Almost at Pouilly
Well, here we are in a quaint old village called Veuvey sur Ouche. The Ouch River parallels the Bourgogne Canal for a lot of its length. We have done over 50 locks since we left St Jean de Losne and things are going well. We get into the lock which is only a minor challenge as Anja despite
her bulk and 36 tonnes steers well. Just as well because there is only 25-40cm clearance on each side as we enter and depart the locks. Unlike the Brittany system, so far all of the locks have been virtually identical with bollards of the same shapes in consistent locations. As we pull up to the bollard, Penny lassoos it with a mooring line (with spliced loop) and tightens it on our own bollard. The Eclusier closes the gates, opens the
valves and up we go. David hops off when the lock is almost full and opens one lock gate while the Eclusier does the otheer side. They work really hard and do appreciate a hand when it is possible. Yet again, we have had our own Eclusier (sometimes two) travelling with us on their tiny motor
scooters. Today, we had two women who worked really hard to get us to our destination before the official "knock off time" of 7pm.
Yesterday, we moored for the night at Sainte Marie sue Ouche. Then Jo and Peter- who had driven down from Basel in Switzerland- joined us with friends to "inspect" Anja and take us back to their place at La Bussiere for an extremely pleasant BBQ dinner. Peter kindly drove us "home" to Anja late in the evening. They had been so kind doing this and also lending us their magnificient house at La Bussier sur Ouche for a couple of weeks while we initially fitted out Anja and then equipped her.
The scenery has been just magnificient and we have had fantastic weather with the thermometer hitting around 30deg today (which is a Public Holiday). We have been averaging one public holiday per week for our whole trip so it is amazing the French get anything done!
Today we had a salutary learning experience. We had been tethered to the bank with a star picket and a couple of other steel stakes. We also went for a longish ride of maybe 15Km on our very pleasant bicycles. While on the ride, we noted a large (about 40metres long, 5metres beam and maybe 300+ tonne) hotel barge working its way up the river. As it turned out- fortunately for us- they had to stop for the mandatory lunch hour when all locks are closed and we were back on Anja. We were due to go through the next lock at 2pm when we saw the hotel barge coming. We gaily waved to the skipper and guests as they surged past and then realised, to our dismay, that they had sucked a lot of water out of the canal and we were being
dragged behind them at quite high speed. Our stakes simply ripped out of the bank wherein we had sledgehammered them. I (Dave) then made a biggish mistake. I turned on the engine and hit full reverse to try and stop us being sucked up towards the next lock and bridge which were not far away.
There was a big clunk and the engine stopped. I had got one of my lovely new mooring lines ( spliced with great effort) sucked into the propellor and wrapped around the shaft etc.
We were able to use the bow thruster to push us to the bank and re-tethered to a couple of stakes (we lost one into the drink). Then I (Dave) went for a prolonged "swim" in the rather grotty canal attempting to remove the mooring line. This proved almost impossible and it was badly damaged
anyway so we had to cut it off. Fortunately, there was no other damage. Sadly, our expensive new mooring line is now rather shorter. But, better to learn this lesson now than in a more unfortunate manner. So, from now on, stakes will only be used when there is no chance of huge barges roaring past. So, tonight, we found a spot with mooring rings. It is so shallow (due to low cvanal water levels) that we are sitting on the bottom of the canal about a metere from the shore. It is also after 7pm so no-one can get onto this section of canal and disrupt us.
I forgot to mention that while we were in Dijon, we visited the fantastic markets and stocked up on fabulous fruit, veggies, some clothing and even a few CDs. Unfortunately, we also had a bad night with a group of 20-30 youth who were nearby and some of them decided to get onto the boat at 1am.
We chased them off but then an hour later they started shoving the boat- perhaps to dislodge us from the side of the canal.
We are getting closer to the dreaded Pouilly Tunnel which is 3.33Km underground and we might or might not fit down it. Will be a tight squeeze and we will probably have to stay +-30cm of centre to avoid hitting the back corners of the wheelhouse roof. We'll let you know how we go!
That's about it for now so we will sign off.
Dave & Penny
