Beginning! Beginning Again! –Slowly.

Choisey

I have concluded that we have attempted to break the First Celestial Law of Boating – the two week law. Now this is a law I just made up but it is based on reviewing our cruising log and noticing that we have never left  in less than two weeks of arriving at the beginning of the season.
Much as we tried, this year was no exception.
Friday, we were ready but when I opened the door to the engine and clipped it with the retaining rope (the strut is still  lost in the French post) the cooling system was empty and the bilge was full, so Friday was spent tracking down places I had not tightened properly after replacing the impeller.
Saturday we set off and had a nice but hot cruise into the Rhon au Rhin  canal to the lovely mooring at Choisey where we sat out in the balmy evening watching the hot air balloons float by and enjoying being underway at last.
  
Not so fast the cruising gods said. The next morning the battery voltage was down to 20V indicating aging batteries unable to hold charge. That morning the cruise was back to the marina in beautiful (for us) overcast, cooler weather with light rain to sit out Sunday until the office opened the next morning.
Blanquarts marina had our great big (and expensive) 230AH batteries in stock so by 11:30 we were underway on Monday, exactly two weeks after we arrived! 
The cruising gods had one little joke left as we were soon found ourselves in the canal  behind the Hotel boat “Jeannine”.  Hotel boats have priority in the locks and in the narrow part of the canals they go V E R Y slowly, around 3 km/hour.  The slowest we can go in idle is 5 km/hr so we spent the (hot again) day in and out of gear getting back to Choisey.  We would have stopped and waited but the only available mooring on that stretch of the canal was full.  The trip of 19.4km and 7 locks took 6 hours whereas gpomg back to SJL the day before was 3.7 hours.  Good thing we don’t have any place we have to be.

Now we are back at Choisey and the batteries had a good night.  It is hot again (34C, 96F) so we will stay here one more night and move into Dole tomorrow (Wednesday) before it is forecast to rain heavily for a day or two and the temperature to drop into the 20sC (70sF) where we hope it will stay for the rest of the month.  It has been hot most of the time so far. Terry does not like the heat but she copes the best she can.

We have a visitor who arrived this morning and doesn’t want to leave; he has bands on his legs so he must have a home he can go to. Personally I am offended that, after all our cleaning and polishing ,the boat is mistaken for a pigeon  coop.

This post may sound like a list of complaints but they are more like “adventures” and we are enjoying ourselves.  The “two week rule” may be a way of ensuring that we slow down and get properly into the rhythm of the rivers. I think we’re there.

Setting up for setting off.

Saint Jean de Losne
We have been back in France a little over a week now and it is good.
The long flight from LA and the 4 hour drive from the airport to the boat left us all exhausted – even the dogs who slept all the way anyway. Armida was in the water on the canal side and it was not much effort to get the toilet working and the bed made.  A stumble through the supermarket obtained the essential supplies and we crashed for the night. The next morning the routine returned with the croissant and the pain au chocolat
A couple of days and we had the water tanks full and hot water on board, basic cleaning done, the fenders returned to their ideal (learnt by experience) positions, the sides cleaned and polished, the wine cellar stocked and things generally ship shape, almost.  Last year I replaced the impeller in the pump that supplies river water to the cooling system as it had been there six years and it seemed like a good time.  Well the new one worked for the season but that was enough, so I had to do it again, not my favorite job.  Also the gas strut that stops the 60kg access door to the engine from closing and crushing me decided 30 years was long enough, so we are waiting for a new one to arrive from the UK.

 
A point of discussion has been what flag to fly this year in uncharted political times, we are happy with our choice.

Time to move around to the marina and immerse ourselves in the social scene.
It is an odd year (like everywhere now) with a very hot May, June and early July leading to lower water levels in the canals but rain has helped that.  Since we have been here it has been in the high 20sC, up to 30C (86F) with a little rain – quite nice.
This will be a very short season for us and it appears we are not the only ones. Some people are coming (returning from their cruising) and others are going (like us) but for now we are all here in the marina at Saint Jean de Losne and it is already time to replenish the wine cellar.
Our plan, of sorts, is to head up the Canal du Rhone au Rhin, past Dole and Besancon that we know well into new territory.  We will go until it is time to come back. Sound like a good plan?
There are so many New Zealanders here that if we don’t leave soon we will start talking with a Kiwi accent so we hope to leave by Friday – if the part arrives?