Douai to Halte de Bouchain

Just a reminder - click on the photos to make them bigger, they look a whole lot better!

Distance today 32.4 km.   Time 5 hours.

Our destination is a bit of a misnomer, the town of Bouchin is about 3 km north of the “Halte” (free mooring) and it does not show on normal maps so here is a close up of our nav charts.  

Just above the flag there are two off-shoots; there is a very small marina in the one on the right and the free pontoon is in the one on the left.  OK, so now you know where we have stopped for tonight, let’s backtrack a few hours.

Yesterday evening Ian took a walk to the Douai Lock just to check it out.

Good thing he took a photo because the camera battery was in the charger when we went through the lock.

Entering the Derivation de la Scarpe (photo taken yesterday)

The lock is listed as an automatic lock but we heard a barge ahead of us calling in on the radio so we did too.  Again a rather fast reply in French but between us we managed to understand it. Ian doesn’t speak any French and I don’t hear so well so he repeats what he has heard and I work it out!  These locks are in pairs and you will be directed into either the port (babord) or starboard (tribord) lock.  They have their own light systems so if you don’t understand just follow the green light.

This lock has only a 3.5m rise but it has floating bollards.  Wonderful.  There was only one available for us to use and this is how we did it – one line to the bollard amidships.

It worked very well.  Again the floating bollard mechanism was so smooth and there is very little turbulence in these big locks.
Sharing the lock with Jules Verne. 

The next lock, Courchelettes, 2km away, has a 5m rise and floating bollards.  

We went into the starboard lock and put fore and aft lines around 2 floating bollards.  Then we noticed another small barge heading towards the lock.  It was another pleasure cruiser!  The first one we have seen since we passed the British boat on the Lo Canal over a week ago, this one was Belgian. 

Immediately after this lock is the turn off to the Scarpe Superior which goes to Arras.  We really want to do this river on the way back because we have family connections to the WW1 battles in the area who are buried in the Brown’s Copse Cemetry close to the river.  But we have heard horror stories of the river being choked with weed and the locks, which are automatic and unmanned, giving lots of trouble, requiring the services of a technician who takes nearly an hour to get there, resulting in long delays.

Well, the water looked crystal clear, and the river looks charming.  Worth a try we reckon. 

The turn off to the Scarpe Superiure

The third lock after Douai, Goeulzin, is just 3.5 km from Courchelettes, has a 5m rise, and also has floating bollards.  We were directed to the port lock, the bigger of the pair at 144m long.   Again we used just one floating bollard amidships.  As we got to the top we saw two barges entering the smaller of the pair of locks!  144m of lock just for little Njord.

After that there was an uneventful 20km stretch along the Canal de la Sensée 

to the junction with the Escaut River. 

This becomes the River Schelde in Belgium and flows all the way to Ghent and Antwerp.  We turned south, which will take is to the St Quentin Canal in a couple of days.  We turned off into the Bassin Ronde.  

The free mooring on a floating pontoon.

It is a lovely area, probably buzzing in the summer.  The Bassin is a huge open piece of water with lots of holiday cottages with private jetties, a small marina and a sailing school.  We went for a long walk all along the Bassin.  After a showery morning the sun came out this afternoon and it was really what cruising is all about. 

There is a cheeky little coot who has taken up residence under our swim platform.  We suspect he and his lady friend have a nest close by because he uses our boat as hidey-hole and rushes out to chase off any other waterfowl that pass by. He even had a go at Ian when he stepped onto the swim platform to turn on the gas for the barbecue!

Chicken on the barbie tonight.