Berry-au-Bac (which language to use?)

Looking quite autumnal on Thursday morning

I said in the last update that we’re putting in some long days until we get to Bourg-et-Comin where we’ll start cruising on new waterways to us. I have since realised that my reported ‘long’ 3½ hour day on Tuesday was in fact only 2¾ hours - not long I know but at least it’s more than our daily average of two hours 😉 We knew Wednesday would be longer as we had further to go and set off soon after breakfast.  As we were now going downhill it’s simple to go down the locks single handed so Karen and Buddy walked for part of the journey.

Although we are seeing very few boats on the move this summer, the pleasure ports we pass seem to have plenty of free spaces so the boats that occupied those spots must be somewhere.

Passing the port at Sillery

After going down the deep lock at Sillery we moored for lunch and then had the long slog to Reims.  We call it a slog as it’s a 7km straight section with no bridges or locks to break up the journey.  We knew we were nearing the city as we began to see more and more runners and cyclists on the towpath.  There are three locks in a chain as the canal enters the city centre with a water point at the top lock, so we stopped to fill up. 

Taking on water at Reims top lock

Once through the final lock we moored at our usual spot in Reims.  We shun the port itself as it doesn’t look very inviting, is right next to the A344 autoroute and a dual carriageway for all of which the city charges mooring fees!

A group of homeless people hang out under the tees opposite our mooring and when we walk Buddy over that side of the canal, we’ll pass the time of day with them. I say homeless because some sleep under the trees but I’m not sure what we’re allowed to call them these days.  In my day they were plain old tramps which I think is a most eloquent description.  I told Karen once that if I was ever a tramp I would walk at night and sleep during the day, especially in winter, and she often repeats the story as she thinks it’s funny I’ve thought about it. 

After mooring up I emptied both our 20 litre jerry cans into the diesel tank and Karen and I were quite surprised that both were used and it looked like there was room for more.  It meant that it was imperative we called at the garage for more as we left Reims on Thursday.

Our ‘long’ day on Wednesday entailed cruising for 4½ hours.  We covered 14 miles, went down seven locks and saw two boats on the move, both commercials.

Thursday was due to be the last really hot day before the temperature drops to sensible figures in the 20s and, as we had a lot to do, we set out early.  As I went out to get the boat ready a chap was walking past and for some reason I said, ‘buongiorno’ instead of ‘bonjour’.  The guy replied in Italian which completely phased me as I didn’t understand a word.  That’s the trouble with having children who speak six different foreign languages between them, none of which we really understand.  However, we do pick up the odd word, e.g. I often say buongiorno to Sophie and I must have been thinking of her as I went out of the boat.

Soon after setting off we were passing the permanent boats moored in the centre of Reims…

…then the port itself

As you can see the port was practically empty apart from the boat school boat at one end and a private boat at the other.

The football stadium where we went to see Reims play last year

Narrow section alongside the autoroute…

…followed by the modern congress centre

We moored up soon after the congress centre so I could get the diesel.  Unbelievably it took three trips with the trolley, each time with both 20 litre jerry cans.  Even though it was before 11 by the time I’d finished trolleying, I was ready for a cold shower as it was so warm already.  Like in the UK, the price of fuel has gone down, and it was only €1.20 a lire compared with approaching €1.50 before lockdown/confinement, although in the UK we only pay around half that as duty is not paid for domestic use.

Handy fuel station by the canal

So, including the 40 litres we put in the previous evening, we put in another 80 litres before the tank was almost filled to the brim.  Clearly something had gone wrong with the record keeping or our memories as we were both convinced that we had filled up before we left Châlons at the beginning of August.  That’s a lot of fuel to use in that time especially considering we’d been away for 10 days during that period – needs some investigation methinks.

Port Colbert outside Reims

Port Colbert was eerily quiet; the previous times we have passed it has been a hive of activity with a dozen or more commercials lined up being loaded, unloaded or waiting for transhipment. This time there was only one and that looked like it was being converted to a private liveaboard.  It really was strange, Karen suggested it may be due to the August holidays and we certainly hoped it wasn’t because of the impact of the virus closing places down.

We were heading for Courcy for lunch as we knew there was a good shady mooring under trees.  We were amazed as we saw there were already three boats there.  There was about 10 metres spare so we pulled up anyway and moored with the centre and front lines as it was only going to be temporary.  One of the boats looked like it was dumped as we remembered it being there when we came through last year.  The other two were French cruisers, also having lunch, and they left soon after we arrived.  Mind you, they had been a little concerned when they saw a steel boat obviously going to moor close to them.

Crowded lunch in the shade at Courcy

The locks on this section have lock landings with bollards so we had plenty of choice of where to moor at the end of the day.  The trouble was they were all really exposed with no trees for protection.  Not only that, the wind had been getting up and every so often there was a large gust and, being on an open plain. it meant we wouldn’t be protected from the wind either.

Karen was walking alongside with Buddy and as I came out of one lock a gust caught one of our roller blinds in such a way that the retaining bar at the bottom came out and ended up in the water.  I’d been meaning to make the bars secure on the blinds since we put them up but have never got around to it.  After a bit of manoeuvring, I positioned the boat and managed to fish the bar out.

Once again, Karen’s €0.99 net coming in handy

Karen ummed and aaahed at one lock as there were some juicy looking tomatoes on sale.  Unfortunately, she had only recently topped up with tomatoes so couldn’t justify getting any more without wasting any.

Conundrum at a lock

As none of the lock landings suited us, we decided to carry on to the bottom of the canal at Berry-au-Bac and find somewhere there where we knew there was plenty of shade.  By the time we got down there the wind got up and was blowing constantly and it seemed to bring in clouds so in the end we could have moored earlier.  At the bottom are large modern grain silos that usually have a line of commercials alongside.  This time, there were no boats, so we decided to moor up on the quay.  It took a while as the wind was coming straight across and the bollards were far too far apart.  In the end we assumed no boats would be coming to load up and moored right next to the grain chute where the bollards were closer together.

Moored at Berry-au-Bac on Thursday evening

While we were sitting outside we mused about the lack of commercials again.  Of course, it may be because the silos have been emptied waiting for the fruits of the current harvest and the commercials are operating elsewhere or, as Karen reminded me, it's holiday season.

Celebrating another ‘long’ day, oh and a new waterway guidebook

It’ll be one more day before we get to a new canal and need to start using a new map book, so we had a good study of that too.  This book covers eleven canals and rivers in the Picardie area, all of which are currently open, so we will have plenty of choice on where to cruise for the rest of the year.  I went to take the book at one point and as I did, the list of stopping places that Karen had been meticulously writing down was caught in the wind and blew into the water.

Using the trusty net again

Of course, the writing was obliterated so it was back to square one with the planning.  By the time we went inside to prepare dinner the wind had dropped and the clouds had starting breaking up but the forecast was for rain overnight which meant we wouldn’t be able to leave doors and hatches open while we slept.

On Thursday we cruised 14½ miles down eight locks and only saw the two French cruisers on the move.