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| Moring at Fleury - note all the tables and chairs! and we're on the bottom! |
Hot sunny day, no clouds at all again. It was shady at Chevenon with the trees on our left sheltering us from the morning sun. The large French cruiser moored behind us, called Honfleur, left around nine then two yachts went past, also heading uphill. We got ready and I mopped the condensation off the roof before setting off at 9.45 a.m. Noted there were two ex-hireboats moored at the bottom of the gardens of two house in the village of Atelier. Wondered if they went on the bottom when the VNF empty the pounds in winter time? Arrived at the first lock, 20 Jaugenay (1.40m) as the two yachts were going into the empty chamber. Surprised, as we didn’t expect to see them again when they passed us earlier. Threw a rope around a bollard and waited. It was 10.10 a.m. Very shortly afterwards another French cruiser, a large Recla called Hermes with an elderly man working single-handed, arrived and moored behind us. Mike went out to have a chat.
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| Moorings at Fleury by a restaurant |
They spoke in English as Mike thought he was Dutch. Sent him into the lock first and we followed in behind. The young man in his thirties who worked the lock was very friendly, taking ropes and chatting. Mike measured the water drop as our chart said 0.59m – it was actually 1.40m. Both Vagnons, old and new were wrong. 10.35 a.m. as we left the lock on the 3.9 kms pound following the cruiser Hermes. Timed it just right as a French-flagged new replica small tjalk called Delisa came down. We followed Hermes into lock 19 Uxeloup (3.20m) where a young student lad worked the lock. This one had no ground paddles so he opened the gate paddles very slowly. It took ages to fill. The skipper on the cruiser had passed the rope from his fore end round a bollard on the lockside then back to the rear deck and had wrapped the end around his forearm and was struggling to hold the boat as the water moved his boat side to side. (So many people do this when they could make life a lot easier by putting the rope around a cleat on their decks, still holding it to take the slack in, not tying it - of course!)
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| Quiet mooring at Avril-sur-Loire. |
It hadn’t got far to go sideways as it was a wide boat. We knew we weren’t going to get to Fleury before the lunch break anyway. It was 11.35 a.m. when we left the top and we had 5 kms to Fleury lock 18 (2.25m). I made lunch while we went along, ready for when we tied up. Hermes had tied up before the last bridge. We carried on to tie up below the lock – no bollards so we attached to a log. Surprised to see the two yachts in sitting in the full lock chamber over lunchtime. Another French cruiser arrived, Heindrik, and they moored in front of us. After lunch the keeper emptied the lock. I went to see if the French crew in front were going up, no, the crew were still having lunch and no sign of Hermes either. We went into the lock and a jolly round man in his fifties worked the lock. Mike got off up the ladder with our rope and closed a gate. The keeper asked if we wanted any veg. Sorry, we’d just shopped at Carrefour. Told him we were probably stopping at Fleury for the weekend and he said if you run out of veg come and see me! OK!
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| Fleury-sur-Loire. |
The moorings were full. Charley was there, as was Honfleur (who set off at nine this morning) and a couple of French cruisers (one was a Dawncraft that lived there permanently). It was too shallow along the bank upstream of the quay so we backed off to try the other end by a lavoir, still too shallow. We moored along the sloping end of the quay at 45° to the canal, fortunately our stern didn’t stick out more than a couple of metres but our bows were on the bottom in the corner so we had to pull back a bit. We looked at all the tables and chairs on the grass along where we were moored (there was a small restaurant in a shed) and decided it was going to get noisy over the weekend so we decided to move on up to Avril. Mike went to tell Nick and Diana we were moving. Set off again at 3.10 p.m. It was getting pretty hot again. We hadn’t been going five minutes when we saw a cruiser coming towards us – it was Chris! Said hello, we’ve just left you a space on the quay at Fleury! We carried on 4 kms to Avril-sur-Loire. A very old (rotten) wooden-edged quay with bollards was just long enough for us. No facilities at all, no shade either. We tied up just after four p.m. Got the moped off the roof and Mike went to retrieve the car from Le Guetin. The Internet signal was lousy, EDGE 2G, but dropping out. There was a beautiful sunset so I took a photo as I closed all the doors to keep all the mossies out.
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