Author: rjfmac

Auxonne for lunch

The season is starting to wind down (though you wouldn’t know if from the number of hire boats still on the canals!) so, after our meeting with Phillippe, the shipyard manager, to discuss repairs/projects for the winter, we thought we would take one last little jaunt north.

We left St Jean September 1 (is it September already?) stopping for lunch in Auxonne.

We’ve had mixed experiences in Auxonne. The last few times we visited the main street had been torn up but they’ve finished the repairs and it is quite lovely now. We wandered into a creperie just off the main street for a nice quiet lunch.

On to Gray

We saw a very attentive captain keeping his helmsman in line as he passed through the last lock into Gray.

Strangely most cruisers stay on the south side of Gray, which is neared the city center, but also less pretty and noisy than where we like to moor, just north of the city.

We took a day in Gray to stock up on supplies and look around. We found a little artists shop and bought a piece of painted glass from a very nice artist.

We walked to the local supermarché for supplies and spotted some authentic looking Mexican food…”Le Kit”.

Being just north of the city it was easy to get into the countryside for a short run. Unfortunately I am running by myself these days as Roberta has tendonitis in her knee.

On the way back south we stopped at what has become one of our favorite spots north of St Jean, Pontailler-sur-Saône, a picturesque french village with a great restaurant near the river.

And one final night on the river before heading back to St Jean…

Heading Home

We left Lyon while Burgundy was in the middle of “une canicule” (heat wave) or, as we Texans like to call it… summer. The 10 day forecast for Lyon shows highs in the 90’s most days so, like finding a parking spot in Houston, shade became our primary focus and we broke out the little portable AC for the first time this summer. We use it at night to cool our berth and it works well for that but is much too small to cool the whole boat.

We had a little excitement in our first lock; a big barge, a little sailboat and us in a pouring rain.

Trevoux

Our first stop going north was Trevoux, where I took the opportunity to run up to the Chateau Fort de Trevoux. Built in the 14th century (1360) it was abandoned during the religious wars of the 16th century (when the Protestants and the Catholics spent 36 years slaughtering each other),

We stopped for martini night at a nice city mooring in Creche-sur-Saône,

before heading up the short side canal to Pont-de-Vaux . Because of the heat we elected a shady canal mooring rather than at the city dock . I did run into town the next morning.

Tournus

Next stop was Tournus, which is one of our favorite little towns on the Saône. We spent two nights here so we get hit the market for more fresh food. One strange thing is that, in a town of about 5,000 residents, along the main street, over 5 blocks, there are 11 hair salons. Eleven. And I might have missed one.

And in the “Grande Saône”, basically from St-Jean down to Lyon, there are quite a few big ships, commercial barges and hotel ships. It’s always exciting to come around a bend and see one of these big boys coming toward you.

Back in St-Jean-de-Losne

After a few more days of cruising, stopping in Chalon-sur-Saone…

and Verdun-sur-Doubs…

we arrived back in St Jean with a day to get ready for our meeting with the shipyard manager to discuss boat projects for the winter. I’d rather be cruising…

South on the Saône

After leaving La Sielle and rejoining the Saône we continued south to Lyon, where the Saône joins the Rhône. We have now cruised all 400+ navigable kilometers of the Saône, from the little town of Core in the north to Lyon, the third largest city in France.

We had planned to overnight in Trevoux, but the dock looked crowded so we continued on and found a small restaurant dock which had the added convenience of providing dinner.

We went for a short run the next morning and discovered an interesting record of the flood levels on the river.

Lyon

We were a little worried about boat traffic cruising into Lyon but, except for the occasional tourist boat and one or two big barges, we saw little traffic.

And our worries about room at the city marina were unfounded. They limit stays to four nights so there are no long-term cruisers and plenty of spots. Also some of the best showers on the entire river.

And yes, it was laundry day. And we had entertainment in the evening provided by some locals…

We stayed four nights, doing laundry, shopping and visiting the sites. My favorite was the Roman amphitheaters on the hill above Lyon. Lyon was settled as a Roman city named Lugdunum after Caesar conquered Gaul (50BC or so).

Besides the ruins of two amphitheaters (one could hold 10,000 people and the other about 3,000) there is a very nice museum with all the Roman artifacts discovered in the area….. and there are a lot

The Rhône

And we could not leave Lyon without at least entering the Rhône so, the morning we left we motored the 1-2km from the marina to the confluence of the two rivers. In the picture below the bridge on the left is over the Saône and the one on the right is over the Rhône. This is looking north to Lyon.

And with that we turn around and head back north….. and you never know what you might see on the river…

La Seille

The Seille is a small tributary of the Saone that is navigable up to the town of Louhans. There are four locks on the Seille, the first one (La Truchere) is manned by a lock keeper but the other three are manual locks that have to be operated by the passing boats.

We stopped in Cuissery our first night on the Sielle. Cuissery is one of the four designated “book towns” in France and there are some amazing bookstores here.

Louhans

Louhans is a pretty town that has a huge market on Monday. People come from miles around (and the traffic shows it).

And they have live animals at this market and we saw several people going home with chickens.

But some of us stuck with more traditional fare.

Dole

My brother, John, his wife, Christin, and their two children, Connor and Sofey, arrived on July 2. We decided to take them up one of our new favorite canals (Canal du Rhône au Rhin). The first 100Km or so of the waterway moves in and out of the Doubs River and is quite lovely.

Dole is one of our favorite places these days and only one day cruising from St Jean. This was the first time we had a full house, six people on the boat so it was cozy. We spent a day visiting Dole before heading north again.

Onward to Besançon

The next leg of our sail was a two-day cruise to Besancon, stopping at the little town of Ranchot the first night. It was hot, in the low 90s ,which was a bit of a shock for our Alaskan family.

We found a bit of shade off the boat in Ranchot to celebrate Martini Night. And a boulangerie for a special dessert.

The next day was a long one, almost seven hours of cruising, to get to Besançon. We also stayed a day here to visit the Citadel and the Victor Hugo museum (and hit the market).

Sofey, Connor and I visited the municipal zoo which is housed in the Citadel while the adults did the museum thing.

And it was even hotter in Besançon so we found a spot off the boat to set up chairs for our evening cocktails and dinner.

Uncharted Territory …. heading to Montbéliard

Leaving Besançon and heading north was new ground for us since Besançon was the farthest we had been on the Canal du Rhône au Rhin. This was a four-day cruise. It was still hot so we stopped a couple of times to play with our new boat toys… an inflatable dinghy and a paddleboard.

One of our moorings was a little town of about 500 people, De Luz, where they were having a town festival (the French are festival crazy in the summer) with a two-man gaelic band.

And just when we thought we understood what was going on…

When we finally cruised into Montbéliard, it quickly became one of our new favorite places. Lovely parks, lots of restaurants and a really big castley thing (also known as the Château des ducs de Württemberg ). We finally took pity on the Alaskans and booked a hotel for our last night before hopping a train to Paris with them.

Sorry I haven’t posted for awhile. We’ve been battling a weedy canal (i.e. repeated prop foul), recalcitrant locks and, for several exciting days, a boat that would not go in reverse (reverse being a handy feature when piloting your 34-foot vessel into a concrete space 15 feet wide and 100 feet long). Cheers!

Besides a lot of cranky locks we also got to transit a 5 Km long tunnel. At our speed it takes about 50 minutes to complete. Fortunately traffic is quite light on this canal so we did not have to wait. The tunnel passes completely under the village of Balesmes-sur-Marne.

We stopped our northern sojourn at Langres where we spent two days exploring. The woman at the Captainerie was surprised when we said we were from the US. In all her time there we are only the second US boat to visit.

And while the weeds were pretty bad, we had some nature moorings with lovely views.

Saint Jean-de-Losne to Scey-sur-Saône (June 4-7)

After dropping off our guests we headed back north on the Saône from SJL towards the Locaboat base in Scey-sur-Saône. Last summer, while cruising, we noticed a few Locaboat rentals with biminis so we contacted Locaboat. €2,010 seemed a bit steep but we knew it would fit and we desperately needed one so we ordered it. Now it was time to pick it up (after replacing the bow thruster control panel on the flybridge – yes, it is never ending)!

Rather than stay in marinas we did “nature moorings” all three nights on the way to Scey. This involved finding a place along the river that was deep enough to get to, brush cleared away to allow getting off the boat (and no nettles!) and shade in the afternoon.

We made good time (the season is still early so the boat traffic is light). And we managed to pick spots that allowed us get a few short runs in (we have vowed that THIS year will be different – we will continue to run through the summer).

Arriving in the marina in Scey-sur-Saone we managed to push our rub rail out (isn’t a rub rail supposed to rub?). I could not slide it back in place by hand so had the idea of drilling a hole, attaching a line from the rail to the dock and backing the boat up and…. it worked!

Of course no one was here when we arrived but in the early afternoon a Locaboat technician showed up and gave us our bimini. And, after several hours (in the sun) figuring out how the thing goes together (the ENTIRE set of instructions: “We recommend using professional installers.”) we have a bimini!

We celebrated (and it was Martini Night) with cocktails.

Saint Jean de Losne (May 19)

We arrived back in Saint Jean de Losne (SJL) on May 19 hoping things would go better this year. Last year, as you might remember, we spent 3-1/2 weeks getting issues settled before we could begin cruising.

We arrived back in SJL via a taxi from Dijon (the train from Dijon to SJL was suspended for repairs) which was actually quite nice since we did not have to lug our luggage from the SJL gare to our boat (about 2 km). We immediately headed to Brasserie du Port for our welcome home glasses of rosé.

We checked into our favorite place to stay in SJL (not counting our boat), Les Charmilles, a B&B located very close to our marina. The idea is to spend a few nights here while we get the boat provisioned and checked out. Then…. to the boat!

Saint Jean de Losne (May 20)

Spent all day checking boat systems:

• Started engine – started first try
• Checked bow thruster – seems to be working
• Turned on freshwater pump
• Checked cabin heater  
• After some  work – got the the hot water heater working
• Cleaned the fridge – turned it on – taking a while for it to cool down?
• Pumped up the bike tires (all were flat).

The fridge is moldy …. did we really leave a 1/2 bottle of wine? We cleaned it and reset the breaker and that should be it right?

Saint Jean de Losne (May 21)

Got an email from the H2O workshop manager (Phillippe) saying the control module on our bow thruster is broken but they can bypass it?? Seemed to be working yesterday – not sure what is going on there but…big news is our refrigerator is not working and is non-repairable. Bad news because, God knows, we need ice for cocktails!

In the meantime I installed a new shore power connector with an LED indicator showing when power was on. This made my inner-engineer very happy.

We can do without a lot of things but… a refrigerator? We start looking with the help of Vassily, the H2O equipment guy.

Saint Jean de Losne (May 22)

We found a refrigerator online that MIGHT work … for €1,850 and probably two weeks to get! No choice so we order it… then we hear from Vassily that H2O has a AC refrigerator that they got for another customer who changed his mind so for €200 we can have it. It’s not a marine refrigerator (12V DC) but I can wire another AC circuit. Question is whether our inverter can handle the load…. I do some quick calculations and think it will work so… we cancel the marine fridge order (they probably didn’t have it in stock anyway) and we tell Vassily we want the H2O fridge.

Saint Jean de Losne (May 23)

Spent the morning running to the hardware store (Bricomarché where I have a loyalty card!) getting wire, an outlet and a breaker for the new fridge. In the afternoon a young guy shows up with a box (the fridge is brand new). I had expected two guys to carry the fridge. Turns out I am the second guy.

It seems to work but the real test will be when we are not connected to shore power.

Saint Jean de Losne (May 24)

So now we can leave? … no. We still have to provision the boat…. Spend all day running to shops buying food (which we could not do before we had a fridge). Had a lovely dinner on the boat in the Marina …. we leave tomorrow morning on our shakedown cruise!

Saint Jean de Losne to Seurre (May 25)

Ready to head south on the Saône on a four day test cruise but…. no. While attempting to leave the dock in the morning the bow thruster stopped working. Turns out Phillippe was right and the controller unit is fried. After a quick text exchange Phillippe promises to have an electrician bypass the controller this afternoon… which actually happens and we leave around 2:30 heading south!

We arrive in Seurre after 2.5 hours of cruising and one big lock. The locks between SJL and Lyon (where the Saone empties into the Rhone) are the big, 180+ meter, commercial locks.

Seurre to Verdun-sur-le-Doubs (May 26)

Another short day running the engine (and waiting for something to break…. this is a shakedown cruise after all) continuing south on the Saone. Everything seems to be working well. We had to pass through another of the big Saone locks.

Verdun is a little town at the junction of the Doubs and Saone rivers and has a nice visitor dock. And the Captainerie serves ice cream and wine!

Verdun-sur-le-Doubs to Seurre to SJL (May 27,28)

And with that we turned around and headed back to Saint Jean to prepare the boat for our first guests of the summer (Jackie, David and their 9-year old daughter, Emory).

We explored Seurre a bit more on the return trip and it is a lively little town with lots of restaurants and shops.

And, it being Wednesday (i.e. Martini Night), we had to celebrate…