseshoe shaped island called De Schelp Island, part of a National Park, where we could turn inside the little bay formed by the land on either side and tie up to conveniently spaced bollards. This was our first night on the water.

Wine by the barrel

We soon turned onto the Vecht river,and we motored past well kept windmills and stately homes with manicured lawns and glamorous ‘tea houses’, (in the 17th and 18th centuries, many country estates were built on the banks of the Vecht by rich merchants and administrators from Amsterdam)

 We tied up in Weesp, but discovered  that we had to use the dingy to cover the two meters to shore in order to go into the small town.

Sunny afternoon - tea anyone?

We motored past well kept windmills and stately homes with manicured lawns and glamorous ‘tea houses’, (in the 17th and 18th centuries, many country estates were built on the banks of the Vecht by rich merchants and administrators from Amsterdam).

We stopped alongside the towpath in Leonen and explored the village before finding a cool pub. As this was one of the first deliciously warm and sunny weekends of the year - we were also treated to the company of hundreds of other boating enthusiasts – small runabouts of all shapes, sizes and ages.

Waiting for the small lift bridges to open was sometimes tricky for us as there were so many other boats around; we had to maintain a stationary position to keep our place in the line of vessels waiting to pass through; avoiding backing or bumping into anyone else proved to be quite a challenge with over 16 meters to manage and a back end that doesn’t respond quickly! It appeared that almost every little lift bridge has its own operator, and each one liked to hang out a wooden clog on a piece of string, hoping (or expecting) that any passing boat would contribute a few Euro. 

Commercial barge in a hurry

The Amsterdam Rhine canal presented the next trial. Over 18,000 tons of goods are moved daily in two streams of continuous    traffic by huge, fast moving barges along this canal, and we were a little nervous about where we would fit into this apparent maelstrom of fast-moving and relatively unwieldy traffic. 

These commercial craft may be just one fast moving vessel or two or three barges linked together and pushed by a tug to make a leviathan craft.  Often crewed by families they frequently carry at least one car on the deck. We've seen playpens and bicycles, small boats and even a second car on some of the large commercial vessels.  

Lift your car ashore here

There are many stopping points on the canals where a car can be lifted onto dry land with their own special boat cranes. 

Mike had heard that Sundays on the canal were less hectic, so we duly made another early start and motored 10 km along the Amsterdam Rhine canal to the Merwedekanaal with absolutely no problems and then enjoyed the relatively calm backwaters.

Nick left us in Gorinchem towards the end of the Merwedekanaal in the southern part of Holland and flew back to Canada (via Iceland again). Before he left he very generously treated us a to very attractive teak table and matching chairs – just right for relaxing with sundowners on the back porch!

Tourism office Den Bosch

We stopped briefly at Heusden on the Meuse (or Maas)when the wind was blowing extremely hard. So hard that we nearly lost the dingy when it went overboard! We walked around the little fortified village - quaint houses and a small market square.

We carried on along the Meuse before turning into the small inlet canal at at 'S Hertogenbosch on Zud Willemsvaart, where we had arranged to meet our cruiser friends Gertrude and Nick from Tartufo, and had a couple of days enjoying the fortified town.

The Zuid-Willemsvaart canal is a   hand dug canal in the southern part of Holland providing a shortcut with the Meuse river between the cities of Maastricht and s' Hertogenbosch. Zud Willemsvaart was a particularly beautiful canal and traveling through this area was glorious.

On this journey we watched as the countryside changed from the flat open spaces in Holland, through dairy or agricultural landscapes, to high hills and dense forest.  

 The locks had become smaller; frequently we have spent days and night on our own, sometimes ‘wild mooring’, pounding our long metal stakes into the grassy riverbank and mooring for a night, or fastening onto handy bollards set on a convenient wall in a small village community

Citadel at Dinant

Outside the town of Dinant stands "Bayard rock", a large cleft rock formation Bayard Rock was a natural barrier against invaders, but somebody cut  a road through it so the local people could get past.

Fantastic Frites at Fumay

When we were moored at Rekem by lock Sluizen Lanaye on the Albert Canal in Belgium we were approached by a large fast rubber dingy which held several heavily armed people.Two requested to come aboard and we realised they were Belgian police.  This was to be our welcome to Belgium?

 It turned out that there was nothing to worry about as they were only conducting an inspection of safety gear. Luckily we had the required amount of fire extinguishers and life jackets and so forth. Mike was worried they would ask for his radio license - he has one of course - but where is it? Somewhere in Canada probably.

Other vessels in the lock with us

The Meuse is navigable over much of it's length: In the Netherlands and Belgium, the river is a major inland navigation river, connecting the Rotterdam-Amsterdam-Antwerp port areas to the industrial areas upstream.

Our next challenge was those massive locks on the Meuse – not an entirely happy experience for us.  We found the process to be quite an ordeal, especially when, to our consternation, we found that we often had to lock in with up to 12 others; at one lock there were two big barges rafted together and 10 sport boats besides us! Somebody rafted to us (it is no surprise that the expensive ‘sport’ boats - fiberglass - with their fancy and no doubt expensive paint jobs – don’t offer for us to raft to them!)  We also discovered that many of these northern boaters have no manners – it is each man for himself and an elbows-out race to get the best available wall space in the lock. 

Market day in Liege

On at least two occasions we have been first in line waiting for the lock to open, and others, more aggressive and more maneuverable than we are, have gone ahead and tied up before us and in front of us – leaving us no space at the rear, so that we have had to motor ahead and try to get a rope on a bollard in a comparatively small space close to the forward lock gates. As Mike was still learning the characteristics of handling our particular ‘scheep’ (is this how they say it in the Netherlands?) and finding the responses and peculiarities far different from our beloved CC, we have, on occasion, lost a bit of paint here and there! (Not to mention frayed tempers and a generous smidgen of colourful language).

Liege was busy on the Saturday we passed by – local market stalls stretched along the riverside street for about 5 kilometers – the gaily coloured awnings and tents beckoned enticingly, but, knowing there would be many, many other markets in the future, we continued on our way.

 

Mooring on the wall in Namur

We paused for a couple of welcome rest days in Namur, on the Meuse River in Belgium. We found a long dock in Namur opposite the marina Port du Plaisance d'Ames and tied up for a night or two after passing Liege. Here we saw some real Dutch barges - not the common 'sport boat' that we had become accustomed to being around. And - even luckier - a couple of UK registered barges - so, quick as a flash - Mike was off and chatting! We explored the town later that day, admired the citadel, and next morning - set off again.

But when we left, when we were waiting for the gates to open in the small lock, still in sight of the small town, Mike noticed that the cooling water from the engine had stopped gushing out at the back of the boat. 

Small lift bridge in Holland

The lock-keeper was friendly enough and said we could tie up on the other side for a short time while we investigated the problem, but when we found the impeller had broken, he told us to move on to the next marina - which - joy of joys, was just a few hundred meters off.  
 

Even better, we were soon tied up a big black monster barge – the owners Laurence and Fred welcoming us and offering their amazing help with repairs! Laurence and Fred turned out to be the best. Fred knew all there was to know about boats, and Laurence spoke excellent English.  How lucky could we get? 

Even luckier it seemed – they  made numerous phone calls to find a new impeller impeller for us, as well as fitting it - quite a task in the confines of the engine area. They took us shopping in their car and even invited us to join them and their friends for an impromptu sardine barbeque on the barge pontoon! 

This was our very first sampling of the barge community spirit – something we missed when we quit the cruising circuit. What a cheering experience!

From Givet, the river is canalized over a distance of 272 kilometers. The canalized Meuse used to be called the "Canal de l'Est — Branche Nord" but was recently re-baptized into "Canal de la Meuse". The waterway is used by the smallest barges that are still in use commercially (almost 40 meters long and just over 5 meters wide).


At Givet in the Ardennes on the Border between Belgium and France we purchased our French Vignette – a whole 400 Euro - which allowed us to cruise through France for the season (April through October). It seemed expensive but generally speaking the locks are in great shape and we had superb lockkeepers – all very patient and pleasant.   There is another great fortress here.

Soon after entering France we entered our first tunnel – the Tunnel de Ham, 565 or so meters long – that has the reputation of being somewhat narrow and difficult to navigate. We (the Bees Knees) are narrow and low – so although we were very cautious, we had no problems. Maybe those annoying sport boats reported the difficulties! 

We enjoyed a great meal from a chippy van at Fumey, where a lot of cheery cyclists whom we had seen earlier in the day on the canal paths also turned up to enjoy the beautiful sunshine. Fumay is sometimes known as "The City of Slate" due to the slate mining which brought prosperity to the town in the nineteenth century.

magnificent Ducal square

Charleville Meziers was another pretty place located on the banks of the Meuse river. We had a couple of days here - possibly because the locks closed.  Here we saw a terrific statue of a Charles de Gonzague – a real French cavalier with feathers in his hat and a magnificent swagger – just like my impression of how the three musketeers must have appeared.   

We admired the beautiful ducal square where the restaurants had conveniently set out tables and umbrellas. We also managed to buy a SFR dongle for wifi here, because we were having difficulty finding Internet access – and we all know that we can no longer exist without the Internet! Unfortunately the wifi is extraordinarily slow in France – very frustrating and bothersome.

Cavalier statue

We left first thing in the morning to discover that we would have to wait for the lock to open at 9am - much later than we preferred.

Reims Cathdral

In due course we passed Point-du Bar, where the canals divide and where we turned onto  the Meuse canal. We passed  Chesney and Chateau Percien on our way to meet friends in Reims.

Leaving the Meuse we entered the Canal des Ardennes for 38 km. This was very narrow and there was a chain of locks going down - we negotiated 27 locks in one day! So we were happy to leave it and enter the Canal de l’Aisne a la Marne, which took us further towards the  City of Reims.

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Debbie and Brian, cruiser friends from our days in the Caribbean arrived in Reims a day or so before we pulled in and as Debbie is fluent in French they were able to arrange a very opportune “couple up” to a large live aboard ex commercial peniche on the town dock. Places to stay were very limited in Reims, and even the small marina did not have accommodation for a barge of our size. 

After a couple of dull and drizzly days when we shopped by bus, first for a bed sofa at IKEA (only to find it would never get through our narrow wheelhouse doorway); then to admire the truly beautiful and ancient Cathedral where over the centuries numerous Kings of France have been crowned; finally to buy and sample some delicious local champagne. We were in the very heart of champagne country after all!

Some of the lock walls show signs of age

We proceeded to treat our visitors to an unparalleled day of canal cruising – the wettest, coldest day imaginable, with several upward (and therefore more strenuous) locks to negotiate. The weather did eventually improve, but those first hours were probably the most miserable of our entire trip south. 

Debbie and Brian certainly earned their stripes on that stretch, bounding up ladders, hauling ropes and managing all the galley work – and we vote that they can come back anytime. (They probably won’t risk it!) They left at an ungodly hour at Challons sur Marne one morning to catch their train to Paris and we continued past Conde sur Marne to Joinville along the Champage and Bologne canal.  Here we joined the Canal Lateral a la Marne taking us to Vitry-le Francois, where there is another junction between the Canal du la Marne au Rhin and the Canal de la Marne a la Saone.

The next 224 km on the Canal de la Marne a la Saone led us up in a succession of locks to Langres where there was a fortified town on the hilltop (possibly founded in the second century) 

Entry to the tunnel de Balesmas

We had - amazingly - free electricity and free water at the dock, but only paused overnight before making our way onwards to the summit where there was a long, damp and shadowy tunnel. 

The Tunnel de Balesmas is 4820 meters long at about 340 meters above sea level. The canal rises (or falls) 239m through 71 locks between Vitry and Langres.  This is also the highest point in the watershed between the Mediterranean and the English Channel. Boats can only travel one way at a time, and it can be a long wait for somebody coming the other way.

There was a moment or two of confusion when we arrived at the entrance and discovered there were no signal light to tell us if the way was open for us; we were accustomed to lock lights which indicated red for stop and wait and green for go ahead. Another boat (French) joined us but they hadn’t a clue either! Just as we were about to set off down the very narrow entrance way to the tunnel we noticed a big light shining at us – so wisely, it transpired - decided to wait until the oncoming boat went by. Soon  we were off down the other side of the hills – 43 lovely locks where it was so easy to go down, downward to the river and Heuilley sur Saone. 

Most of these particular locks are not automated; previously we had been equipped with transponders for the previous smaller locks. Just press a button on the gadget when you approached and hey presto! The lock lights said stop or go! In this section f the canals we had lock keepers to accompany us, often zipping between each lock on small scooters.  These lock-keepers were mostly students (what a great holiday job) and we enjoyed talking to them while we waited for the locks to fill. 
 
Going up in the ecluses can present some difficulty; Mike had to learn how to place  the front of the barge just at the ladder so that I could climb up to manage the ropes. The ladders are often very slippery and slimy and can present quite a challenge. On other locks there is a long rod that one has to get alongside in order to push it up and activate the locks system. By chance  the temperature had risen into the mid 20’s, and the sun was shining!Next thing you know it will be sunstroke!

Auxonne is a small town with an interesting history - it was here that Napoleon first learned his profession at the military academy in the 18^th century. We tied to the town steps for the night and walked around the fortified walls of the old buildings. There is also a good marina here – a place where one can winter over, although I could imagine it gets quite chilly as it is still quite far north where the water freezes. The river is canalized and very narrow for quite a distance after Auxonne so we were lucky not to encounter any traffic coming towards us.

St Jean- de-Losne on the Saone is said to be the barge capital of France. There is a hire boat base; two reasonably well stocked ship chandleries and two large marinas.  Once again we tied to the town steps (only yards away from a convenient restaurant and even more useful – a good launderette) When we explored we saw innumerable barges of all shapes and sizes and in various conditions in the marinas. 

Lyon

 Bastille day found us at a small yacht club at St-Germain-au-mont-d’or on the river where terre was a pontoon conveniently placed so that we could just motor up and tie up. We were invited to join in the celebrations; a few local boats, mainly very small yachts, were going to the nearby town for  festivities and fireworks, but we declined the friendly offer. We saw them go but didn’t hear them return – maybe they are still partying! But we did join in for aperitif at the clubhouse earlier in the evening. Very nice!

Lyon was our next port of call - and we were lucky to be able to go into the small town marina - a new construction. We had to phone ahead – luckily the young port captain spoke excellent English – and had the barrier opened so we could get into the enclosure.

Marina in Lyon

Once tied up we were able to look around, and admire the local architecture. It seems that the current mayor has decided to clean up the old docks area, and modern buildings surrounded us, mostly apartment buildings, although there was an admirable amount of green space interspersed amongst the various structures. 

What was very interesting however, was the fact that all the buildings were clad in different coverings – stainless steel, copper, wood, ceramic tiles, pressed concrete – an impressive variety on buildings that were also designed slightly differently. In the middle of one section I found a little park area that had raised garden boxes where the residents planted their own vegetables or flowers. It was all very new and we didn’t see a great many people (probably all at work), but at least the design of the area made it an attractive place to live. 

Traboules abound in these houses

During World War II, Lyon was a centre for the occupying German forces forces as well as a stronghold of the resistance. The traboules (secret passages) through houses enabled the local people to escape Gestapo raids. It is a World Heritage Site. 

Lyon was first a Roman colony ( taken over from a Gaul hill fort settlement,) Much later during the French revolution the city was under seige for 2 months before giving in to the Revolutionaries, and 2,000 people were subsequently executed.

To the west is Fourvière, known as "the hill that prays". This is the location for the highly decorated Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere, the palace of the Archbishop, the Tour metallique (a highly visible TV tower, replicating the last stage of the Eiffel Tower) and a funicular railway on a steep hill.

Barge garden

We took the speedily and convenient city tram into the town (actually within walking distance) and strolled through the large main square and across the bridge over the Rhone to the little funicular train that climbs a steep hill; we explored the remains of the roman amphitheater, glanced through a splendid twin towered church and then continued on to the interesting old town area.  

 This area is a fantastic maze of tall buildings divided by small cobbled streets, entirely unspoilt by modern contrivances. Here in days gone by business was conducted in the warehouses on the ground floors and the people lived on the remaining three or four levels above the emporiums. Some doorways had special plaques which indicated that we could explore the old courtyards, with doors leading to various cellars or corridors and hidden passageways and looked up to the various windows and balconies. It was easy to see why the wartime resistance movement had their headquarters here – they would have been able to disappear into this rabbit warren without trace, and they would have had little difficulty to find several ways in and out, protected no doubt, by the residents.

Disaster - off the main channel

The Rhone and the Saone rivers converge to the south of the historic city centre, and all too soon we were off again, past the port area and onto the fearsome Rhone river.

Once again we shook off the mooring lines and made for Vallence on the Rhone River. We wanted to be there in good time because Sara was coming to visit with my granddaughters Caitlyn and Breanne.  by amazing co-incidence we met a yacht we had seen in Australia - they told us the current at some of the locks made them slow down to  one  knot or so

The current in the river was fair – no faster than anticipated, although we had to be careful when we eventually turned across the mainstream to go into the marina. We did see other boats slipping sideways in the relatively strong current, only just managing to stay within the marked entrance channel.

After Sara's visit, we tuned into the weather, and to a website that tells how much water is going downriver. We wanted to be sure that the Mistral wasn't blowing - the wind that travels from the north increasing in strength and making travel for barges like us increasingly difficult and even dangerous.  

We stopped overnight at the City of Popes - Avignon – and saw the famed Pont – now only half of the original bridge. The arched Pont St Benezet was once extremely long, reaching from Avignon to the Tour Philippe le Bel over a kilometer away at  Villeneuve.  

The song is about dancing on the ‘island’ across the river from Avignon, under (sous) the bridge not on (sur) ‘le pont’. 

The Pope left Rome in the early 1300's and went to Avignon, where he built the amazing palace and walled town, now a maze of streets behind massive defensive walls and an annoying traffic and parking problem.
The Rhone is one of Europe’s greatest rivers: in size, in power and in the commercial traffic it carries. Conditions can be difficult at times (for example when the Mistral blows) and impossible at others (during the winter-spring spate, when alpine melt-water feeds into the river) and there have been times when even commercial traffic is stopped.

There are few places for a vessel of our size to stop along the river and if the wind is blowing any riverside mooring can become unpleasant.  We were advised to wait for any Mistral to blow itself out; this could take 3 or more days. A southerly wind (not unheard of) will also kick up the river surface, wind against current, making headway uncomfortable to say the least.

If there is a lot of current in the river, that too can make a small barge's journey difficult, as keeping control with the current going with a flat bottom boat is just plain impossible.  

The effect of the current flow is affected by the width of the river or canalised section. The current is strongest in the centre of the river channel, lowest at the edges due to friction effects, but the  narrow canalised sections can also be swift flowing. The river’s power is used at each lock/barrage to produce hydro-electricity and the river is the location for a number of power stations and wind farms. 

VHF #20 – 23m rise/fall.

Our passage downriver was relatively uneventful. we managed to find somewhere to stop each night, sometimes at the lock gates. We passed miles and miles of vineyards, carefully tended and neat. Somebody told me once that it takes one vine to make a bottle of wine - there must be a great deal of wine out there!

The locks here are massive, as usual, precedence is given to commercial shipping, but we were rarely held up, and often found ourselves locking by ourselves. The Bollene is the deepest in Europe at 23 m. although the other locks vary at 10, 12, 14, 16 meters. Each lock is equipped with bollards that are set into the walls and move up or down with the water, so it was comparatively simple for us to approach a bollard, for me to get the front rope on and for Mike to motor up a little in order to get the aft rope onto the same bollard. We were often on our own in the locks but there was always more than enough room for any other craft going the same way.

More to come soon) in the next blog page

Exited the river at Beaucaire down the Petite Rhone stopped at St Gillies not far from the ecluse