10/11/12
6am and there’s a lot of noise outside; a different pusher is there to pick up the double load and off they go! Back to sleep!
Today’s itinerary is fixed in stone, and we need to try to avoid any delays if possible; tomorrow is a bank holiday - no locks will be functional, so we need to get to Port St Louis and the Med!
Just before 8 we see the lock lights go into prep mode so we called the keeper to ask if we could pass with the imminent arrival. It was a slow one this morning but we got through with the barge, and kept up with him without too much effort to the next lock.
Here as we are all ready to move off, nothing happened when the light turned green – the pro was half asleep in front of us, and eventually moved off, with us hot on his tail.
As we approached the last big lock on the Rhone, the barge backed right off so we held back too, and we waited at the canal mouth for a barge to come out before proceeding forward. Here there was another plaisancier moored to the waiting pontoon, but the lock wasn’t ready for us and took a while to prepare, so we were surprised there was no-one coming up when eventually the gates opened. Once the barge was in, we hung back to let the other guy in front, and he eventually moved in – all the while we have an enormous barge breathing down our necks, but he had to wait his turn as we tied on to our last floating bollard of the trip.
Again, the barge driver was caught napping (or lunching?!) when the lights turned green, but eventually moved out. We again followed him easily until he turned off onto the Petit Rhone – all the while chatting on VHF 10 with a guy coming out, about where to moor to get the car off in order to take the kids to school on Monday morning!! Eventually someone asked them to change channel, and silence resumed over the air waves.
By the time we reached the turning into the Canal du Rhone a Fos (commercial vessels only) the huge barge who had been held up behind us at the last lock was looming large in our rear view, so we breathed a sigh of relief when he announced his exit stage left into the canal.
According to our guide book, to French speakers the lock into Port St Louis is open at very specific times, one listed as 16.30 – and we were there at 16.15. The English ‘translation’ states it is open from 5am to 9pm non-stop. The VHF channel listed was also not correct.
Still, when we pulled into the waiting pool the lock began to prepare, and over VHF it was confirmed they were preparing for us; moving into the lock the current was crazy – pushing us away from the side so tying on was tricky, and although there were huge bollards on the side, there were also short sliding rails below so we tied first to a rail, and then we put an extra line on the bollard, in case the current continued to play a part.
We stood around, wondering if the mechanism was broken, when all of a sudden the bridge over the exit gate began to lift. We had dropped all of 15cm – that second line was overkill for sure!!
We motored out into the tranquil pool of Port St Louis - facing down a rather large, bright yellow container ship - and moored side to behind a British flagged sailing yacht – before 5pm, job done!
Whilst we have reached the end of a (big) section of our first journey, it turns out that the boat behind us – crewed by three guys finishing their summer season in the Greek Islands – is about to return to the UK via the same route; it wasn’t the same route at first, but as we could advise them on the closure of the canal du Centre, they quickly re-evaluated their route, and hopefully the list of stops we put their way will be helpful. Good luck guys!
Statistics for this, the first of Goodbye George’s Journeys: more than 1900km and 340 locks!
Now we’ll just settle in and wait for some weather windows before heading out into the sea and making a run for home. Lesson learned from crossing the channel, there’s plenty to do to get the boat ready for the sea, and it will be nice to take it out of stealth mode by putting the mast back up!
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