Pont à Bar (back on board)

Our first narrowboat was a 72' long, ex-hire boat which we loved sharing with our numerous children. Back in 2014 after I’d retired, Karen took a year off work and we rented out our Kent house while we moved on board. We soon realised that it wasn’t ideal as a liveaboard boat so decided to design our own and have it built. At least by then we knew exactly what we wanted and arranged for a new boat to be built to suit our requirements. We oversaw the build and fit out over many weeks until the day of the launch of Chalkhill Blue 2 at a boatyard in Cheshire:

Launch day!

We still had Buddy in those days and the poor boy couldn’t cope as we moved on board. He steadfastly remained sitting on the back deck of the old boat and refused to come over to the new one as we moved our belongings across:

Buddy on Chalkhill Blue with Chalkhill Blue 2 alongside

Now, let’s get back to where I finished the last blog update when I was nearing the end of my boat painting trip three weeks ago.

Monday 28 September    

As expected, it was too hot for painting during the day, so I spent a lot of my time prepping areas that still needed doing. I know I keep mentioning the fortunate position we have the boat in with respect to the shade but, again, by about five o’clock, the steelwork had cooled enough to get some undercoating done.

If you look closely at the picture below, the burgundy on the roof and along the handrails is lovely and fresh. This leaves the side hatches and most of the stretch along the gunwales below the bottom cream coachline to be finished. Zooming in, the cream is noticeably in a poor state and hasn’t been touched up or repainted since it was first applied ten years ago.

Tuesday 29 September

As this was my final day aboard, I took it easy: tidying up the boat, packing the car, taking a walk and going into Sedan to stock up with my duty-free wine allowance.

Wednesday 30 September

The weather broke on Wednesday and I awoke to rain. Although I was leaving the boat I wasn’t going straight home as I was off to visit our good friends, Nikki and Gorete, who happened to be moored at Tournai which was practically on my route back to the channel tunnel. The girls were off to their winter port in Belgium and were spending a few days in Tournai on the way. I arrived at their boat in the late morning and we had a lazy lunch and afternoon as the weather wasn’t conducive to sightseeing. The town mooring had room for half a dozen boats so it was very handy but the wash from the constant stream of passing commercials made quite an impact.

About to feel the wash from a passing commercial

Later on the rain turned to drizzle so Gorete and I had a walk to see a famous (to boaters) bridge called the Pont des Trous which was constructed in the 13^th century as a military defence bridge. Over the years the middle arch over the river Scheldt has been rebuilt and widened to take the increasing size of the barges, hence the interest to boaters.

Ironically no boats came through whilst we were there but I found a picture on the web later albeit from the other side to the one I took.

Thursday 1 October

Following a pleasant night catching up with the girls I left for Flecknoe after breakfast and had a terrific run home with no queuing at border controls or customs when I reached the tunnel. To make it even better I didn’t have to queue in the staging areas so I was able to drive straight onto the train. 

For our family holiday next year with the children and grandchildren we’ve booked a villa in France rather than hiring a house in Herefordshire or Shropshire as has become our custom. Whilst I’d been away painting, Polly, my youngest daughter, had rung me and told me that Olly, her four-year-old, had come into their bedroom in the middle of the night having woken up in horror. She knew we were going on holiday to France and that we would all be going through the tunnel but she’d scared herself as she couldn’t work out how cars can go on a train at the bottom of the sea without getting wet. Polly asked if I could take a series of pictures of the whole operation to help allay Olly’s fears which I did whilst boarding the train. When Polly showed Olly the photos and explained what was going on, she was placated and is now looking forward to going on the “sea-train” for our family holiday.

With a lot of painting still to do, Karen and I agreed that I should go back again in a week or two and she would take a break and visit Matthew and his Norwegian family in Älesund. During the week of 13^th October it looked like there was going to be a two week spell of great painting weather, i.e. dry and in the low 20s. I booked a crossing, shunning the usual tunnel route to take a ferry to Dunkirk instead. Stupidly I checked the forecast every day before leaving and saw the weather slowly deteriorating but I went ahead anyway,

Sunday 18 October

I set off for Dover first thing to catch the Dunkirk ferry. I’d booked an upgrade so I could take advantage of having lunch in the lounge and also stocking up with goodies for the journey down. Once aboard I was warned that the crossing would be rough but it turned out to be okay as long as I remained seated. I’d avoided toll roads when I came over a few weeks ago and as the journey hadn’t taken much longer I did the same thing this time. As our current mooring is in northern France the majority of the first half of the journey was through Belgium. It was dark by the time I reached the boat and with a steep bank down to it I decided to play it safe and only unloaded the necessities for the first night.

Monday 19 October

Before I could start painting I had to get some food in but first I finished unloading the car. I then went into Sedan to charge the car ready for the journey home in a week or two. Whilst waiting for the car to charge I had a walk around a village on the outskirts of town which was getting ready for Halloween. The woman in the first photo who was putting a pumpkin on display, invited me to come in and have a look around her house and garden. I declined and felt as if I’d let her down but I have to admit that I didn’t relish the thought of trying to converse in French on my first morning especially as she clearly had no English and my Halloween French was non-existent.

Once back at the car I went into the centre of Sedan to do my food shopping. Arriving back at the boat I prepped the coachline on the land-side of the boat. I was reminded that when we repainted our first boat we’d cheated by using vinyl coachlines. Before I came over I’d been worrying about how I was going to cope with painting the bottom coachline because of my back so I’d bought some workman’s kneelers. Boy, did they make a difference! They were so strong that I could even kneel on the steel piling.

Yes I know that leaving the masking tape scissors on the gunwales was asking for trouble but fortunately I didn’t drop them in the cut. It took a while to mask up by which time the boat was in the shade which was ideal for applying the first coat of cream.

Masked up

I finished off the day by going for a shortish walk along the river Meuse before having dinner.  During the day I saw two boats pass, both of which were hire boats

Tuesday 20 October

As soon as breakfast was finished I started applying the second coat on the coachlines but halfway through I felt spots of unexpected rain. I stopped immediately and for the next hour there were the odd drops but it didn't even turn to drizzle. When it felt and looked like it had cleared up I went back out to finish the painting. I needed to leave the paint to get tacky before removing the masking tape so went for a walk whilst waiting. Once the tape was off I had to turn the boat around so the operation could be repeated on the other side. The only trouble with doing that was that the cut wasn’t quite wide enough which was a bit unusual because we find that most canals over here are plenty wide enough for us to spin our 17.5 metre boat around in. I have to admit that if I’d lifted the rear fenders then I might have just managed it but I didn’t want to risk damaging the rudder; however, I did get off the boat with the bowline to see if I could pull it around but to no avail.

Not quite wide enough

I knew that there was plenty of room to turn above the lock that drops the canal onto the river Meuse so I had a little cruise down there where I soon spun the boat around and was heading back to the mooring.

Turning above the river lock

It was on my way back that I realised I hadn’t attached a centre line, without which, mooring becomes problematical when single handing. With a centre line it's easy to get off and hold the boat parallel against the bank while going to secure either end. If the boat starts drifting out then it's a simple matter of pulling it in by the centre line. As it was I was able to moor up safely without the boat drifting away whilst I tied it at both ends. I quickly got on with prepping the new side and had just finished when the drizzle started again and with only an hour to go before dusk I gave up for day. I'd been listening to the England-Pakistan ODI all day which sadly went downhill quickly at the end. 

Two boats came past during the day, one a private river cruiser and the other a hire boat.

Wednesday 21 October

It was an early start as there was a chance of rain later in the day which ended up quite a productive one. As I started early I stopped mid-afternoon and went for a good walk. True to the forecast it started drizzling later in the afternoon so I was glad I started early. It didn’t last long and the sun came out just before it set. It wasn’t a spectacular sunset but I rather liked the way the water, land and sky were reflected on the side of the boat.

Only one boat went past during the day, a rather smart private boat on its way to join the Meuse.

Thursday 22 October

The day started like the previous day with another early start but sadly the rain came earlier and didn’t ease up until late afternoon. At least I was entertained by listening to the record-breaking England vs Sri Lanka ODI. The lack of any real progress during the day coupled with a rapidly changing forecast was a little depressing. It now looks like there’s going to be rain every day for the next few days, so I started contemplating whether to cut my losses and go home early.

Two boats came through during the day, a hire boat and a small Dutch barge style private boat.

Friday 23 October

As expected it rained practically all day and with unsettled weather expected until Tuesday I resigned myself to going back to Flecknoe on Sunday. Ironically, if long range forecasts are to be believed the following fortnight in France was going to be warmer and dry!

I had another trip into Sedan to pick up our duty-free wine allowance although I couldn’t get it all as I cleared out the shelf stock of our wines; I would have to return on Sunday. Whilst in Sedan I popped down to check out the town mooring which is shared with campervans. To my surprise the quay side bollards had been removed and replaced by a rowing pontoon:

When we first came here, in October 2021, there were some finger pontoons as well as the quayside available for mooring. The fingers were too short for us so we moored across the top:

October 2021 – weather was a bit different then

Our second visit was in April 2023 with similar weather to this week. The pontoons had been removed but at least we could moor alongside the quay:

April 2023 - weather similar to this week

The only boat I saw on the move during the day was a VNF workboat that tied up below the lock around the corner from our mooring.

Saturday 24 October

It was such a beautiful morning I couldn’t believe the rain was due to return during the evening. Anyway, it was a great chance to get on with some more painting. During the day I finally dropped the scissors in the water but my trusty magnet retrieved them on the fifth attempt. I didn’t knock them off which was what had concerned me the other day, they just slipped out of my hand.

The forecast for Sunday was still poor so later in the afternoon I popped into Sedan again to make up the rest of my duty-free allowance and booked my tunnel ticket for the journey home. For some unfathomable reason a lady in the supermarket car park started talking to me. She'd seen my number plate and although she realised it wasn't French she didn't know where it was from. I told her I was English and we had one of those conversations where the other party wanted to keep chatting and I didn't know how to end it. I realised that it was the first conversation I'd had, other than phone calls with Karen, in a week but she was really kind and spoke slowly although I wasn't sure why she was so keen to tell me that she lived on a hill just outside Sedan! 

Again, I only saw one boat come past while I was on board, this time a hire boat.

I’ll wrap up now until we’re next on the boat, probably next spring - thanks for reading this far!