Lyon to Valence

8/11/2012

We forgot to set an alarm (A did - J forgot to remind him!!) so we were not sure how far into our ambitious itinerary we'd get. After a water fill and bakery brekkie we pushed off at 9.45 - a fresh day at 7.9°C with a chill wind.

When we set off out of the port we had simply to stick our nose out and the current grabbed it, and without moving the wheel an inch we were pointing where we wanted to go - sort of! It was more than a little hairy going under two close bridges a smidge sideways but we are relying on the current to help us today.

Today we learned the value of a recent nav guide - not a single VHF channel number given in the book to warn the lock of our arrival was correct! Out the window the alternation between 20 and 22 as 19 was thrown in on occasion to keep us on our toes. Still, our luck was in all day otherwise as every lock was ready for us on arrival, and not a single keeper asked us to wait for others to arrive - we did all 5 of todays huge locks alone.


The first was an impressive 11.9m - our biggest so far, but not a record which will hold for long! After the second (6.7m - how we laughed!) we moved inside to warm up and have lunch.

Our speed had gone from 10.5 knots (=19.5kph!!) to 7.8 kts with wind in the face and rollers and white horses - much drama from the hound obviously; I feel sure she hasn't worked out that if she makes a fuss she gets a chew to distract her... Has she?! Nah...

So to our third lock of the day - 15.3m - wow! We’re still alone to lock through and the volume of water needed to carry out the procedure is incredible. We were making relatively good time but it is already clear that Valence will be a push so we’ve got our eye on the nav book to see what else will be possible on the way.

We pulled over at Andancette, which claims in the guide to provide electricity, but there was no sign of a plug, even switched off, so they obviously tell fibs to get people in. Not cool! It was early enough in the day that without electricity there was no sense in stopping so we pushed on.

We passed the ‘Table du Roi’ landmark, a hazard on the middle of the river – fortunately for us it has its own marker, as that is all we could see – confirmation that the river is slightly flooding.

As it turns out none of the mooring spots highlighted by the book were valid – we passed the last before Valence at 17.00 – and it had no mooring signs all over it! So now its a little out of our hands, we’ve got to keep going...  

As we came out of our last lock, its already past dusk, and therefore we’re outside of acceptable navigation hours, but we’re going to have to make a dash for Valence, and its notoriously tricky port entrance, even in day light! With A at the helm and J with the nav book and torch in hand, we inched against the current between the two channel marker posts into the port, and tied up with a huge sigh of relief. It was only 18.10 but properly dark, and as we peered out into the river, a huge barge came through the bridge – 10 minutes earlier and we’d have been in all sorts of trouble.

The Capitainerie was already closed, so we plugged in and settled for a surprisingly rough night – the wash from passing boats caught us side on and rebounded off the port walls, ensuring that a single passage left the boat rocking for long minutes.

Let’s hope we didn’t exhaust our Lock Luck today – every lock was in our direction, and we were allowed through without delay - watch this space!