Saint Quentin to Jussy

22kms, 3 locks

Yesterday I did not do a great deal of anything except sit with my leg up.  Oh yes, I walked to the “patisserie” for a baguette and 2 pastries, today we tried Pain Suisse and Croissant Chocolat.  Yumm! 

However, Ian was busy all day installing the deck washer.  That required emptying an awful lot of lockers so he could run water pipes (lots of hole drilling), installing a valve in the bulkhead through to the aft deck and a pump in the engine room.  Took hours, and then it didn’t work because it turned out that the pump is faulty.  Many 4 letter words!

This morning we watched the F1 Chinese GP and left Saint Quentin at 10.45.  It just so happened that we joined the canal in the middle of the convoy of barges from tunnel.  It took us a while to realise this.  We could see one some way behind us as we entered the canal and cruised up to one in the first lock.  After that we moved slowly to allow the barge ahead to clear the locks before we arrived, and ready to go behind the barge following us if he caught up to us. But at the second lock it all fell apart.  The barge ahead was still just sitting in the lock with nothing happening, then a VNF man arrived pressed buttons, had many telephone calls and discussions with the barge owner.  I went to speak to him to find out if the lock would be out of service for a while.  Oh, he said, I’ll open the other lock for you (these are paired locks, one automatic – the faulty one – and the other manual).  As the gates started to open the second barge arrived behind us so we thought he would have to go through first and dutifully fell back behind him.  Meanwhile the automatic lock with barge number one inside it was now working, he was moving out and barge number changed direction to go through that one!  What confusion.  So we entered the manual lock and hey presto, Mr Lock Keeper had us on our way down and out the other side.

2 kms later was the third lock of the day.  As we approached we could see one barge in the lock and the barge whichhad got stuck in the previous lock waiting to enter.  We waited for our turn but the barge behind us arrived so Ian moved well out of the way to let him go ahead.  He walked to the bow and told us to ahead first because there were many barges behind him.  That’s when the penny dropped that we had managed to insert ourselves into the convoy from the tunnel.  Anyway, it was very kind of him to let us go ahead otherwise we have had to fall all the way to the back of the convoy.

It's Sunday and the rowers were out

A barge stuck in the lock

We had intentions of going all the way to Chauny, 40kms and 12 lock away, but after 4 hours we had done just 22 kms and 3 locks so we have stopped at a free dock, no services, in Jussy.  And watched the rest of the convoy come past – another 4 barges.

Moored at an old commercial quay, now with lots of bollards conveniently spaced.