Navigator’s Note

We are making our way slowly down the Yonne to the Seine when we will pick up our friend Sharon and head into Paris where we will stay for about 2 weeks from August 13th.  Then back up the Seine and into the Canal de Loing and up the Loire valley.

Chillow Weather

Our first year had too many cold days.  The second year was perfect.  This year started off with a mixed bag of weather and some spectacular storms.  Now, it’s hot.  That sticky humid sweat dripping down your face hot.  Much too hot to sit on the boat even with the shade cover.  So where have we spent the last two days?  In heaven.  My idea of it anyway.  Rob will take a photo of our spot with our new little Canon.  Our other new and better Canon started acting weird, not wanting to work half the time, then completely bit the dust when I dropped it on the floor of the wine caves. Meanwhile back in heaven we sit, we read, some of us nap, we picnic, and people watch.  The boat is moored just on the other side of the sidewalk on the Yonne River.  In this heat there are plenty of people swimming, mostly teenagers who hang out in groups and throw each other in.  Very cute.  The best part is the plush soft fine grass between our toes and the numerous flower beds.  One of the prettiest parks, wait, THE prettiest park I’ve ever seen.  Not in the league of Kew Gardens of course yet more colorful and inviting. 

We’ve been doing so many things I’m not sure I can even remember it all.  I mentioned the wine cave above.  It’s in the area that grows my favorite stuff.  The bubbly, Cremant (de Bourgogne).  The Champagne that is not.  The caves were discovered long before the Romans, but they first started using the stone for building.  The cave grew larger and longer through the years.  Important buildings all over France have used this warm sand colored limestone, including Notre Dame.  In 1972 they were bought by a wine conglomerate of 80 Companies for wine storage.  Temperature is a constant 52F and 69% humidity and there are 8 million bottles of Cremant stored while they go through a two year process before selling.  The tour was very interesting.  The tasting tasty.  We bought  1/2 a case which was all Rob could really carry back in the hot weather.  We also went through the Chablis growing area.  We are not big fans.  We did tasting and found a nice one and bought a couple of bottles for when we have others on board for drinks.  The Brits like their whites.

We visited another Chateau, “Bazoches”, as lovely as the rest, but has a wonderful and important history.  I won’t bore you with the whole story.  It is now privately owned by someone who must have an awful lot of money.  They have their family tree in one of the rooms.  They both come from the best of families over the centuries.  They’re not only a descendant of an important former owner, Engineer Vauban, but one side traces back to Saint Louis,  the first of the main line of the Kings of France.  Not too shabby. 

Last year we were in Paris for Bastille Day.  This year the village of Clamecy.   The parade was headed by four men each holding a flag,  They were followed by a few policeman, fireman, a couple of oldies in old service uniforms, a group of kids from the Judo club and then people from the town who chose to join in.  That was the good part.  Old couples all dressed up, families, dogs and a few teens acting silly.  I didn’t attend the jousting down by the river.  Rob went.  Two small boats with rowers, the jouster standing, coming at each other and trying to knock the other standing person over.  (photo: preparing a kid) They started with kids, then the ladies and then the men.  But the best part, as always, was the fireworks which was set off just 75 feet from us on the other side of the canal.  We sat on the back drinking Cremant.  Very cool having it just over our heads.  Rosie and Lilou hated the noise.

In Noyers, fab intact medieval village, we attended a Brocante, an outdoor antique fair.  We ran into folks from Washington that we have spent time with at other mooring locations.  They had guest from home staying with them.  The husband was 91, wife 88 and a friend to give them a hand who was 80.  Amazing people who were enthusiastic and having a great time.  The wife spotted the old linen baby bonnets a second before I did and bought both.  Inside I was screaming…but what about my grandchild!  I just smiled.

For two days we rented a car so we could do things like go to the hilltop town of Vezelay with it’s 11th century Abbey.  We fell upon a chorus giving a concert which sounded unearthly in the huge chapel.  It was great traveling the many miles of pretty countryside ,rural rolling hills, really tiny really old villages and the full rage of landscapes.  Miles of grape vines planted in dry rock soil, then miles of wheat and corn in rich black soil,  the odd Sunflower field, the Morvan National Forest, so thick it felt like rain forest in some parts and then you come upon another knock your socks off piece of architecture when you least expect it.  The one thing I couldn’t help thinking about was life in these tiny little villages that all at least 500 years old and many miles from each other.  Few would have owned a horse.  I said to Rob, “Who did they marry?”  Each other of course.

Today is the fourth night in Auxerre.  We were here four years ago while on a rental boat.  Rob had sprained his ankle on the second day so was unable to sight see.  The view you get when coming into Auxerre  is one of the most impressive sights with three huge hilltop cathedrals surrounded by crowed steep tile roof tops from the 14th Century.  Although we are on the park now, the first two night we spent in town with the town rising right above our boat.  The first night we went out to live music.  The group and crowd made it so much fun.  They played music that we didn’t know mostly, except some U2 and REM.  Everyone was dancing.  Even a couple two year olds got the beat.  Last night we went to another café/street closure for “French Jazz”.  A base, guitar and accordion.  A much older crowd, enjoyable, but nobody danced. 

The Nivernais  Canal ended in Auxerre.  We could do it this year because of the huge amount of rain last winter.  It is the most shallow of all canals.  This was the first in many years that we could have gone.  It has been different then any of our previous travels in that there are so many other boats AND for the first time, so many French.  It’s great to see them using their own wonderful canals.  In the past seeing a Frenchman was rare.  Here we’ve met many owners, young people and three generations of French. 

TWO DAYS LATER:  Traveling the Yonne River at the moment, the third boat in a group of four moving from lock to lock.  First boat a Belgium couple,  second Brits, us, and behind us a big charter with 12 40ish French woman.  We have a clip of them we will show when home of some doing exercises on the bow.  When we come out of the lock there are boats waiting to come in.  It’s one of those times that we worry about getting a spot in the mooring.  Tonight we want electricity to watch some of the Olympics.

Just two more things to mention.  I love to pick wild flowers for the boat when they are available.  I have seen many different kinds and am always on the look out for new.  I came across one small bush of purple Queen Anne Lace growing in the middle of a purple flower.  Haven’t seen one before or since and wonder if it was a mutant of some kind.  The other is interesting.  While admiring a person’s flower garden I noticed a little something like a very hovering like a very tiny hummingbird.  But they don’t have them here.  I moved around for a closer look.  You know how something hits your brain and in a fraction of a second you process a million thoughts.  I swear that for one millisecond this is what went through my mind:  Oh my god, it’s got a face with eyes, it’s a fairy, they are real and Rob’s not here!!!  Then I saw it closer and it stuck out a “proboscis”, like a honey sucking insect and there you go, just an unusual bug.  They are rare this far north in France though.  They are called, a Hummingbird Hawk Moth. 

Weather has cooled down, smooth sailing and great desserts.  Who could ask for more.

Love, Terry

Tupperware and Fireworks

Clamecy

This charming town is as far as we came on the Nivernais canal in 2009 when we did our last rental before buying Armida, so we are  about to retrace some steps.  This is not a problem because the canal continues to delight and we look forward to taking more time.

However the Nivernais is the second most popular in France after the Canal du Midi and the stretch from here is busier than what we have done so far.  Saturday is Bastille day and the unofficial start of the holidays so we are in “Tupperware” territory as seasoned cruisers dismissively refer to the fibreglass rental boats.  Having done many rentals ourselves we are sympathetic but confess to some amusement as we watch them sidle into locks, bump into moorings and run around like crazy throwing the ropes.  As long as they keep their distance from Armida’s paint we will stay amused.

We arrived Thursday morning to get a prime spot in this little port as we plan to stay for the festivities and the locks are closed on Bastille day anyway.  Our timing was good as it filled quickly in the afternoon.  The Nivernais was the centre of timber supply for Paris in the late nineteenth century when huge masses of logs were floated down the Yonne river, and Clamecy was the base of the woodmen. So as well as the parade in the morning and the fireworks in the evening there will be “jousting” on the river in the afternoon which is apparently how the woodmen used to amuse themselves.

The weather has been grey and cool for the last few days with clouds scudding low over the hills.  Today it has settled in to a steady rain.  If it continues like this tomorrow we may only have the tupperware.

How to organize the perfect canal.

Sardy-les-Epiry, Saturday

First it helps to have good scenery.  If you can’t do great views then a lovely lush forest with open stretches will do.  Maybe you start with a lake right by the canal that leads to a tunnel that opens out to a narrow wooded channel that has you in the middle of the forest with the sun streaming through the trees. Then gradually reveal the top of the valley.  You will probably have a lot of locks if you are coming down from the summit of your canal so make sure they all have delightful cottages next to them, maybe even with a craftsman or two in residence and that they are slow and easy.

Populate the locks with friendly lock keeper and, in July, helpful students.. Supervise them with a friendly VNF lock keeper who, when we see him going past on his bike with lettuce on the back, ask if we can buy some – he laughs but says he is not selling.  Then when we get to his cottage he comes by and pulls up a fresh lettuce from his garden and gives it to us.

Because your staff have to stop for lunch between 12:00 and 1:00 make sure they have a good place to eat their lunch so they are happy too and then allow us to stop in the full lock outside the most magical cottage with a lovely garden and all sorts of quirky artwork while we eat our very fresh salad.

Then, at the end of the day send the next lock keepers by to enquire when we are leaving tomorrow and ask: would we like bread and croissants delivered in the morning.

It is best if all this happens in one day.

If you can do this you might be getting close to the top of the Canal du Nivernais.

North by the Nivernais

(Threading the Needle)

Leaving the brand new and friendly port of Decize we crossed the Loire by actually motoring along it for about 1.2km and entered the canal du Nivernais, Our first stop was a convenient mooring right by  Carrefour and E.Leclerc supermarkets where we stocked up for our trip into the “wilderness”, and then we were off.

The Nivernais is the Cinderella of the canal system being created as a navigation canal from what was a timber floating network for Paris. It was never converted to the Freycinet “standard” so the locks are a little narrower and shorter, and it lost its commercial traffic in the seventies, earlier than most. It has survived because it is one of the prettiest canals in the system and a favourite of the rental boats and hotel boats.  This means that the authorities have let its dimensions shrink to accommodate “most” of it’s users and we are an outlier.  When we were shopping for boats this canal was on our minds and bought the most comfortable boat that would fit – just.  The French specs are somewhat flexible it turns out so we are threading the needle to fit in as we go along.  The official minimum depth is 1.4m but we are just over 1.1m and about a quarter of the time the depth sounder is reading 0 or more scarily *.* and its accuracy is confirmed by the occasional bump on the keel or sideways slither.

 

The bridges are arched and many are well below the 3.5m that are the supposed norm for the rest of the canals (there is another blog post hiding there) with some posted as low as 2.7m.  Armida is 3.49m with the bimini up (easy to get up and down), 3.45m with the canopy (I’m now told the real term is cabriolet which sounds much fancier, but it can come down easily but we have to stand up to drive when it is ) and 2.92m to the top of the windshield, which can come down with some exertion.  So our current mode of travel is with the Cabriolet (said in a snotty voice) removed and the bimini up for the shade, but it get’s dropped if the bridges look threatening. So far so good but the screwdrivers may still have to come out for the windshield and we hope we don’t have to call in the tugs if we get stuck on the bottom.

But I digress.  Despite, or because of, these differences the canal, so far, is enchanting.  There are no roads nearby, lovely views over the fields to the hills frequent Chateau in the distance, and the weather has been great for the two days so far . There are more in the forecast which will make the covering arrangements interesting. 

We are still on the south side of the hills, climbing out of the Loire valley before going into the summit tunnels and into the headwaters of the Yonne; see last years posts for more on that river.

The locks here are all manual with lockkeepers for each lock with their own cottages.  Most take pride in their cottages and coordinate their color schemes and also their gardens.  Rosie and Lilou really appreciate this aesthetic.

But,this being July, most of the lock keepers get to take their long holidays and are replaced by students who are friendly and often want to practice their English.  This pair even decided that matching outfits were in order.