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| Empty quays and pontoons at Seurre. River Saone |
Hazy clouds first thing, chilly start with a cold north wind blowing in our faces. A boat went past, uphill, around 7.30 a.m. it hardly moved the boat. The river level had come up about 2”overnight and it was flowing a bit faster than the day before. Mike fetched all the ropes and pins in and we set off at 9.35 a.m. Very peaceful and quiet on the river. The sun soon began to burn through the misty clouds. A night heron was almost invisible in the trees before the sloping quay at Chazelle village. We saw our first grebe of the year by the entrance to the old lock canal of the old Seurre lock, it flew off upriver on short stubby wings. Took photos of the old quays and the new pontoon at Seurre, all empty.
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| Coaster on the Seurre derivation canal. River Saone |
There were three large cruisers moored on the pontoon outside H20’s basin before the lock. A couple sitting out on the stern of the first one waved as we went past. Mike called on VHF and the keeper emptied the lock for us. Mike remembered in the nick of time that we hadn’t got our lifejackets on and we donned them as we slowed down in the lock entrance just before 11.00 a.m. Waved to keeper then I slung a rope on a slimy bollard in the wall. The lock filled through a series of holes in the middle of the floor of the chamber starting from the front, when it reached us the rolling incoming water kept us against the chamber wall. I moved the rope up on to the next bollard in the wall, then on to the big bollard on the lockside. The huge lock 185m x 12m with a rise of 4.27m filled in around ten minutes. We gave the fenders a good splashing in the water to get the slime off them before bringing them back on board.
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| Desire, loaded, just about to leave the port on the Seurre derivation canal, River Saone |
Ten kilometres of canal, the derivation de Seurre, followed. They’d put up new VNF signs with kilometrage just for the canal as it cuts off a whopping 10kms of loops of the river and three old locks. At KP4 some men were doing work underneath a road bridge. Just before the A36 motorway bridge, a very large loaded low-profile coaster called Elif-D, from Willemstad in the Netherlands, came down the canal slowly, pulling hardly a ripple. As we approached the new port we saw a loaded boat called Désiré, waiting for us to pass before setting off towards Seurre. The boat was 105m long by 9.5m wide carrying 2,261 tonnes. I made some soup in mugs to warm us up as the wind was getting chilly. A DB with no name and no wheelhouse came past us at KP9 heading full steam for Seurre and a cruiser was fast catching us up. All go after such a nice quiet morning!
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| Magnum loading grain at silo, St Jean-de-Losne. River Saone |
The cruiser, called Triple 4, overtook us, crew waving. They had been on H2O’s pontoon below Seurre lock. Typically, they were going to the same place as us! The H2O moorings in the old lock cut before St Jean looked pretty full, with DBs moored abreast and beyond that cruisers moored bows or sterns to the bank. I took a photo of a very unusual, very modern round house on the “island” between the river and the canal. Magum from Douai (let’s see them try to get it there!), 110m x 11m 3,172 tonnes, was loading grain at the silo quay before the railway bridge. Hotel péniche Napoleon was moored on the stepped quay on the Losne side of the road bridge then two old péniches. Above the bridge eight more péniche houseboats were moored on the same side, our right. On our left was the entrance to the canal de Bourgogne and the new (short) fuel pontoon was on the corner where the old fuel barge used to be.
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| Two Luxemotors on the slip at C.B.V. St Jean-de-Losne. River Saone |
The skipper of the Swiss cruiser moved his bow rope so that we could get just our bows attached to the pontoon. He said they had telephoned to get someone to come and sell them some diesel. He said that they only opened Fridays, but said someone would be there at 2.00 p.m. and sure enough a young lady arrived by car and we were both soon filling up. He took on 700 litres of white diesel at 1,45€/litre while we topped up our central heating tank with red at 98c/litre, 206 litres came to over 200€ so we were glad we could pay by credit card and not eat into our cash reserves. The Swiss crew moored at Seurre and were not happy that they couldn’t get their tank refilled there and had to come up to St Jean to get fuel. She said they had used a lot for central heating (ouch! white road diesel for heating!) and were having problems as their English Setter dog had to go to the vets, as the stupid puppy (a year old) had gashed her leg. We wished them well for their trip back to Seurre and likewise they wished us a good trip to Belgium as we set off upriver. The two trip boats were occupying a big section of the stepped quay plus two DBs, tjalk Ella and small Luxe Topaz. Doubt the gap between them was long enough for us. Two DBs were on the slip at CBV, little Etna and full sized Luxe Avanti II – a working boat, self loading/unloading with its own crane. Lots of pans were moored downstream of the boatyard and upstream the kids were out in canoes. They all went to the bank as we went past, heading for the campsite pontoon. Dodging round a string of floating empty plastic bottles (marking a fishing net, we noted as we passed it) to moor at the end of the pontoon. Two people were fishing from the top end and a young couple were lying on the end we’d tied to, snogging! It didn’t phase them as we tied up next to them, or even when Mike got the spanners out to slide one of the mooring cleats to the right position for our bow rope. It was 2.50 p.m. Mike went a walk to La Poste to see if our spare part for the fridge had arrived (it hadn’t) while I made lunch.
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