Corre to St Jean de Losne

We had barely seen another boat for miles (kilometres) and we had decided that our end of day mooring would be at Fontenoy le Chateau. Imagine our surprise to find the place pretty well packed. But there was a space just beyond the boat hire company finger moorings which looked possible. Will and Mike helped us to moor. They were, it turned out, an Englishman and an Australian (no, no joke follows – rather the contrary) in a little wooden yacht which Will had bought last year and which he had left in the ‘capable’ hands of the hire boat company while he returned to the UK for 6 weeks paying for his mooring of course. Meanwhile the hire boat company had ignored his boat (despite requests to keep an eye on it) and it had sunk!!

So having started to pump the boat out and got it afloat, the chaps had removed everything from the interior and put it all on the bank side in the sun to dry out, and were doing their best to complete the pumping of all the excess water and drying everything out before setting off on the rest of their journey to the Med! We sympathised and gave them drinks and nibbles, but as we still had no cooking gas on board we couldn’t offer much more and off they went to eat. Later we met a land-based partnership, Oscar and Marie-Laura who had late evening drinks with us until well after our bedtime. Oscar was the son of an English mother and a Dutch bargee father, so his English was superb.

A couple of days later, we arrived at Corre where, at last, we were able to replenish our gas bottles and much else at the local Intermarché, 1km from the mooring. We actually made three trips in all with Alex wobbling dangerously on his bike with 15kg of gas bottle on the back – twice!

The following day we stopped for lunch on a mooring which we knew was a mere 400 metres from an Aldi where we stocked up on all our favourite bits that we couldn’t get from the bigger supermarket then travelled on to a mooring at Conflanday.

We decided that an early start and finish (in the cool of the morning) was better for Alex, still in a rather feeble condition, so we set off at 8am and moored up near Soing at 12.30. During the rest of the day, the wind got up and at least one tree was blown down across the road to the village, but by the time we cycled past, it had been moved off the road. We could see several other trees which had suffered the same fate either that day or within the very recent past. The village was rather nice and had, of all things, a miniature Eiffel Tower on the camping/playground area: when we rode through at 3pm, they were in the midst of celebrating Bastille Day with games for the children and a barbeque in preparation. Much later, after dark, Louise (Alex was asleep) had a fine view of the fireworks from our moorings.

We ultimately arrived at Gray where we were hoping to take on fuel. Our first attempt to stop above the lock to enquire of VNF where we could get it, was on a quay reserved for commercial craft but the only possible space for our boat. And of course a fisherman who was unloading his car ready to start fishing there gave us such a mouthful of abuse. For once Alex got cross himself and said in French – “Look, you have all day everyday to fish here: we are only here for 5 minutes! What is your problem?” He just couldn’t manage to find the French for, “You nasty little man”!

VNF told us where to moor and where to get the fuel so we moved below the lock onto the town moorings. Depth is a problem in pretty well all moorings on the Petite Saône but we managed OK until our fuel was delivered by tanker the next morning: then we were able to move across to the long quay where we also got free water and electricity. Bliss! But still very shallow – having to hold ourselves off some 2 metres at the stern.

Louise went off to top up fresh veg supplies but on her way she spotted the Tourist Information Office and dropped by to get a town map – the usual. The lady in charge, Claudine, was a real boat enthusiast, loving barges in particular, and Louise promised to call by later with photos of Riccall. When she saw our pictures, she said she would like to take some photos herself for her monthly magazine and we arranged for her to drop by at 8.15 am the following morning (!) before we left and before her 9 am appointment, as later in the day she would be travelling north to visit a sick friend.

So that visit all went well, we said goodbye and off she went at 8.50 am. We started to prepare to leave: we even had our first ropes off, when a lady boater spoke to us, warning us that the moorings we were aiming for that night were closed for the village fête and in any case the noise would be appalling, even if we could get in. Change of plan – we will stay another day. We re-moored ourselves and a few minutes later Claudine re-appeared with her husband Christoph, and they both came aboard for coffee and more chat. When she learned that we were staying she invited us to their home for lunch – they weren’t leaving for the north until 3pm and would have to travel back through Gray anyway, so it was no trouble to drop us back. They were both so keen for us to go, so we accepted the invitation. A light salad for lunch was promised, which suits us fine. So off we went to their house in the countryside.

Having greeted their son Armand and Claudine’s mother, who sadly spoke no English at all, we all sat down to lunch – couscous, bread, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, gherkins and radishes. Not perhaps what we might have offered but we thought, just perfect, our size of lunch. We should have known! Suddenly fried white sausages (veal) and apple slices appeared, with boiled rice and more bread. Having partaken of a token helping of that, out came the cheese and more bread. Then finally (you’ve guessed it) the dessert arrived! - a huge bowl of fresh fruit salad with cold semolina. At this point Alex said, “Non Merci” patting his already full tummy. (He doesn’t do fruit, and he certainly doesn’t do cold semolina!!) Finally coffee. How can anyone fail to become overweight with meals like that?

Claudine’s father had run a cheese manufacturing operation employing 15 people, at this very place for many years before the rise of the supermarkets made it no longer viable. They sent lorry loads of their cheese – Le Charmeur – to Paris twice a week. The old factory was crumbling away next to the house but Claudine still had great pride in what it had been. She gave us a cheese wrapper from the old business with the name of the company and the cheese. (We wondered how many wrappers she had left!) But Christoph, who gave us a tour of the quite extensive grounds, said that Claudine’s father had died only two years ago and the whole subject of what to do with the old creamery was still very much up in the air.

Some time after our return to Riccall we were delighted to see Will and Mike going past in their once-sunken sailing boat, having dried it all out and got it working again. Lots of waves and hellos and goodbyes as they went.

We left Gray the next day and still couldn’t moor where we had hoped, because although the fête had finished, today it was Brocante Day – car boot sale!!! and the mooring was still cordoned off. But we did find a very good spot not much further on – our size and depth, quiet and peaceful.

Much later that night a Danish sailing boat appeared and asked to moor on us. Of course – not a problem. Susanne and Per were heading for the Med then the Atlantic to explore the islands of Madeira and the Canaries and at 1.8m deep, they really struggled to find suitable moorings. Having done 24 locks and twice as many kilometres that day, they were very tired indeed and more than ready to moor up. They were hugely grateful and we managed a bit of chat after their meal before we all turned in.

When we got to St Jean de Losne the place was packed, but we had noticed a couple of boats moored up in the trees just north of the town, so we headed back to them and managed to nestle in to the shallow bank ourselves, with a boater’s help tying to one bollard and three trees, our new gang plank being just long enough to reach the shore.

Last year we had bought two big plastic torpedo-shaped fenders in case we needed them, at Pont à Bar, and had been disappointed when one of then had developed a leak after about a month. The plastic seemed to have a fault in it. Then a month ago the second one developed a leak in the same way. Neither of these fenders has ever actually been used, so we felt a bit cheesed off about it. As we can’t possibly return them to Pont à Bar which is hundreds of kms away, we went into St Jean de Losne which has two chandleries (one the expensive H2O, and one the more reasonable Blanquarts). Not unreasonably we went to Blanquarts and explained about the fenders and our problem.

The assistant was very nice and said they had had a number of the self-same fenders last year with the same fault, and she would exchange them for us and send them back, even though we hadn’t bought them from her. Really kind of her. Alex had also felt different types of fender called ‘glissoires’ would be better for Riccall anyway to replace our worn-out wooden ones, and she was quite happy to sell us 4 of those and take off the value of the faulty plastic fenders.

What she never actually asked was how much we had originally paid for the fenders at Pont à Bar! She essentially refunded us what Blanquarts charge - nearly twice the price of Pont à Bar, and charged us for the four plastic ‘glissoires’ which were on special offer!

So all in all we did very well on the deal, and we also managed to buy the next two canal books we need, both of which were in stock.

On the way back to Riccall we spotted ‘Cinclus’ moored up on the passenger boat quay. They can do this as they are indeed a passenger boat, licensed as such. We had met Sasja and Ekko twice last year and when we appeared by their boat they were delighted to see us and asked us aboard for drinks and a catch-up chat. They were having a week’s ‘holiday’ from paying guests and had family there instead: children swimming in the river, adults relaxing. Lovely people, lovely boat.

So here we are, sitting in a (so far) 18 hour deluge of rain, but we are now ready for the next stage in our journey south – onto the Basse Saône to Lyon.

Tales of few moorings, huge commercial traffic and locks, fast river etc etc. (Louise- Aarghhh)