Monday 9th May 2011 Iwuy - Valenciennes. 27kms 4 locks.

Former bakery and shop for sale at Le Bassin Rond

White and grey clouds to start, clearing later for a lovely warm sunny day with a light breeze. Mike went by car to get bread as he thought the boulangerie might be closed on Mondays (it wasn’t) and he might have to go to the Carrefour Contact (never been in one of those). No pain, or grosse baguette and he didn’t want a batard or a pointy-ended pain, so he ended up with a smaller sized loaf for 85c. Untied, winded and set off down to the lock at 9.10 a.m. Lock 5 Iwuy (2.70m) worked perfectly and we saw why the péniche took the left hand chamber on Saturday, the automatic lock on the right had a max depth of 2m to clear the cill. I pressed the intercom button and told Crevecoeur I was depositing the zapper in the box, did he want the number? He knew the boat name so that was OK and wished us bonne route. 

Repaired pontoon Le Bassin Rond

Off down the last bit of the péniche-sized canal. We passed Mondor, an empty running uphill, as we arrived at the entrance to the Bassin Rond. We went in to have a look to see if the pontoon was still there. New houses had been built on the right hand side and on the left the old boulangerie was for sale (it’s never been a bakery since we started going in and out of the basin back in 1996) A retired péniche was moored on the corner by the old canal and the basin was full of cruisers, the pontoon was still there in the cut off old canal and looked as if it had been refurbished with new deck and two new pasarrelles. Noted for future reference. A few more cruisers were moored further down the basin on the right and on the left there was a line of converted péniche houseboats. 

Liberty loading grain at Neuville

Turned around and went back on to the main canal. Past the old dry dock, long filled in with its guillotine gate slowly rusting away. A cruiser called Marie was moored in the arm that was the original canal, now blocked to through traffic, with the pontoon on the other side of the blockage. Paused just before the junction while Mike put the pins in to connect the Markon to generate electricity so I could do some washing as we ran down the long reaches of the Escaut. There were a few boats moored above Port Malin lock (4.32m) as usual, on the right a 660 tonne empty Dutch tanker called Druten, an empty barge called Strelitzia (85m x 9.05m 1,503 tonnes) and a loaded pushtow péniche pair called Calvi and Kelvi; and on the left one empty péniche called Guitti whose skipper was washing his covers down with canal water using a bucket and long line. A hireboat? called Fischreiher from Friesland Marine came up in the lock, a big chunky steel cruiser on the same lines as the ones Burgundy Cruisers build. 

Contain port at Prouvy

Sounds like it’s a long way from home! We went into the lock and stopped close to the keeper who was on the lockside with a clipboard. He took all the boat details and asked the usual questions, where from, to, etc. Tied to a floater and Mike held the string while I sorted the washing and loaded the washing machine. Mike said they’d made the mooring in Bouchain for “Professionals” only now. At Neuville-sur-Escaut a 600 tonner called Liberty was being loaded with grain from a large tipper lorry. A little Dutch tug called Argus from Katwijk went past heading upriver at KP6. The washer finished its final spin seconds before we had to stop above the next lock. An empty 50m boat called Nebraska had set off from the unloading quay above Denain lock (4.84m) and had just gone into the chamber. 

Empty Con Dios at Prouvy

The lock light was on red, so Mike called the keeper on VHF to ask if we could go in. The light changed to green and he replied yes. We went in behind the big boat, no floater available so we tied to a red bollard that had a notice on it that said max 10 tonnes. Mike held the rope again while I changed wash loads. As we left the lock a loaded péniche called El Gringo came past heading into the chamber. There were signs galore as we went round a bend with three bridges, the last one (a girder bridge) was being repainted and the right hand half was covered with sheeting and had a wooden floor fixed under the road deck for the men to work on and to catch all the debris from grinding off the old paint. Empty boat Betharram, a 1,100 tonner, 80m x 8.2m, was berthed at the container port in Prouvy. Was he waiting to load or had just unloaded? At the other end of the quay an empty péniche called Nemesis was waiting to load with his covers pulled back. We stopped before the next bridge while a large empty called Con Dios came through. 

Mooring in weirstream in Anzin (Valenciennes)

Just us for Trith-St-Leger lock (3.96m) and we dropped down attached to a single floater again. The lock lights changed to green for uphill traffic then we passed a loaded péniche called Paloclau heading uphill, followed a few minutes later by Manou, 80m x 9.5m  1,558 tonnes, loaded with containers. Plenty of room in the lock as the chambers on the Grand Gabarit are 144.6m long by 12m wide. Next we passed empty péniche Thalassa heading uphill and as we reached Valenciennes we passed péniche Babytonga whose load of grain was being unloaded by hydraulic bucket, which tipped it into a hopper for transfer into the silos. Past the University buildings (we moored by their grounds once, way back in 1996) past walls covered in graffiti and went into the weirstream alongside Folien lock. There were more converted péniches in the arm than last time we were there. Tied the stern to bollard and had to bang stakes in for the fore end as the bollard had been removed.  The water level was constantly changing, going down as the lock filled and then coming back up to normal level. The smell was bad, a pongy drain smell.