Author: rjfmac

Busy “rest” day. Started with two trips (on foot) to the “Super U” supermarche for all kinds of stuff for the boat and us. On the way back from the second trip, stopped at a garden center, which, yes, sells wine. No umbrella though. Then a road trip of about 8 Km round trip (on crappy rental bikes) to get an umbrella for the boat that we can move around (the two on the boat are fixed) so there is some shade at the helm in the middle of the day.

Stopped at a regional specialties store on the way back for some Burgundian wine, jam and cassis. AND stopped at a little tobac in town for a ceramic butter dish (we spotted the night before).

Then a light lunch before… hopping back on the bikes for a 10 km round trip to an old Abby in Chailly-sur-Armacon, which looked interesting but turned out to be a high-end hotel and golf resort. Did I mention the bikes were crappy? Cool building though. But it was uphill both ways. And into the wind.

On the way back we stopped in the Super U for the third time today (same grim cashier who finally cracked a smile on seeing us yet again!) and then to the marina office to start doing some last minute laundry (on the slowest washing machine in existance – 2 hours per load).

We can hardly wait to get moving again. This “resting” is killing us!

Another BIG lock day – 26 locks and 30 Km. We have done 55 locks in two days which is more than we did the entire first week. This puts us at the top the Canal de Burgogne – next is a 3 Km long tunnel to get to the other side of the plateau as we head down toward Dijon.

Highlights from today –

• The lock keeper with  3 year old and a 4 year old helpers – tres cute.
• Attempting to leave the second to last lock, we realized the boat wouldn’t move! A line had fallen off the back and wedged in the now-closed downstream doors. Oops. Fortunately the nice lock lady cycled the lock to free us.
• Lots of cute lock dogs.
• Roberta had a good day on the lines. She hit more than 50% of her first casts for the lock mooring posts (which is good).

Big lock day on the Canal du Burgogne! Left Veraney at a little after 9:00 after biking up to a “supermarche” to buy some towels and, of course, more wine. To quote the Waterways Guide “To begin the long ascension towards the dividing pond, you should present yourself at lock 55 between 9AM and 11AM…. Between locks 55 and 16 you will be accompanied by a series of itinerant lock-keepers. At the end of each day you must inform them of your intensions the following day. All the locks are manual so you will need two very full days to reach Pouilly.”

We motored for 4-1/2 hours, 2-1/2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon, arriving at Marigny-le-Cahouet about 3:00PM (where we managed the impossible, finding a place serving cold beer on a Sunday afternoon!).  We did 28 locks and 10 Km today, averaging just over 4 minutes per lock. We could often see two locks ahead, and many of the locks were only a couple hundred meters apart.

We have climbed from Joigny (elevation 75 meters) to Marigny (285 meters), so over 600 feet in 82 locks (about 7.5 feet per lock). Tomorrow we attempt to reach Pouilly-en-Auxois, the high point of the canal (370 meters, another 250 feet) where, after a rest day, we will enter a 3km tunnel (the Pouilly Tunnel) as we begin our descent  toward Dijon.

And Happy Fete de Mere day! Yes, today is Mother’s Day in France!

Our first full week of barging is over. Some highlights

• The sunsets – the light here in the evening is absolutely gorgeous.
• The Fosse Dionne in Tonnerre (natural spring from a cave) and the view from L’eglise St Pierre of the city.
• Getting yelled at  (by an eclusier, lock keeper) for operating a lock without an eclusier present (“c’est interdite!!”)
• Buying our first bottles of wine from an eclusier
• Wine. Rose. 3.50 (Euros) a bottle.
• Biking to the boulangerie in the morning for croissants and pain au chocolate
• Picturesque Joigny and the bored teenagers gunning their (one) motorcycle in town.
• The market (our first) in St Florentine where the vendor would not sell us anything without us first tasting it, listing all ingredients, and giving us specific directions on how to prepare each.
• Learning how to play Spades and having Francis and Emilie with us for the first week.
• The very nice gentleman in Raviere who, when he saw us looking at the closed epicerie, would not let us continue without getting a cold bottle of water from his house and giving it to us,l

Emilie and Francis left us in Montbard to begin their trek home (train to Paris, taxi to CDG, flight to Chicago, then Houston, then Norman). We will miss them! Looking forward to Jackie, David and Emory joining us Thursday. Montbard was a bit of a disappointment  –  we thought it was a full Locaboat base but it isn’t. Fortunately we arrived on a Saturday – the one day they usually have someone there so we were able to get a little fuel, a kids life jacket and a replacement umbrella.

Speaking of fuel, we now have an estimate of fuel use (~2L/Hr), which is nice because there is no fuel gauge on the boat! With the 400L tank this boat is supposed to have that gives us a range of about 200 hours (4-5 weeks or so).

Today we do our first big lock chain (Echelle de Pouillenay), 18 locks. Should be interesting, especially since we are in the middle of an unusual heat wave – high 80’s and no clouds. Fortunately it cools off at night.

Paris was fun but it’s time to start cruising! We spend a few days in Paris doing the usual tourist stuff (Tour Eiffel, Sacre Coeur, Versailles, etc) but it is kind of nice to be in the country. We left Paris yesterday – our tickets said Paris-Bercy but Bercy was shut down so we had to lug our luggage 1Km to Gare de Lyon. That stupid duffel with our hiking stuff MUST weigh 50 lbs!

The Locaboat representative could not stop talking about our 12 week rental. In 11 year she said no one had every taken a boat for so long. The boat checkout was all in French but the gentleman spoke very slowly and we understood just about everything. Everything important anyhow. We decided to spent the night here in the marina to get settled. Walked to Joigny and had dinner in a nice little bistro in the old part of town. And the sunset was spectacular!

With two weeks before we head to France we have the visitor roster filled out:

• Francis/Emilie:            May 20 – May 27
• Jackie/David/Emory:  June 1 – June 4
• Richard Wylie:            June 4 – June 12
• John/Christin:              June 27 – July 10
• Emerson/Linda:          July 20 – July 27

The house hasn’t sold (we had a buyer but they backed out) so Richard (and Emerson) will have to do it without us!  And we have our “post boat” adventure (we will be in Europe for a month after we return the boat) planned:

Our friends Jim and Leigh Anne will be joining us for this 12 day trek. Check out the trekking outfit’s pictures Trek Pics .

With just over four weeks before we leave for France we have a tentative itinerary for our summer adventure. We will be in Burgundy the entire time. Our plan has us doing about 1500 KM over 12 weeks. This sounds ambitious but works out to only 10 miles or so a day so should be doable. The side trip to Roanne (Leg 4) and the little jog north on the Saône (Leg 3) can be dropped if we are running behind.

And so far we have three visiting groups:

• Francis and Emilie  (May 20-May 27, Leg 1)
• Jackie, David, Emory (~May 31 – June 3, Leg 2)
• John and Christin (June 27 – July 10, Leg 5)

So we still have spots open for anyone who wants to join us! Here is a summary of the nine sections (though I expect this to change somewhat):

1. Joigny to Montbard :  May 20 to May 27, 110 Km, 53 Locks
2. Montbard to Dijon:    May 28 to June 3,  109 Km, 118 Locks!
3. Dijon to Chalon Sur Saône:  June 5 to June 14, 225 Km, 27 Locks
4. Chalon Sur Saône to Decize:  June 15 to June 27, 293 Km, 96 Locks
5. Decize to Auxerre :  June 28 to July 10, 182 Km, 120 Locks
6. Auxerre to Moret-sur-Loing: July 11 to July 17, 120 Km, 27 Locks
7. Moret-sur-Loing to Briare:  July 18 to July 23, 105 Km, 55 Locks
8. Briare to Decize:  July 24 to July 30, 130 Km, 25 Locks
9. Decize to Joigny: July 31 to Aug 12, 205 Km 129 Locks

We are 45 days from our flight to Paris. The house is up for sale and we have our first showing this weekend. Our plan is to sell, have our estate sale and move everything we are keeping (mostly art and books) into storage before we leave. However…. if we don’t get an offer in the next four weeks we may have to rethink the plan.

417 Emerson Listing

We have our tickets, our extended stay visas and have begun coming up with a tentative sail plan. We need this because we have people planning on joining us at various points. Key dates are:

• Sat, May 20:       Pick up boat                            Joigny
• Fri, May 26:        Francis and Emily leave       Montbard
• Sat, Jun 3:           Jackie et al arrive                   Pouilly en Auxois
• Mon, Jun 5:         Jackie et al leave                     Dijon
• Tue, Jun 27:         John/Christin arrive               Decize
• Mon, Jul 10:         John/Christin  leave               Auxerre
• Sat, Aug 12:         Leave boat                              Joigny

We finally selected a boat rental company (for a discussion of why we are renting versus buying – see our planning page Planning for France ). We decided to go with Locaboat, as they were the most responsive to our many questions.

After a lot of discussion we decided on the Penichette 1165FB – it was a little bigger than we absolutely needed but, since we plan on having lots of visitors over the course of the summer, we wanted a boat with two heads and two cabins.

The boat is located out of the Joigny Locaboat base on the river Yonne. Joigny is about 150 Km southeast of Paris.  In a later post I will describe in more detail where we will be cruising (or more accurately – where Locaboat will allow us to cruise).

We pick up the boat on May 20 and have to have it back by August 12. So we have the boat for 12 weeks. Total price was 26,000€ (about $27,500 at current exchange rates). This is about 330$/day. I’m sure we could have done it for less by going with a smaller agency and, clearly, this is a sizable fraction of what a used boat would have cost.