Besacon to Baume-les-Dames, 36km, 10 locks, a detour and broken stair lock, 11 hours.             

Bow pinned in for a turn without any space in the encouragement of the ferry master.

Tarragonez tunnel, longest of our lives and we got you a photo with the nav lights on.

A little morning rain as we awoke early for seven, set to push a big day, we left the holding pontoon in the shadow of the mighty walled fort of Besacon and moved through the first lock as the seven am automatic system lights came on, triggered from our remote control and into the citadel we went. A giant tunnel was the quick route, it was marked 3.5 high, curved rocky roof so we thought to go around the loop, the guide book said enjoy the town. It got shallow and narrow. Pushed to what was proposed a lovely town centre mooring, very old boats and two town ferries tight as you like, the lock was manual, we tied up, took a look, never been used for years, silt way up the gates. Bless it was narrow in here, we reversed to the ferry, we are 20 meters and we had about twenty-two, but the edges rose with mud until the top of the bank. The ferry man arrived and encouraged us to turn. Bless and cotton socks, we pinned the bow in the mud ahead of the ferry, the ferry man waved more, turn in the mud. Pushing eight hundred horsepower starboard, into the soft mud and pulling hard in reverse with eight hundred horsepower to port stern. We eased around, a degree at a time as the ferryman smiled, thumbs up with encouragement. Nothing touched down, Wallop and gloop as the bow released from the mud and we faced the direction back. Well done the ferryman, we think he was as surprised to see our boat here as we were surprised to have been able to turn around.

We edged back to the long tunnel marked 3.5 meter clearance. Strapped our cut fenders to the radar arm and turned on the nav lights. The tunnel was chipped and curved the whole length. It was a slow 394 meters on easing down the narrow wall and avoiding lunges in the stone roof. Time to step ashore, mid tunnel for a mantelpiece photo, we got you a shot in action.

Gosh that was a morning, a derelict lock, bow pinned in the mud turn and half a kilometre of lock without clearance. Taking breath, the canal swapped to river as it skips height in this engineering of levels where we get a little river before the next narrow bit of canal. Then we came upon a Dutch sailboat - Blue Valentine, struggling in the next lock, took some time, so we moored to the holding pontoon, stripped and cleaned the water strainers. Lock light green before lunch time. We followed the Dutch yacht to the next lock where they were tied up. A stair lock, a pair ahead, it was kaput with two boats above and the VNF on their way, it will not be a record distance today. Two hours later the very kind Dutch sail yacht (Blue Valentine) said, ‘do go first we are stopping for the evening at the next mooring.’ Deluz was a splendid small marina but we were on a mission. A long run of river stepping over three locks was hard work, normally we would make up time on the river moving from four and a half knots to seven. Not today, the river was very shallow, deep weed marked a vision of a channel that showed on the map sets as between 15 and 20 meters from the bank. It danced about and was hard to hunt down as the river gave us so many different signs but generally left us with less than a meter of water below the boat. Mighty limestone cliffs reached for the sky in a gorge fit for Cheddar back in Blighty. Stressful hunting and very slow progress on what could have been such good water. We finally came upon lock forty, pushing a big rise to place us back on a formal canal stretch. We returned to African Queen country, mega narrow. Point eight of a metre below the boat, tress touching the portholes, but it was a clear and viewable channel to run. Deep green and full of algae to be sure to give us a strainer job for teatime. Tea time from the narrow canal arrived at the small marina of Baume les-Dames, marina is a great term for two hundred meters of wall and twelve boats already on it. We tide river facing, cross diamonds of muddy black rope in three diamonds to hold twenty metres of boat on a protrusion of three meters of wall. Job well done for a peg that could not fit but we had some 16amp electricity and the air conditioner burst into life to help with the thirty-degree evening sunset.

Life on the Canal Rhone du-Rhin. Transiting Palma via Spanish Main, the Rhone, Soane to Lyon and heading for the Rhine.

The Besacon diversion, a broken stair loack,36km 10 locks eleven hours to Baume-les—Dames 47:20.44N 06:21.45E