Lyon to Toul

Finally the last Lyon blood test had been taken and things were still slowly moving in the right direction, so we started out from the Port de Confluence and onwards to the north.  We said our farewells to Christophe, the port Capitaine who had been so helpful and kind, waved goodbye to the navette Le Vaporetto (water bus) as it passed to pick up its passengers, waved to the builders of the new capitainerie whose next door neighbours we had been for so long (and who woke us every morning at 7am when they started work!) and sailed out onto the Saone.

At the first evening’s moorings at Trevoux, we noticed a sign saying ‘leave 40m clear for the trip boat’ due that very evening.  We were already moored quite close to the cruiser at the upstream end of the pontoon, and while we contemplated moving even further to give the required 40m, a Dutch barge moored up behind us.  We pointed out the notice and before we knew it they were up and off again.  The guy on the cruiser at the downstream end of the pontoon said he had asked at the tourist office if there really was a trip boat due.  The office had rung VNF and no there wasn’t.  Well, we were taking no chances, so Alex paced out exactly 40m behind us: if we moved up to within half a metre of the cruiser in front, there was exactly 40m behind us, so we did. And sure enough, right on schedule at 4pm a trip boat did turn up.  It was only about 28m long so it had plenty of room to moor, but that didn’t prevent the capitaine from looking like he was sucking a lemon.  (And the crew too for that matter.)  What the dear old biddies who streamed off the boat for their sightseeing thought of them I have no idea.  Service industry?  The customer is always right? Service with a smile? Ha!

On the way to the next mooring Louise rang Pascale, the proprietor of the Bateau Ecole who had befriended her in Lyon and offered help in moving RICCALL if such was needed (as he had a piloting licence to move barges up to very, very big ones!).  He had offered to move RICCALL to a winter mooring up river from Lyon should Alex require repatriation and therefore be unable to do it himself.  Very kind of him and a very nice man, so Louise rang to say we were on our way to the pontoon where he moored his little boat and was there room for us?  He rang back to say yes, he had been down to the mooring and arranged that a little sailing boat would move aside for us when we arrived and moor outside us.

Well!  When we arrived, there were already two 26m barges moored side by side and sure enough the sailing boat moved and we JUST fitted onto the end of the pontoon with the sailing boat outside us.  The other barges were HELENE owned by a German couple Jens and Anja with two children under 5, VROUWE ANTJE owned by John and Jane with one child under 3, and the sailing boat KNIGHT’S CROSS owned by Peter and Edith, an Australian couple with children of 3 and 5. We thought we must have arrived at a boaters’ crèche!

Pascal had clearly talked to Jens and Anja when he had dropped by the pontoon to make the arrangement for our arrival, because when he turned up to renew our acquaintance he also talked to them for some time about arranging for them to take their ICC and practical test for barges over 20m.  He joined us for tea later in the afternoon.

Anyway, they were all lovely people.  John and Jane came for an apero, then we went after supper to HELENE for the tail end of Jane’s birthday dinner party for puds and drinks.  The whole ensemble was there together – several of the children included!  A great night, and so kind of them to include us, hitherto unknowns.

The following day they all came for coffee on RICCALL and we must confess - trying to keep a watchful eye on 5 toddlers on a barge is a bit of a strain – to put it mildly!

We also had the evil eye from the self-appointed pontoon capitaine whose little cruiser was moored at the downstream end of the pontoon.  He took photos of our three barges and stalked off emphasising three barges on the pontoon, and that he was going to report us all to the bureau (whatever that was) but as we were leaving that day we weren’t overly worried, and in any case no-one turned up. (What a miserable bastard!  There he was with free mooring, water and electricity - just taking advantage, and he’d certainly been there more than 3 days!)  Mind you, the pontoon was a little over-full!!

There was plenty of room on the long pontoon at Macon our next stop, but the following day Tournus was packed, so initially a bit of concern till Louise spotted that there on the quay ahead was DANUM, a sister ship to RICCALL, albeit 8 years older.  So we moored alongside her with the belated permission of Robert and Jill Cowley who popped out from below to find out what was going on.  Mutual appreciation of each other’s boats followed.  Then tea on RICCALL and later drinks on DANUM.

As usual the contrast between how we all finish our boats is amazing. Robert and Jill had been lucky to buy a boat which had been cherished by its owners when in commercial operation so everything on it was original and thus they have kept it as close to that as possible, rather like a museum piece inside and out, but in the nicest possible way, whereas we had nothing left of the origins of RICCALL, just a big open hold with wrecked forecabin and nothing aft.  So we had had a clean slate to work with.

A couple of days later we moored up at Seurre where we had sussed in advance that Alex could have his next blood test.  That went well and we had an interesting exit from the quay in reverse with a strong wind assisting our about-turn among the finger pontoons.  What!  We missed by miles!  At least 2 feet.

At St Jean de Losne amazingly, we got a place on the town quay and snaffled the ONLY working power supply for the 2^nd night when the boat using it left.  To our surprise Don and Di of IBAIA dropped in for a good chat.  They were moored up at St Symphorien just a few kilometres away, and were on their way south by car, to Port Lalande on the River Lot to help with the grape harvest.  How brilliant!

Our next blood test was to be in Gray where mooring was available, even if we had to be 5 feet off the quay due to the 1 metre depth.  Both RICCALL and a 30m barge VIRUNGA were well aground in the morning as the river level dropped.

Alex managed to free RICCALL himself, but it took the combined power of 8 men from 2 hire boats, and a suggestion for mechanical leverage from Alex to free VIRUNGA.  We also met and had drinks with David and Lois of CHRISTINA-ROTTERDAM, a 30m converted Dutch luxemotor, and admired each other’s fit-outs. Reluctantly we had to forgo the invitation to a Greek evening as we felt bound to move on.

We got Alex’s blood test result (a bit higher than the last one) by 12pm but had to wait till 2pm for the pharmacy to open, as we realised we were short of some of his medication and would run out before we got to Epinal.  As it turned out, because it was a week before the end of the month, the pharmacist wouldn’t give us what we needed anyway.

When we arrived at Soing, one of our absolutely favourite moorings on the river, there was a hire boat on the pontoon – damn!  But it was a Swiss family who had come through a lock with us and had been very interested in RICCALL and our lives aboard, and when we arrived they said they had been wondering when to leave and we had made up their mind for them – now!!  So they assisted our mooring and then departed, leaving us on our pontoon in solitude.

A couple of days later and we got to Corre.  There is a low bridge here and as the day was fine we decided to go through immediately in case it was raining the next day and we had to remove the roof.  As it turned out we got through with 3 inches to spare but we had forgotten that the Canal des Vosges has no lock moorings, so above the first lock we had to tie to trees and a wobbly post, and hang the back end of RICCALL out by 10 feet to keep out of the shallows.

We had better luck at Fontenoy, where to our amazement the quay was almost empty and though €14 a night was a bit steep, at least we had electricity and water included.  The town though appears to be on its last legs with most of the shops closed down and for sale or to let, or just falling to rack and ruin.  However, in the midst of it all was a bright looking well-stocked pharmacy whose pharmacist was quite happy to provide the next month’s medication, where Gray pharmacy had not been, so that was an unexpected bonus.

As we continued on up the locks of the Vosges towards the summit we saw very few other boats indeed.  We arrived above Lock 14 Thiélouze and were able to moor on a couple of rings 40m apart.  Alex had suddenly realised that it was Louise’s birthday the next day and, as usual, he was not prepared!  However, in the middle of the night he got up, made a birthday card and decorated the whole of the inside of the wheelhouse with the bunting.   Aaaaawwwww!

At the very long mooring quay at Girancourt, just before the summit, only two others were already moored there.  We tied up for the night and Alex cycled off to the local Intermarche fuel station (just 200m from the port) with a 20 litre container on our home-adapted trailer for some fuel.  We had calculated that we had just enough to get back to Toul before we ran out, but three trips to the garage would give us an extra 60 litres and just allow that element of comfort.

The weather had so far been lovely – wonderful, as Louise had been really looking forward to doing the Vosges Canal again, as it is in a fairly remote area and just so pretty – but now that we were close to the summit, the weather changed and the outlook was for wet, wet, wet!  And that’s what we got.  We had had one intimation of the approach of autumn in early October in just one single tree in its glorious colours and then nothing more – all other trees appeared to be staying green ad infinitum! But now things looked ready to change.

The next day we spent climbing the last lock up onto the summit level (whose level seemed pretty low, but VNF assured us there was plenty of depth for 1.4m) and then descending the 14 locks to the Epinal junction.  These locks are now all automatic and connected, so once you start you have to go all the way or get in touch with VNF and warn them that you want to stop en route.  We decided to do the lot, and by the time we had had one lock fail on us, we got to the junction for a very late lunch at 3pm.  We had also had an unexpected low bridge halfway down the flight which we’d not noted on our previous journey and we squeezed under with literally 20mm to spare.  Phew!

As we passed through the last two locks on the flight a family had been watching closely, the father explaining to the son the workings of the locks.  When we entered the last lock, he asked if it would be possible to come aboard for the ‘ride’ through the lock.  They were such a nice family, Janek and Alois, and we enjoyed chatting to them for the 10 minutes or so for the lock to empty and for us to moor up at the junction.

In the morning we set off on our bikes from our mooring at the junction to ride the 3kms into Epinal for the next blood test.  (The little canal into Epinal is said to be shallow and it wasn’t worth the risk of getting stuck.)  We found the Laboratoire Analyse Medicale, gave the blood, then had a few hours to kill in Epinal, A ‘formule’ lunch, a look round the ruined chateau, the cathedral et al, then pick up the result at 4pm and back to RICCALL. 

The batteries on RICCALL are getting worse and worse as time goes on so, nothing ventured, nothing gained, Alex went to the adjacent VNF office and said, “Watcha mate, me batteries is knackered.  Any chance of a plug-in?” but in French, and they said yes.  Result!!

We knew that the bridge at Thaon was a ROFF because we had marked it up in our book but we were caught out by the one before it at Chavelot.  We started to exit the lock and the height-marker flag pole at the bow told the story, so we backed back into the lock somewhat and to the amazement of a bystander quickly got the roof off.  At that point of course, the fine drizzle turned into a total downpour, so having exited under the little bridge we had to immediately replace the roof.  Then came the job of drying off everything which we hadn’t had time to protect in our haste to exit the lock before the gates closed on us (including Louise’s one and only birthday card).

At Thaon lock we had to repeat the whole performance again but this time there was a window of dry weather long enough to do it without getting soaked again (and of course, this time we were more prepared anyway).

And now of course, the advent of autumn is making itself felt.  The weather is truly autumnal – wet and windy and noticeably colder, and the trees in this area have got the message – time to start turning!

We stopped for lunch in the huge, new (but unfinished) mooring basin which was underway 2 years ago.  Obviously now the whole project has been abandoned – all the other proposed buildings and facilities are non-existent but the mooring itself is excellent – no services of course but good bollards on a purpose-built quay.  (And SuperU and Aldi within 200m which is handy!)  As the weather continued to be truly awful, we decided to stay the night in the hope that tomorrow would be better.

It wasn’t!!

But obviously we needed to keep moving.  All this rain has meant that the water level in the canal is higher than it was when we last did it coming south in the summer of 2010, so we have kept coming across unexpected ROFFs!  They are all now marked up in the book and we’ve got the ‘quick roof-down, roof-up’ technique down to a fine art.

We moored for the night at the junction of the Nancy ‘embranchement’ which is now open, the landslide which had kept it closed for years having been removed.   We had been warned by some Swiss hirers that the mooring for plaisance a short distance away was not only closed for the winter but mooring there at all was interdit!  Not sure why, but apparently we would be attacked by a mad old woman if we tried!

With some regret we decided not to do the embranchement to Nancy this time as the weather was decidedly iffy and so was Louise’s back.  Instead, we made a beeline for Toul and arrived mid-afternoon in a patch of sunshine.

The rain returned later and it hasn’t stopped since!!  But we are here now, and other than possibly having to change our mooring position when the port capitaine comes in tomorrow and determines where he wants us, we are well settled in our winter mooring, complete with water, electricity and wifi included.