Going into our first 180-metre-long lock on the Seine |
We’re both happy to admit that we were really nervous about
moving onto the Seine on Thursday morning.
Of course, being nervous is better than being gung-ho as it means we
should take more care and be more aware.
It goes without saying almost that as well as being full of trepidation
we were also extremely excited.
One of my worries was that the radio has to be used for all
contact with the locks and, of course, all conversations are in French. I was worried that I would get responses that
I didn’t understand which really doesn’t matter as I could ask for a
repetition; it was more if I misunderstood something. To partially overcome that (I hesitate to say
mitigate as that sounds like a ‘work’ word 😉), we agreed to both be present on all radio
communications.
I know I used the radio on the locks on the Yonne but
somehow it wasn’t an issue as the locks were smaller and there were very few
boats until we neared the Seine. That
really highlights our main reason for our nervousness: locks twice the size of those
on the Yonne, much more traffic and boats up to 180 metres long.
For these reasons we planned to set out early from Montereau
but when I took Buddy out for his morning walk there were already commercials
every few minutes going along the Seine.
We left soon after eight and, as we were right on the junction, Karen
went to the front to check if it was OK to turn left off the Yonne. As luck would have it, three boats were coming
upstream so we sat and waited like a car at a T-junction. The third boat ended up turning off towards
us up the Yonne, so we took our cue and we were on our way.
Ironically, probably the longest boat we saw all day was the
first one we met once we were on the Seine.
It was a tug pushing a wide 70 metre barge of gravel with two narrow 70
metre barges in the front also full of gravel.
The whole thing probably wasn’t far off 160 metres 😊
A real big boy |
Luck seemed to be on our side and all the traffic seemed to
be coming upstream and no boats caught us up before we reached the first lock, so
we had it all to ourselves. We had half
expected to be told we would have to wait for a commercial. The other good thing was that the éclusiere
was extremely clear and precise in her instructions as was the one at our
second lock where we were told we had to wait for three boats who were coming
up the lock.
Leaving our first lock |
The picture above will serve to highlight a potential
disaster that we manged to avoid. As you
can see, the sides have two lines of horizontal metalwork. We had read about these and had made sure all
our fenders were up as they could get caught behind and start hanging the boat
up. What we hadn’t realised was that the
metal work protrudes out from the lock wall and we suddenly realised that the
boat was beginning to tilt. Fortunately, I managed to get the rear well away to pull the front
off before we were capsized! Lesson
learned that we must hold the boat away from the sides at either end.
The offending metalwork below Buddy's head |
Many of the commercials clearly have a family living aboard
as we often saw couples in the cabins and also assorted children’s toys on the
top decks, especially those with large hot tub type pools. Most also have a car on the back deck
too. The majority of the boats were
carrying sand or gravel although we did see other cargo such as tubing and reels of cables.
We went past the remains of an old lock that now seems to be
used as a boat graveyard.
There must have been two dozen decaying boats in and around this old lock |
A boat finally caught us up and I let him overtake us.
Being overtaken |
Just after that experience we passed the entrance to the
Canal Du Loing which may be on our travel itinerary at some point. It runs south down to the Canal de Briare
which in turn meets the Canal du Centre which we took earlier this year to get
down to the Saône at Chalon-sur-Saône.
Bridge over the entrance to the Canal du Loing |
We were soon into our second lock and, as so often happens
in the UK, we shared it with the boat that had overtaken us.
Sharing our second lock |
You can begin to judge the size of these locks as the boat
we shared with was 90 metres long. In
case you were wondering how I know about these different boat lengths, they all
seem to carry their length in large lettering on the sides, and sometimes other information such as breadth, air and water draughts and gross and unladen weights.
This lock was different as the rear gates came up from
below.
The rear gates ascending out of the water |
We were soon heading through Thomery and were looking for
the mooring Karen had sussed out. We
found it right on the inside of a bend and it was just long enough for us.
Moored at Thomery for the rest of Thursday |
We have to find moorings with rings, cleats or bollards as stakes wouldn't last ten minutes with the wake thrown up by some of the passing commercials.
After having lunch and resting for a while in the shade we
went for a walk around Thomery. One of
our targets was to see if we could find a lavoir and to be honest we cheated by
doing a map search for Rue du Lavoir or similar. We were in luck and found a Chemin du Lavoir,
strangely, it was quite a way out of town, so it was a very slow walk in the
heat. We found the lavoir, but it was
one that has been restored and converted into a small village hall.
Push barge passing our mooring with its car at the front rather than on the rear deck
|
Our daily lavoir |
During Thursday we cruised 18 kilometres down two locks.
UK friends of ours, Ray & Marie, who also live on a boat
as continuous cruisers have a cunning way of working out where to moor
next. Like Karen, Ray goes for runs
along the towpath. Unlike Karen, Ray
regularly runs around 20 miles, so that’s far enough to find a good mooring within
the next ten miles! Karen wishes she
could follow the same approach too, but to be fair that distance is just too
much in this weather.
So, when we set out after Karen’s early run on Friday
morning, we didn’t really know where we were going to moor at the end of the
day. The nearer we get to Paris, the
fewer places there are to moor, and many people end up mooring at the end of
lock landings providing they leave enough room for commercials to moor too. That was our plan for each of the next three
nights; not perfect but it will have to do. I know we could travel further each day and
get to Paris sooner, but spaces are limited at the basin at the Bastille and we
can’t arrive until Monday. Also, Matthew
& Jo are coming to see us for a couple of nights which means that if we could
arrive earlier, we would have to stay longer in a city which is hardly fair on
Buddy.
We had quite a long run before the first and only lock of
the day and we were reminded of being on the Thames with the many large houses with
grounds reaching down to the river.
Approaching La Cave écluse |
We shared the lock with a French couple in a nice old Dutch
barge but still felt dwarfed with room for a couple more narrowboats behind us even though we were practically at the back:
Even though radio traffic is meant to be kept to a minimum,
the éclusier was obviously taken by our boat commenting how pretty it looked, he
also leaned out of the control tower and shouted a cheery bon journée from on
high!
By noon we were approaching Melun and decided that if we saw
any moorings that we would stop for lunch.
We passed the imposing prison building which has been the subject of
much discussion about the state funding its relocating out of the town. We understood why it was built here initially
because it is situated on an island in the Seine.
Heading into Melun with the prison behind the high walls on the right |
After passing under three bridges in quick succession we saw
a length of quayside that had bollards but strangely no boats moored other than
a trip boat. We stopped anyway, had
lunch and then decided to stay for the rest of the day as it was only five
kilometres short of our target for the day.
Moored at Melun for Friday night |
We really felt too hot to walk around the town so had a lazy
afternoon doing the occasional odd job. One of those jobs was to inflate some black fenders to replace the horrible looking white ones on the front. As you probably agree, she's beginning to look a lot happier from the front.
During the day we covered 24 kilometres down one lock.
No comments:
Post a Comment