OUR ARRIVAL TO FRANCE 22nd April 2018 – DEPARTURE 10th September 2018
We crossed the English Channel via the Euro Star and arrived late afternoon at our Hotel Ibis for the night. Up early to get a train to Migennes where our boat Anja is dry docked for the winter. The French railway system was on strike for 3 months with limited services for 2 days every 5 was in place. Of course our travel day was a strike day and having reviewed the website the previous night we found only 2 trains were running the next day , so off early dragging all our luggage to Gare du Nord. We had chosen to stay across the road from Gare Bercy where our train to Migennes would of departed from if the strike had not been on.
The first train of the day left 40 mins late, then half way stopped for an hour, before “everybody off” cancelled and wait for the next train that left Paris 1.5 hours after our train. Changing platforms, upstairs and down with all our luggage a real hassle. Normally travel light but moving to France for 5 months and also being in England and the cold for 2 months our luggage was excessive.
Next problem, David the previous owner of Anja was arriving by plane after all the trains were stopped. So he caught a train to Melun and after us arriving in Joigny to pick up our car for one week , we set off back to Paris outskirts to pick him up and back to Migennes and the boat yard. Quiet a performance a 3 hour return trip.
Anja , our new bateaux is moored and winterised in Migennes on the Yvonne river in France . Migennes is about 1.5 hours south of Paris, in the top of the Bourgogne area.
We stayed in the boat yard on the owner of the yards old bateaux. Handy to be 5 seconds from Anja each day but not so glamous as he doesn’t use it and it was dark, dusty and smelly.
We spent the next week doing numerous maintenance jobs on Anja and learning all the mechanics of operation from David. We tarred the hull, painted the sides of the boat, cleaned and repaired a few issues and stocked the bateaux in this week. Started at 7am each morning and finished each night at 10pm. VERY Tired.
The next job, a week later was ”Anja into the water”. All 36 tonnes and 16m long x 4.2 metres wide hanging by belts as she was craned into the river Yvonne.
Then a small fire, oh dear. Turned out a cable was unearthed and as she left the ground and pre- water contact caused the wiring to burn out the charger for the bow thruster.
Fire out and next job to rewire with thicker cables and order a new charger which we actually didn’t get till after David had left the boat and was up to John to follow a long list of instructions from David via email to install. But success! he did it without a hitch, 3 weeks later.
David and myself crewed the boat around to the Port of Migennes in the rain and wind while John took the car back to Joigny and trained back to Migennes. Next day was May Day the 1st of May , so no one working and the locks closed. A another day of maintenance.
May 2nd
Finally we are off and moving, David teaching John the ins and outs of driving the bateaux and myself learning the ropes and different techniques involved in all the different locks. Just when you think you have seen all the different types of locks and operations you find different ones.
Technique of driving in and out of the locks varies so much and some quiet scary with cross currents that throw you off course as you put this 4.2 metre wide barge between walls sometimes only 5 metres wide. Technique with the ropes varies from downstream and upstream and whether the walls of the locks are square , v shaped , manual , automatic , sometimes you signal the lock with a clicker pre the lock , wait for the gates to open , other times grab a hanging pole 100 m out and rotate it , the big locks on the seine are operated by a lock keeper in a tower and you radio him when you 10 minutes prior to your arrival. Of course this is all in French , and our French isn’t great.
We have the radio call to the lock keeper worked out
Bonjour Ecluse …name of the lock,
Plaisance Anja ici……………..pleasure boat Anja here
J’arrive kanz minute, Montant ( upstream) or avantant, ( downstream ) ……I arrive in 15 minutes and from what direction.
Which all works out until the lock keeper, the eluscier, speaks back in French and you have no idea what he said. Fortunately, with a bit of French and English we have worked our instructions out so far. Except at one lock the lock keeper told John over the radio that the gates were open and to come in. When we were about 70 metres out he saw that one of the gates was only half open and had to quickly do an emergency 180 degrees turn around, before the current pushed us into the lock gate. We barely missed a big pole by inches. The lock keeper was not paying attention and nearly caused a very nasty incidence for us.
The locks all have name and numbers and this depends on what river or canal you are on. But our map books which all came included in the sale of the bateaux gives you all the info on the lock, the height of the lock, channel to call on the radio, bridge heights and directions of manoeuvre. The height of the lock can vary from 2 m to over 4m , so when travelling into the lock and about to go up in the lock, sometime I have to use a long pole with the rope in a hook , reach up over 4 metres to a bollard set back from the edge and twist the rope around the bollard I can barely see and when around the bollard pull the ropes tight to secure Anja , then move to a mechanism and push a pole , which is usually grimy and disgusting up to activate the gates to close. Move back to the rope and pull it tight constantly as the water rushes into the lock and up we go 2-4 metres. When the front gate opens, release the rope and John drives the bateaux out. Downstream is the opposite and I have to throw the rope over the bollard and hope I don’t miss. Happens occasionally.
We spent 2 weeks with David doing large locks sharing them with large 1000 tonne commercial barges and some small locks. In the big locks you must use ropes front and back, the small locks front only though occasionally when sharing with another boat, a second rope helps to keep you from bumping the front gates or the other boat which is right up your clacker.
We are indeed lucky to have had David with us to show us the ropes, driving , maintenance and mechanics of the boat. The boat came with nearly everything we could want. The engine room is full of thousand of dollars of spare parts, tools for any job you may need to do and inside furniture , cutlery, crockery( though I did replace with some new things like towels , sheets and some crockery. It has 2 bikes, bbq, maps brochures of different towns, where to go, what to see and everything set up for us. Yes we have some maintenance jobs to catch upon to get things to our liking but this will happen in time.
Towns visited in our first 2 weeks.
Migennes,……..On the River Yvonne.
This town is where Anja spends winters in dry dock. A dull town, not so pretty but has good facilities for shopping and stocking the boat pre departure. We take advantage of the car to stock the boat with all the big items as shopping is on foot form here on, Gas, beer, cereal, wine, loo paper, milk and tinned items. Milk here in France is all UHF not fresh. The car also enables us to drive to hardware stores while doing jobs but mostly this is 15kms away.
Joiney, on the Yvonne River
A pretty town, with commercial centre close by and a pretty foreshore.
Villeneuve-sur-yonne.
Historic gates to the town, ramparts and an afternoon of strolling around the historical sites.
Sens. A large historic town
Has an old cathedral (circa 1130), market place, a museum of treasury with items that date back to 12th & 13th centuries with the clothing of St Thomas Becket. Other artifacts included items from the Bronze and Celtic age.
The museum had old Roman building foundations and many Roman artifacts on display in the basement. Sens became a flourishing Roman city in the third century
Pont-sur-yonne.
Here we enjoy the local markets where you can find everything from your fresh fruit and veg to meat , fish , clothes, nick nacks and we brought a new mattress topper for our bed. What a difference that made. Once again google translator came in handy when haggling with the market vendor.
Moret -sur -Loing and st Mammes
This is the first time we have paid for a mooring, water and electricity included.
Fortunately with a newly installed solar panels, we rarely need to plug into electricity and have only had to use our generator once in six weeks. With a water tank of 2000 litres we rarely need to pay for these moorings. However, in a very few towns there isn’t a free mooring.
The sun is finally really out in France today and we hiked into St Mammes (sont mama) and toured the town of Moret. Another public holiday in France and everybody was out enjoying the water and sun. France had 3 public holidays in May the first May 1 . May day, then the 6th and 8th for other reasons.
Moret had a little mill house, moulin and gates to the city plus a beautiful sunset that evening.
Nemours, the top of the Canal le Loing.
This part of the trip was mostly to practice small locks and new techniques
A lot of these little villages, you arrive and walk around and see no-one. Some times all the shops are closed by lunch, or they close for lunch for 2 hours. Very frustrating when you arrive to find doors are closed, but this how France does things so something we must get use too it.
Onto the seine River.
The river seine runs through Paris and this time we only got to within 10 kms of the historic centre of Paris. We moored at Alfortville to give David his exit point from the boat and await for Paul, Johns brother, who arrived the next day and stayed with us for 3.5 weeks. Staying in the centre of Paris is a trip for another time. Our time on the Seine was to practice the huge locks and mix with large commercial traffic and learn the radio lingo.
We stayed an extra day and night here in Alfortville, an unattractive outer suburb of Paris, and our mooring on the Seine is below.
John had to catch a train back to Moret to pick up the charger for the Bow thruster. It had finally arrived 1 week late. We spend time installing this and more shopping. Crockery, towels now replaced and the supermarket 2 kms away, along the banks of the Seine River and across a bridge (see photo above). Then return with 2 large trolleys which after pushing them 2 kms back to the boat, I unpacked while john took the trolleys back. We must have looked a sight pushing these trolleys across the bridge and along the river, but when your only transport on shore is your feet you get used to doing things differently and certainly our fitness is improving. Knees coping too, which is great after the terrible time in England with my knees. Bonus, weight reducing too for both john and I. John has lost over 6 kilos and Deb 5 Kilos in our first six weeks in France (Good diet and lots of walking)
Found a hairdresser, so much better than the 2 in England, and they had some English which helped with the communication.
Mostly we are finding our French is getting us by for shopping etc. but I can’t say our French has improved, some new phrases, but as much as we are here in France we don’t have a lot of conversations with French people except for the basics and sometimes they can speak English which helps. Some conversations we attempt a few words, they rattle of in French we understand close to nothing but nod and pretend we did and ask someone else. Having said that we have not been reading our French lessons either we just never seem to have time.
We travel most days, mostly in the mornings and spend the afternoons exploring the towns, occasionally a second day to explore more but moving along if the place we are staying in is small. Some time is spent doing maintenance jobs as well.
