Valence to Caderousse Lock

9/11/2012



After yesterday we know an early start is vital in order to get to the port at Caderousse, which requires you double back on yourself up a branch of the river 5km.

We did a pass on the Capitainerie again, with no signs of life or opening hours posted, so we had to make a move, and be satisfied with calling them later to advise of our stay and get a price confirmation to post a cheque.

We arrived at our first lock before 9am, and were told to moor to the waiting pontoon while they carried out tests, but the light went green before we were secured, and after a buzz on the VHF we were told to go in; fingers crossed they’re not testing the security of the gates!!

This lock was surreal; as big as the others with floating bollards, but you had the impression there was a new age CD of whale sounds playing in the back ground! Actually, it was the bollards as they moved down the wall in their runners, but they were all creaking and groaning!

As we left the lock the current grabbed us, and we were posting 11.7 knots on the narrower sections of the river.


At the second lock preparation had begun even before we announced our presence on the VHF, but this was to be the end of our run of Lock Luck (good while it lasted) as the guillotine gate got stuck halfway open, and the whole procedure ended up taking more than 45 minutes, as opposed to the usual 20 minutes.

Today's journey including passing in front of two nuclear power plants, their cooling towers billowing out steam, and just next to one, a little crop of wind turbines. Along witht he fact that each lock is beside a hydro-electric power station you realise that on the Rhone its all about the power!

This afternoon we faced the mammoth Bollene lock – once the deepest in the world at 26m drop, it was now only to drop us 23m (and another elsewhere dwarfs it at 42m) – no photos of this one as we filmed the speedy descent – an unbelievable turnaround time of 7 minutes! And we locked out into fog...

Gate of the Bollene lock - 23m deep!

Once the fog cleared we found ourselves facing down a hotel boat (one of the chain with lips on the front, frankly a real eyesore!) but he courteously moved over to make space even though we had already backed off to give him priority. He did reveal himself to be the type of vessel to have given us a rough night though. In this canal section we found ourselves rocking to his wake and his aftershocks for more than 15 minutes!

At 16.15 we arrived at our intended destination of St Etienne Des Sorts, whose Coopeative of wine warehouse had particularly caught Js eye, only to find that they actually remove the mooring pontoon out of season, so it was a definite no go. Onwards we go but no too happy about it!

We called ahead to the next look, as dusk approached, this time by mobile rather than the VHF; we asked if the keeper would accept that we moor to the pontoon overnight, given the imminent darkness and the time it would take to get to the port, and he kindly agreed. He advised we remain before the lock for less turbulence so we followed his advice and settled in.


As darkness fell there was the sound of engines, but no wash, and we peered out of the windows to see a double barge being pushed out of the lock by a pusher – only he was no longer moving although the engines were straining. We imagined he had run the nose into a shallow spot wand was trying to fix it, but in fact he was mooring up alongside to the commercial waiting posts. There he moored up his two barges, before detaching the pusher and disappearing into the night! With thrusters going in all directions we were still in calm waters so all boded well for a quiet night, even if we needed to run the genie for a bit to warm the boat through.

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!
 

Lyon

6/11/12

Call us wussy, but we moved round to the port to have some electricity when guests were on board (especially kids)!

The recently constructed (and perhaps never finished) port is great, and bang in the town centre. It is overlooked on one side by a commercial centre with all manner of shops, restaurants, a cinema, and even a climbing wall! On the other are some very geometric appartment blocks and more restaurants, overlooking a tranquil pool, the middle of which we plonked ourselves in!!!

We took full advantage of the facilities listed, except the climbing wall ;-)

A great visit with friends and their munchkins, hope it wasn't the bunk which put Virginies back out (soigne toi bien ma Vir!) and we stayed an extra night to catch the new Bond on the big screen and grab an awesome steak ready for the final push for home... J might have gone clothes shopping, but would deny it to whoever asked ;-)

The only other visitors in the port was a Swedish sail boat heading up the river, who wanted to swap his Rhoine book for our Saone one; J's too sentimental for that so we swapped lists of where we stopped - ours included available services and info on what is nearby, his was simply a list of places he'd stopped - cheers mate! Coming up the river with his little engine, at one point he was making half a knot in speed - that's 900m per hour!!! Gutting!

All in all, not a particularly cultural visit to Lyon, but we had a ball.