Sept 30th to Oct 3rd

Cercy-le-Tour to Decize to Les Vanneaux

On Monday we travelled the 14 kms back to Decize. 

An old disused lock at Cercy-le-Tour

I think this crop is sorghum.  Note the green sheen appearing on the fields

An old lock-keeper's cottage is now a "gite"

Fascinated by the crooked steeple

All our thoughts are taken up with the hurricane, Lorenzo, which is approaching the Azores.  It is a major Category 4 hurricane and we can only hope that it will diminish in strength and/or turn away.

The eye will pass just to the west of Flores.  Faial, Pico, Sao Jorge and Graciosa in the dangerous eastern quadrant, wind gusts of 180 km/hr are predicted.

We stopped at the quay in the commercial area to stock up in preparation for the Cullens visit.  Lynn and Shaun arrive tomorrow for a flying visit, only 2 nights.  The original purpose of our cruise this autumn was to meet up on our boats but they were east of us in the Rhone/Saone river valley and we are in the Loire river valley.  The canal connecting the two, Canal du Centre, was closed early in August because of low water resources so that could not happen.  Meanwhile we play shipping agent for them when they are travelling in Europe, receiving parcels for them at our home in Faial, and hand them over when we meet up.  So they hopped on a train (or 2) from Auxonne, where they left their boat, to Decize where the railway station is conveniently just 200m from a quay where we could tie up and wait for them.

The weather was completely uncooperative, hard rain, thunder and lightning, as we travelled the couple of kilometres to the town quay at Decize.  

And it continued to rain/shower/drizzle the whole time they were with us.  But that did not stop us having a good time, including a delicious meal of confit pork cheeks in a very local little restaurant.

The clock tower on the main square 

Les Halles, a 1 km long avenue of plane trees, some said to be 60m tall.

Drinks and coffee before lunch, or hiding from the rain, at the restaurant we later had lunch.
France playing USA in the Rugby World Cup on TV.

The queue at the boulangerie stretched out into the street.

Ian feeding the local wild life, not wild at all.  He bought some cans of cat food at the supermarket!

The hurricane had weakened to Cat 1 when it hit the Azores.  A great deal of damage was caused by the huge waves, washing away roads and harbours, and damaging buildings close to the shore.  At our house many tiles were blown off the roof, we got off lightly.

When Lynn and Shaun left just after lunch on Thursday, I dashed to the laundry and was back with pile of clean bedding and clothes by 15.15.  Seeing it was still early enough we decided to set off immediately for the port at Les Vanneaux (also called Gannay), 20 kms and 7 locks away.  We thought we could just make it through the last lock at Vanneaux before they close at 19.00, and if not there is a small waiting dock just below the lock.

All went well till we approached the fouth lock, the first lock on the Canal Lateral a la Loire.  We saw 2 hire boats tied up and waiting as the lock keeper was already busy with a boat in the lock.  We thought about it quickly and realised that 3 boats manoeuvring in and out of 4 locks would be time consuming so we changed plans and told the lockie we would stay behind and asked if we could go through the lock at 9.00 the next morning.  We returned to the quay on the Canal Lat. a la  Loire at Decize.

Quay at Saint-Legere-des-Vignes, via Saulx Lock to Decize.  7 kms, 3 locks, 2 hours