Chuck felt like a true Frenchman this morning. I walked over the store and picked up the bread we had ordered (2 croissants, 2 pain chocolat, and a baguette). As I was walking back, I tore off the end of the baguette and munched on it on my way back to the boat. The baguette was wonderful both plain and with butter and jam.
We took off about 10 AM with a little excitement. We got the moorings loose and, as usual, I (Chuck) was pushing the front of the boat into the canal before hopping on. I waited a bit too long before making the leap and MY foot slipped off the boat and I was hanging from the boat railing with my legs in the water well above my knees. I tried to get my foot up on the boat and succeeded, but it was a small ledge and it slipped back off. By then my shoes were so wet that they were heavy and I couldn't raise them out of the water. I was hanging on for dear life, since I didn't really fancy a complete dunking in the water. Jeanne was nearby, but unable to really help me since she couldn't really grab me. We got Jon to move the boat back to the shore and I got a foot on a root and got back on the boat. I escaped without being immersed--a good thing, and only have a pulled pec muscle. The only possible casualty is my iPhone which got wet. It seems to be drying out well, but still has some water on the camera lens. I wanted the new phone anyway, but this is probably not how I would have chosen to get it. I took a quick shower to rinse off, and my wonderful wife washed my clothes and shoes.
Caroline came to the rescue though and washed all my clothes and shoes out in the tub. By the way, we were told that the toilets, when flushed, goes directly into the canal! Something we were all quite amazed about. So, you can see why Chuck did not want to fall completely in the water!
Once that little adventure was over, we "motored up the waterway, doing it our way" to paraphrase a song that is stuck in Jon's head which he sings for us occasionally. We filled up with water, always a mini-adventure. However, we are getting used to mooring and all the other things that are involved with a canal boat.
There are lots of boats on the canal. Many of them are rentals like ours. Most of the rentals are fiberglass and more like oversized US like motor boats. But, there are many canal boats like ours, and many of those seem to be privately owned. This boat seemed to be private, and Caroline thought we should buy it and live on it (says Chuck with tongue firmly planted in cheek).
Then we came to our first lock. We had decided to moor some distance away and walk and watch the operation. As it turned out, we got there at lunch time and didn't have any choice but to wait for a bit. So, we wandered up and got the feel of it. But alas, we didn't get to watch anyone else go through first. The lock keeper came out from lunch, and the 2 boats we thought we were coming downstream that would have been ahead of us were stopped for a bit. So we were next in line. Jon talked to the keeper (who knew no English) in French and I was given the keys to drive.
So back to the boat I went, and headed for the lock opening.
I got in OK. It took a bit of maneuvering and pantomimed instructions from the keeper to get the boat over the side and secured with
ropes to hold us on the side and keep us from drifting forward or backward while the water level changed. The gate behind us was closed and the sluice gates were opened in front of us and water started coming in.
J&J&C were holding the ropes and as the water level came up they were pulling up the slack and keeping the boat from going backward. Once the water got to the level of the high side of the canal, the ropes were removed, t
he crew hopped on board, and off we went. In this picture you can the closed gate on the downstream side and open gate on the upstream side.
We proceed onwards and came to Argens Minverois. Minervois is the name of the region we are in so there are several towns with the name Minervois in them. From the boat,
it looked like a very nice town to stop and explore. So we moored and wandered around for while. It turned out to be a very nice residential town with almost no commercial establishments. The
town view is dominated by a very old group of buildings, but there is no access to them and they seem to be under renovation or perhaps demolition. We did find a Salon de Thé where we had a Perrier and some ice cream.
We had to decide what to do next. It was nearly 4 PM, and the locks close at 6 PM. To get to the next town would require us to go through 2 double locks and one single lock. The distance was not great, but we did not have a feel for how long the locks would take. After some discussion, we decided to stay. We got reservations at the only restaurant in town and went back to the boat
Jon and Jeanne took a bike ride up canal. When the returned, they reported that they had gotten to the next set of locks (double in this case). I rode up there to check them out. It was essentially locks back to back.
Diner was very good, and a game of Skip Bo ended the evening.
