St Jean du Losne

Seascapes Travel Log
Michael Grew
Fri 27 May 2011 08:36

St Jean du Losne  25.05.2011   47:06:28N  05:15:64E
Oh dear ! Something has gone wrong! There are clouds in the sky and there is no sign of that big shiny thing up there either. Ah well perhaps it is as well that were are moving on today. We slipped the mooring at 08:55hrs and pottered slowly out into the river to see if the Eclusier (lock keeper) was awake yet. We called up on channel 22 on the VHF, but got no response. We tried again at 09:01hrs and surprise surprise a female voice responded immediately. She must have heard us before, but the lock doesnât open until 09:00hrs. However she start to empty the lock for us immediately. It still took 10-15 mins to empty it is a huge amount of water to move. We negotiated the lock without any problem and continued up the new canal that by passes the river, which meanders all over the place. Trouble is the new bit is straight and boring. We arrived at St Jean du Losne at midday and moored up amongst a huge number of cruisers and barges all of which had for sale signs on them. Very interesting to see that the prices were so varied, some were outrageously over priced and others reasonable cheap. The price seeming to bear no relationship to the condition or year of the boat. I walked further along the pontoon and found to my surprise and pleasure the yacht âYgraineâ moored up. There were no sign of Ann and George Bee who live on the boat so I left them a note. We moored alongside  them last year in Chalone sur Soane in July last year and got famously with them. As I walked back to âSeascapeâ they were coming back from shopping. Naturally we had few drinks and natter on their boat and later that evening a few drinks and more natter on our boat. They (and probably us) will be leaving tomorrow and heading north on their way home to Suffolk. They will be taking a different route to us, they will be heading for Calais.