On slow time.

We spent one week living in the shipyard in dry dock, kind of like living in the middle of a factory yard, but our survey was great and all of the scheduled work was finished on time. Thumbs up to the hard working crew of Atelier Fluvial!!! The hull was painted with two coats of antifouling paint, and on Friday Randy and I were able to paint the red parts of the hull, 7 hours total from start to finish. I washed everything down with degreaser as Randy came along afterwards with paint. She was a pretty boat before, but she's just gorgeous now with her new coats of paint. On Sunday, we changed out the name boards and the boat officially became "Alouette."

I have to say I was impressed with Randy's job getting us in to the dry dock, but we did have assistance from the guys at Atelier Fluvial, who used warp lines to get us around some of the huge barges in the way. But come Monday morning, it was time to boot us out and get the next boats in, and we were on our own. Randy did a masterful job of backing us out into a small harbor full of huge barges, and he even got a "thumbs up" from some of the Atelier Fluvial guys. I resisted the urge to put my hands over my eyes. We returned to the River Saone for a few days of R & R off the grid at a mooring spot near the campground in St. Jean de Losne.

We are now retracing our route back to our winter port of Roanne, but at a much slower pace. We are taking time to slow down and enjoy seeing the sites. We have little folding bicycles on board and other than our feet, they are our means of transportation. We do have to laugh, we look like Shriners on them, they have little tiny wheels. We just need those fez hats or maybe clown outfits. But they do get us to and from. At the risk of sounding spoiled, I do miss my Bianchi road bike and Fisher mountain bike, both have all those gears. These little clown bikes only have 5 gears, and if you are going up hill, you need to shift your weight forward or the front tire rears up like a bucking bronco. We are back on the Canal du Centre. The old tow path has been converted to a bicycle path, part of an EU plan to link the rivers with the Black Sea. The path is well used every day, from groups of serious cyclists, rollerbladers, moms with strollers, and people on organized walking holidays. We took the path into the city of Chalon-sur-Saone, spent a day seeing a few of the sites, and will go back again since we missed so much.

We recently passed through the vineyards of Burgundy, and the grape harvest has begun. The weather turned perfect, reminding us of those wonderful Indian summer days in Colorado with clear temperate days and cool, dry nights. So for those of you wondering how we know where to go and when and where to stop, there are cruising guides that give you information such as where the locks are, how deep they are, where there are full service stops like the marinas in the U.S. But many of the small towns along the canals have a few bollards along the shore to encourage you to stop and spend a while with them. Some even have water and electricity, but most don't. We are capable of living "off the grid" since we have a generator that we can fire up to charge our batteries. We carry 2300 liters of fresh water, which lasts us about a month, but that's with taking "marine" showers, no running the hot water endlessly. We have a washer and dryer on board, and the boat has hot water radiators fired by a red diesel Kabola boiler. Red diesel is used for heating purposes in Europe and is much cheaper than the white diesel, which is used for fuel, and we have two separate fuel tanks, one red, one for white. We have a full kitchen with refrigerator and freezer, cooktop and full sized oven, two bedrooms, two bathrooms both with showers, a salon (like a living room) in the wheel house, and the kitchen has a large dining area. We have a large back deck with outdoor dining table and chairs under a canopy. It's our favorite spot on the boat. I guess this is a lot like a big motor home on water.

We still haven't set up internet access on the boat so it's hit or miss as far as being in touch via email. Our plan is to arrive in Roanne around October 10^th and we'll be wired up and in touch full time again, and I'll have the ability to upload photos.

Little by little, the bird builds his nest.

We're jumping around with posts on how we actually got here, so I'm starting in the middle.

After our initial barge scouting trip in the fall of 2009, we returned to France in May of 2010, first to attend Tam and Di Murrell's barge handling school in Cambrai, and then to begin in earnest our search for a barge. The barge class was great - more on that in another posting.

In planning the trip, we wanted to find a gite ("zheet") - a rural house, with a living room, bedroom and cooking facilities, so we would have more space than a hotel room, and the ability to cook some of our meals. With amazingly good luck, we found the website for Au Grenier de la Chouette, a bed and breakfast inn also offering a gite, in the tiny, beautiful Bourgogne village of Villy le Brule, conveniently situated between the beautiful town of Beaune, and St. Jean de Losne. St. Jean de Losne is where we started our original search for barges, and it sits at the confluence of two canals and the Saone River.

When we arrived at the gite, we were welcomed by the owners Maryse and Ariel, who took us for a tour of the property, complete with free range hens ("the girls") providing fresh eggs, a beautiful organic garden, koi pond, an orchard, and a pasture with two sweet goats, Pepito and Margot. A freshly baked loaf of bread with homemade jams (from the orchard fruit) was sitting on the kitchen table. Ariel told us the "girls" would love us if we fed them our day old bread. We instantly fell in love with the place - it seemed a shame that we would be running around looking at boats, it was such a slice of heaven.

Here in France, many gite owners will do a "table d'hote" - a family style dinner with local dishes and delicacies. We were in great luck, as Maryse had actually owned two restaurants in Dijon before trading that hectic pace for the life of an innkeeper. We enjoyed family recipes for beef bourgignon and chicken (not our girls) in a dijon mustard sauce. But early on, we noticed a SCUBA sticker on one of their cars, and it turns out they are avid scuba divers, so we had many wonderful conversations about diving. When it came time for us to leave, we all were sad, and we told Maryse we would be back soon - we had no idea how soon it would be. We hadn't found our barge but we weren't giving up and were determined to come back and continue our search.

Shortly after our return to the states, a few new barge listings came on the market. I hopped on the internet, found a good airfare, looked at the B & B's website and planned our return based on the availability of the gite. We were greeted like long lost relatives by Maryse and Ariel. When we first started looking at the reasons we were so drawn to France, we should have added the kindness and generosity of the French people. We found our first friends here in France with Maryse and Ariel. Although we were driving from place to place like maniacs looking at boats, we were able to enjoy an evening with some of their mutual friends, Michael and Jackie, from England. We found our boat on nearly the last day of our trip, and as we were getting ready to leave, Maryse, who had been helping us with our French, handed Randy the note in French, which translates to "Little by little, the bird builds his nest." Maryse gave us the clue to naming our boat - Alouette, the lark.

Dry dock days

The survey came out great, no steel plates needed, so bottom painting has started. We hope to have a few sunny days to finish the red hull paint ourselves. We'll have the dry dock to ourselves over the weekend and hopefully will float out on Monday.

So good I had to take a picture!

Our friends on Oldtimer, Eric and Sudi, told us to try a bakery here in St. Jean de Losne they thought was one of the best in France. So Randy headed out in the rain for croissants - Sudi and Eric were right, and I had to take a picture it was sooooo good!

70 locks in 16 days and we’re in St. Jean de Losne!

We arrived in St Jean de Losne on Friday, and entered the dry dock Monday morning (Sept. 6^th). One of the to-do list items that we put on hold was setting up our 3G cell phone account so we could have internet contact along the way. We have slow 3G access on Randy's Kindle so we checked emails along the way, but sending was difficult. We might be able to get our email up and running while in dry dock, or we may have to wait until we return to Roanne in October.

On September 2^nd, we entered the last lock on the Canal du Centre, a huge one, over 10 meters deep, and shortly thereafter we turned left to head up the Saone River. We spent a night in Verdun sur la Doubs, a town we had visited last fall, very pretty, it sits at the confluence of two rivers and has been settled since the time of Julius Ceasar. We missed by a few days their big festival in honor of agriculture, but the entire town was still decked out with paper mache flowers and displays.

We passed through 2 large locks on the Saone River before arriving at St. Jean de Losne. This is where we started looking at boats last fall, and we've come full circle in less than a year. When we visited this area last year, we stayed on a barge on the Bourgogne Canal. Early one morning, we walked over to a nearby lock to watch a barge go through. The owners, Robert and Jill, asked us if we'd like to hop on board and go through the next lock with them. That boat was Danum, and in June when we were here boat shopping, Danum was moored on the steps of the quay here in St. Jean. We were happy to let the owners know that we had just found our barge. Yesterday we met them here again in St. Jean as they prepared to set off on the canal again. Small world.

We will be in dry dock for an entire week. The bottom is being pressure washed right now, and tomorrow the surveyor will be here to do an ultrasound of the hull to determine its thickness. If there are any thin spots, steel patches will be welded on, then the bottom will be coated with bottom paint. The topsides were painted this summer and look really good, the hull above the waterline needs to be painted, and we can do this while we are in the dry dock. Richard, the prior owner, is here with his tools – he and Randy are out sanding and chipping – I get the day off! I'll help with the painting, hopefully tomorrow, but it looks like rain. Dimitri and Anya are taking the day off as well. With the power washing and sanding going on, the boat is buttoned up, so it's a bit warm in the wheelhouse and they are enjoying their naps.

 

We’re on our way!

We set off onto the Canal du Roanne a Digoin on Wednesday, August 18^th. The locks on this canal are still manned by lockkeepers, who hand-crank the gates open and closed. One of us can jump off to help, it is appreciated, but its not necessary, and we're so new to the boat that staying on aboard the boat and making sure we're safe in the locks is our first priority.

July and August are the big vacation months for the French. It seems everyone takes off on holiday – entire stores, restaurants, shops, are closed for vacances (vacation ). Along this canal, the lockkeepers are on vacation, but the locks are open and manned by temporary workers – college students! What a great summer job! They remind me so much of my grand-nieces and nephews –happy, fun, enthusiastic. When they see our American flag, they try out their English on us – of course, its much better than our French, and they even have American accents.

Our first lock, out of the harbor and onto the canal, is only a .3 meter drop – a nice way to start out. All of these locks are descents for us as we make our way down to the Canal du Centre. Descending locks are a bit easier than ascending locks – we enter the lock in its full state, so lassoing the bollards is easy. We have to be careful as we descend that the lines run free and don't hang up on themselves – if they did, we would have to cut them to avoid hanging our barge out to dry as the lock empties.

Lock No. 7 is one of the deepest in the whole network of locks in France, Ecluse de Bourg-le-Comte – 7.20 meters deep. The college student part time lookkeeper throws the line to me as we reach the bottom. As we pulled out, I took a photo of him up on the bridge cranking the lock doors shut – it's a good workout!

Never let the navigator cat nap

On Saturday, August 14^th, after spending two whirlwind days with Richard learning the systems of the boat, we set out for the Ikea store in Saint Etienne, about 45 or so minutes from our home port in Roanne. We spent a few frustrating hours trying to shop for things like sheets, duvets and comforters - if they had the duvet, they didn't have the comforter or the sheets, etc. etc, so we decided to return to Roanne to shop there. Here in France, everything is closed on Sundays, and many shops are closed on Mondays as well, so Saturday is a major shopping day and many stores are open late. We could high-tail it back there in time to find some essential items for the boat and shove off as planned on Tuesday. I swear, as Randy started talking about something really, really interesting, I dozed off – for what seemed like a nano-second. It was a combination of jet lag and sitting in the warmth of the sun on my side of the car, but when I awoke, we were in a beautiful forest, the foret noir – black forest. We passed a really interesting cement sculpture, and I couldn't understand why we hadn't seen it on our drive from the Geneva airport 3 days earlier. That should have been the first clue. Several minutes later, we came to the toll booth – 10.50 euros – that's funny, it was only 3 euros heading in the other direction. I finally realized something was very wrong when none of the road signs mentioned Roanne. We had driven at least 100 kilometers past the turn off for Roanne, and were headed into the city of Clermont Ferrand. We ended up doubling back to Roanne, but my cat nap, or Randy's interesting story, depending on who you're talking to, cost us an extra day in port!