Along the canal du Marne
Seascapes Travel Log
Michael Grew
Sat 11 Jun 2011 16:32
Somewhere on a deserted canal bank 06.06.2011 47:29:60N 05:23:32E.
Up early and cycled into town for supplies from the supermarket. 10:00hrs said goodbye and good luck to the Capitainerie and his wife and left the marina, turning right upstream on the river Saone. At 12:15hrs we left the Soane and entered the Canal du Marne. At the first lock a vending machine gave us an electronic gizmo to remotely operate the locks. The first two locks were fine, except that while waiting for one lot of gates to open, Maureen dropped a boat hook over the side that flatly refused to float so it was lost forever. At the third lock the gates refused to operate. I rang the VNF and they promised to send a man out to fix it. Twenty five minutes later a man did turn up and opened the lock and promised to get us a new gizmo. He then took our lines in the lock but clearly did not know what he was doing and we had a panicky few minutes while the boat wandered all over the lock. (I thought these guys were supposed to be professionals). I thought he just misunderstood my instructions but when he helped us in the next two locks and made the same mistakes again, he was obviously incompetent. Having said that, to be fair, he did go and get us a gizmo that worked. After that we had no further problem except with the weather which rained heavily on and off. Although we were fairly lucky that it didn’t rain on us while we were in locks. When we had passed through thirteen locks and the time was approaching 18:30hrs Maureen requested we stopped for the night, so having found a quiet stretch of canal we pulled over and tied up to some trees. We rang George and Ann and told them our position and they agreed to stop after they have gone through tunnel that is on our route (that should be a new experience for us). They will then wait for us there. An early night I think is called for.
Somewhere near lock 32 07.06.2011 47:44:15N 05:19:55E
This morning I nearly had heart failure, it was cold and damp and when I tried to start the engine. It coughed a few times like an asthmatic smoker and sounded like it was only firing on two cylinders. By opening the throttle wide it would keep running, but shake violently. I checked everything I could think off without solving the problem. So I decided it must be water in the fuel. I went to switch off the engine so I could empty the fuel filter and found Maureen had not pushed the “Stop” lever fully home when she stopped the engine last night. Problem solved, I pushed the lever home and immediately the engine was back to normal (Phew!) I then had to admit it was my fault, I told her how to do it but forgot to mention to push the lever back in afterwards. (Twit!) We left the mooring at 08:30hrs. The cruiser that had been moored up 200yds in front of us, beat us away, which meant we would be behind him all the way through the locks, with him setting the pace. I needn’t have worried because in the first lock we came to (an automatic one) we got stuck inside, as having let us in, then refused to let us out again. The VNF were contacted by phone and a lady member of staff turned up, but was unable to work out what was wrong. I found out there was a wasps nest across one of the electronic sensors. 1 quick burst of fly spray and vigorous brushing did the trick and we were on our way again. Ten minutes later in another lock we got stuck again when the gates failed to open. Maureen went ashore and found a VNF man cutting the grass banks. Fortunately he had a key and operated the gates for us. That was fine except that while waiting for Maureen to get back on the boat I had gone hard aground ( I think I should have stayed in bed today!). After a concerted effort with the welsh cruiser owner and the VNF man ashore pulling on ropes and some judicious use of the engine we came free and at 10:05hrs we resumed our journey. We saw a Red Kites harassing 2 Buzzards that presumably were prtotecting their young. It was a real aerial dog fight. We didn’t stop for lunch to make up for the time we lost in the locks, but ate a sandwich under way. In the afternoon we passed a huge netted game bird farm. At 17:30hrs we stopped for the night at a halt just after passing through lock no.9 at Villengusein. After the evening meal and having allowed time for the engine to cool down, I cleaned out the almost fully blocked raw water filter, where we had picked up weed and grass cuttings. Turned in early, we have a busy day tomorrow, with eight 5metre locks and a 5 kilometre tunnel to negotiate.