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.
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