Will this be our last long cruise?

I gave up on the blog for a couple of years, but here I am back again for what may be our last cruise aboard Njord as we are planning to move north from here, back to Belgium or the Netherlands, and put the boat up for sale at the end of the year.

In 2020, the year Covid hit the world, we did not travel to France and we returned for just 4 weeks each in May and September 2021, travelling much the same route we had covered in Sept/Oct 2019.

Last year we spent 10 weeks in the spring travelling from Roanne, our home port, in a big loop along the Nivernais, the Yonne, the Loing, the Briar and the Canal Lateral a la Loire back to Roanne.

Moret-sur-Loing

In both 2021 and 2022 we encountered serious problems with low water levels and weed.  And this year it seems to be even worse.

We arrived on the boat on 17^th March expecting to set off on about 21^st, just to find out that the VNF had decided the day before to delay the opening of the canals in this area until 3^rd April in an attempt to preserve water resources seeing levels are already lower than normal.  This was not good news, apart from the frustration of being “trapped” in Roanne for 2 weeks, it meant we were going to have to rush our planned cruise along the Canal du Centre, Saone River, Canal Rhone au Rhin, then north to Colmar and Strassbourg before turning West along the Marne au Rhin Canal to Toul where we planned to leave the boat until the autumn.  Still it was do-able. 

Then on Friday came the news that the French are planning strikes for the whole month of April, which means lock closures and hence more delays.

So we reworked our plans and decided to skip the excursion to the North East/Colmar/Strassbourg and head north along the Petit Saone and the Vosges Canal to Toul.

Next morning we received the news that a section of the Canal du Centre, which we would reach in a week’s time, has a serious leak and has been drained to carry out repairs.  Well, goodness knows how long that will take – a few days? A few weeks?   

Now we have to rethink our plans again.  If we cannot turn right at the end of the Roanne Digoin canal onto the Canal du Centre we cannot get to Toul.  If we turn left onto the Canal Lateral a la Loire our only option is head for Paris and then north to Belgium, traversing canals we have done many times before.  We really wanted to cover new territory on this our last long cruise so we are not keen on this idea.  We leave here at 9.00 tomorrow and reach the end of this canal on Tuesday.  We are hoping to get some positive news from the VNF about the leak repair …… fingers crossed.

Stocking up

Some damage found on the hull when we arrived, deep scratched right through to the metal