Travelling in a heatwave
Seascapes Travel Log
Michael Grew
Fri 9 Jul 2010 13:35
This was a mining town (hence the “les Mines” bit of the name) The only thing left of its past was that at midday, a siren sounds, which signals the commencement of siesta and the shutting of all the shops and general downing of tools. Nobody has thought to sound the siren again to signal the end of siesta. That’s probably why nothing seems to get done in a hurry. (“Manyana” is far too quick!) Sorry I seem to have got a bit ahead of myself. We were awoken early by lots of frenzied barking and Germanic swearing, coming from the Swiss boat. Apparently the dogs needed to “stretch their legs”. After breakfast we wandered over to a local restaurant where they had a free WiFi connection for customers. (a useful excuse for me to have a cold beer while updating the log) Another scorching hot day that made us regret making the decision a little, to stay in the port (where there is absolutely no shade) to wait for the “Do Littles”. Fortunately they arrived at lunchtime. In the afternoon we made a quick trip to the supermarket in town to pick up supplies. At 18:30hrs Claude (“Finalite”) and Lori and Wally (“Do Littles”) came on our boat and had a couple of bottles of wine before all of us tottered over to the restaurant for a meal. (and more wine!) Then back to “Finalite” for a nightcap before turning in for the night.
08/07/2010 48:40:71N 04:37:97E
Marathon day! We planned to travel to St Leger-sur-Dheune to,day but the early start we had planned was dashed by the lock keeper who told us the huge hotel barge had special dispensation to leave the port at 08:00hrs. Terrific! That meant we would have to travel behind the hotel all day, and it’s top speed is 3knots and because of it’s size it would have to be in a lock on it’s own. Ah well! Never mind we set off at 10:00hrs and after going through the first lock, we saw the hotel barge moored up. Apparently one of the guest had fallen ill and had to go off to the doctors. What a shame! That meant we could go in front and not get held up anywhere. Today was the hottest it has been so far (40 degrees at least and little or no breeze). In spite of that we covered 30 kilometres, passed through 30 (yes 30!) locks dropping down about 100 metres. When we arrived at St Leger at 19:00hrs we were both absolutely knackered. It sounds like we were being masochistic, but there are no moorings deep enough for us, in between. After a quick meal, and a game of cards we turned in for an early night.