6.6°C Hot and sunny, clouding over in the evening with a few light showers of rain. Up before nine. Mike fetched a loaf from the boulangerie and saw the lady keeper from the lock in the shop. We set off just after 9.30 a.m. as the German-crewed Locaboat went into the lock. The neighbours were having a few days at Cercy before catching us up. I walked up with a rope to drop down when the boat arrived in the lock. First I gave the keeper a hand winding gates and paddles and having a good chat. She asked where we were going this year and I said the Haute Seine hopefully. Emptied the lock and Mike brought the boat in. While the boat rose 2.47m, the keeper said one of her colleagues was getting the next lock ready for the Germans and there was a boat coming down later. Made a cuppa on the 2.7 kms pound to Chaumigny, lock 29, a shallower lock only 2.06m. The other keeper, a man with glasses, had worked the hireboat through and turned the lock round. Both Mike and I made a mess of throwing ropes up, I resorted to using a short shaft again! Back to beginners, the keeper only laughed! Our lady keeper from Cercy said the Loca was going very slowly (very unusual for a hireboat) so we would go up the next together. I sat out in the sunshine and did my log notes on the 3 kms up to Isenay lock 28. We passed the downhill boat, a British replica DB called Decize, which went almost on the towpath as we went past –a good way to get stuck on the bottom. The keeper from lock 26 (another large guy with glasses) worked the lock with the Loca right up the front - it worked OK if very slow. A short pound to lock 27 Moulin d’Isenay so the keeper said he would work us through that one then it would be lunchtime and we’d see him at 1.30 p.m. at his own lock. Fine. Lock 27 was a shallow one and we went up slowly. The hireboat moored in the corner of an old layby where there were picnic tables, we motored on to moor about 100m below Sauzay lock with our centre rope round a tree on the non-towpath side. I made some lunch and we sweltered in the midday heat. Set off again just after 1.30 p.m. following the Loca into the lock. I stepped off as we went in Sauzay lock and dropped a rope down again as it was a deeper one, 2.45m, and gave the keeper a hand with the gates and paddles. The Loca carried on uphill but we moored on the non-towpath side before Panneçot with mooring pins down the edges of the piling. Nothing else moved and there was little or no towpath traffic.
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