April 21st

Vitry-le-François to Pargny 

19 kms, 7 locks, more than 6 hours

It should have been a short day today.  

Our saloon full of boxes

A sad sight just outside the port, an abandoned British boat, post Brexit probably 

We set off soon after 9.00, sunny, calm and a positively balmy 9C, but at the very first lock we got stuck.  The lower gates opened (we are now going uphill), the lock filled, and nothing, the top gates did not open.  We didn't have a phone number for this canal so I climbed off and pressed the "emergency" button that every lock has to put you in contact with Central control point.  It worked but I am vertically challenged, i.e short, and the loud speaker was way up high and I battled to hear what the very polite gentleman was trying to tell me.  But, he got the gist, and 30 minutes later he, himself, arrived, to help us out.  The first thing he said is "You speak very good French".  Blow me down, I was gobsmacked.  

As we approached the second lock we saw another pleasure cruiser ahead of us, waiting for a big commercial barge to exit the lock.  From then on we shared the locks with the German cruiser but both of us had to slow up for the commercial, fully laden.  They are huge, and cumbersome, and slow.  They travel at 4km per hour and we at 8 km per hour.  Plus they take forever to slow down, manoeuvre in and out of locks, and speed up again.  But if it wasn't for them these canals would not exist so we just have deal with it.  The biggest problem is that they churn up the weed into small fragments that block engine cooler inlet and the toilet. An hour or so later there was quay where we could tie up and just wait for a couple of hours till he had got far enough ahead of us.  

The barge ahead of us

Pretty canal

A very tight fit, no wonder they take so much time to enter and exit the locks

We have stopped in a lovely halte nautique between 2 locks just 400m apart, with water and electricity but you do have to pay for the privilege, and there are two, yes two, bakeries in the village. There was already another pleasure boat tied up here, a small traditional barge, now a private pleasure cruiser.  Late in the afternoon I saw a commercial barge come through the the lower lock and then heard the church bells chiming for 7pm when the locks close.  Sure enough the upper lock lights went out and he was trapped.  Nowhere for a big barge to tie up.  But the smaller pleasure barge called him alongside to tie and here he is just a few metres astern of us

The bad news is he will be leaving at 7 in the morning and we can't go through the locks till 9, so an hour or so later we will catch up with him and have the same problem we had today.  I guess we will not make it our intended destination tomorrow.