Day two started after a leisurely breakfast. We didn't have that long of a day, so there was no real hurry. To leave is a bit of a task. Chuck gets off the boat, and the rear line on the boat is untied and the rope back on the boat. Chuck then moves to the front to untie the front and get the rope on the boat.
Caroline and Jeanne are helping on the boat, with the ropes. Then, Chuck pushes the front of the boat away from the bank, hops on, and once the front end swings out into the stream, Jon starts the motor an away we go.
The first few hours of driving the boat were a bit of a zig zag. The boat is long, and reacts slowly to a change in the rudder. By the time you see it react, you have oversteered, and the correction often oversteers you in the other direction. As we got the feel of it, we corrected earlier and began to steer a straight line. We noticed that it made it easier to pick a spot far away and steer for that. It is similar to using a spot on the edge of a the field to plow a straight line.
We had a warm sunny day. Most of the time, the canal is tree lined and shady. However, there are times when the large sycamore trees must have died and have been replaced, but the new trees are not large enough to provide shade. During one of those stretches, Jon was driving and said he felt like he was on the African Queen. That would make Jeanne the Katherine Hepburn to his Humphrey Bogart (seems to make a lot of sense to me).
We had about 22 km to go, and at 5 km/hr, that is .5 hours of so. So, there is plenty of time to relax, read, watch the world go by, or whatever you want.
Caroline tried some plein air painting. She wasn't very happy with the results, but she is always her harshest critic. The rest of us thought it was quite good.
The first challenge of the day was to fill up our water tanks. Fortunately, the water filling area was mostly empty and we managed to get moored with a bit of help from the water master. We (I) made the mistake of tying off the front line too tight and that made it hard to tie off the back. Anyway, we got moored, paid our 3 Euros, filled up our water tank, dumped out trash, and were on our way.
After getting our water topped off, we moved and moored again in Capestang and went for a walk and looked for lunch.
It was a bit late for lunch and kitchen was closed at the place we wanted to eat. So, we found another place that had some food. Well, some of us had food, and some of us had ice cream.
We wandered around the town a bit and took a look at the church. I don't use the word awesome very often, but this church inspired awe when you entered it.
The stained glass was truly magnificent.
One of the tricky parts of the canal, especially as we got comfortable on the boat were the bridges.
You have to make sure there is not an oncoming boat, and you have to line up and get through without zigging and zagging. The fist couple of times, were a bit nerve racking, but it soon became routine.
We were looking at the route map deciding where to stop for the night and we found a hand written note in the book recommending a restaurant in Poihes (le lPatenes). We decided to make that our stopping place for the night.
The restaurant was very good and a wonderful time was had during the evening.
When we were talking about what we were going to order, Jeanne said she was having the filet or pork. It was point out to her that she had to be sure to ask for it to be well done since they will cook pork less than well done in France. We chatted a while longer and the waitress, owner, and chef came to take our order. Jeanne ordered the pork. The waitress then turned to Jon, and Caroline softly said to Jeanne, "well done" reminding her to ask for the pork to be well done. Jeanne thought she was getting a compliment and replied, "merci". We have had a couple of laughs over that incident.
