10 October Menen to Armentieres

We spent 3 days in France with no internet connection, hence the long silence.

26 km,3 locks

We intended to leave at sparrow’s this morning, as soon as it was fully light (about 8.00) but Ian developed a streaming cold during the night and didn’t sleep much between bouts of coughing/sneezing/snuffling/nose blowing, and was in no mood to get up before daylight so we left at 9.30.

It was such a treat to be on the move again after 6 days in the same spot.  The first lock, Menen Lock, is enormous – 195m long by 12.5m wide. And we were the only boat in it!  As we cleared that lock a big barge pulled out from a dock ahead of us but beetled off into the distance, we couldn’t keep up with him.  As we approached the next lock at Comines we could see that it was open, the green lights were on and the huge barge was waiting inside.  I called the lock master in my best French, flicking the switch in the brain from Nederlands to French! - and didn’t understand much of what he replied, but I did get “continuez”.  The barge captain must have been really annoyed!

The River Leie got more and more attractive: narrower and with lots more vegetation.

A swan family with "ugly ducklings".

A tight squeeze!

We turned off into the old narrow windy (as in curvy) Leie just before Deulemont and arrived at the Armentieres lock at 13.00.  It is not serviced in the lunch hour from 12.30 to 13.30 so we tied up and had lunch, intending to call for service just after 13.30.   At 13.25 we heard the lock gates opening and the lights went green!  How’s that for service.  The lock keeper came out to speak to us, asking if we were intending to go all the way up the Leie, in which case we would need a telecommande to open the locks.  Ah hah, obviously they have finished all the dredging work at Merville and the whole river is passable again.  What a pity we don’t have the time to do it now.  But it is such a lovely river that we will definitely pass this way again.

We have tied up at a small wooden pontoon between the lock and the turn-off to the marina.

An hour after we arrived the heavens opened and down came the rain – didn’t we time the deck painting well!  It is a good 20 minutes’ walk into the centre of town but I had to go and check out the historic bits

The pontoon is just 2 blocks from a huge Carrefour supermarket in one direction and a Lidl in the other direction, where we can stock up on all our favourite French specialities!