Learning the ropes (in France) Pt 3: Stopping for lunch

In France, everything stops for lunch.

As we were travelling just around Easter time when there were not too many tourists about we also found that in the villages lunch was a very lengthy meal. There were several days that we stopped when the sun was high and walked into a village to obtain the basics, milk and bread, to find that it was closed for lunch. And I mean everything! Church, shops, garage, houses and businesses.

But there are some things that one does not expect. We approached an automatic lock at a time just about lunch time. Being good English boaters trained on the ettiquette of the canals, we looked back to see a plastic hire boat approaching the lock about a third of a mile away. We waited for them. As they entered the lock the gates automatically closed behind them and the Best Mate pressed the "Ascend" button at the controller.

Nothing. As it was now 1302h, the lock had closed for lunch. The Best Mate was ten feet above us and we were trapped. We were in the lock, the Best mate on the lockside. All we could do was have our lunch. With no way of getting off we made sandwiches on board and attached some of them to the end of the mooring line in a plastic bag. The Best Mate pulled them up. We then tied on a plastic bottle of tea to refresh her spirits.

What can you do when you are in a lock? Well one thing is splice the rope that was cut when it got crossed on the bollard! So that is what I did.

Lesson three: stop early for lunch. [To be continued

Learning the ropes (in France) pt 2 Beware Automatic Locks

The French waterways have been modified by the electrification of the gates and automation of the locking process. However, this can have disadvantages if you are a relative novice boater or unaware of the hazards, as we were on our trip to the Canal du Midi.

Having turned in the round lock at Agde we were returning toward Beziers and were rising for the first time. We entered the first lock alongside a german crew on a plastic hire boat. The gates closed automatically behind us. We had experienced the automative system and I, Eeyore, was on the lock side. I looped the centre rope of the narrowboat around the centre bollard and pressed the 'Ascend' button. I admired the view as the paddles opened automatically, water entered the lock and the boat began to rise. The flow of the water into the lock pushed the boat forward as the rope around the bollard slackened as the boat came up. But only so far. As the roof of the boat came above the top of the lock side it started to tighten again and as the boat had moved forward the rope was crossed and locked onto the bollard. The boat began to tilt quickly and dramatically. The boys were on the boat and plates started to slide off the table onto the floor and items started to crash around them.

Fortunately I noticed in time and hit the RED EMERGENCY STOP button. The paddles closed and calm was restored with the boat at quite an angle but clear of the water. The German crew were not amused as they were stuck in the lock with us. Their skipper shouted at me to get a knife. I got the boys off the boat first and then took a kitchen knife to the taught mooring line. The boat jumped up and bounced back into the upright position.

Voies Navigables de France (VNF) the French navigation authority sent their engineer out to find out why the button had been pressed and reset the controls. I explained and apologised. No harm done!

I had learned a second lesson. Watch the ropes at all times!

It is this incident that makes me believe that the newly installed extra bollards on narrow locks will be "an accident waiting to happen". It happened to us. [To be continued

Learning the ropes (in France) Pt 1: Tie both ends.

The Fonneseranne Staircase is a monster. Seven ovaline stone chambers linked by gated steps up the side of a hill near to Beziers on the Canal du Midi. While we were burning down London in 1666, a little known frenchman was connecting the Atlantic to the Meditterranean by an amazing canal.

We had come from the hire base at Le Somail via the 54 km pound and this staircase of locks was our first experience of french locks. We arrived in the late afternoon, discovered that the locks are a one way system: down in the morning and up in the afternoon with a break for lunch. We moored up and walked down the locks. We were amazed by their size in comparison to the narrow locks we were used to around the Birmingham Canal Navigation or even compared to the barge lock at Teddington, the largest lock we had ever encountered. What was scary was the fall of each lock: about the depth of Somerton Deep at each lock.

In the morning we were gestured into the locks by Messieurs Eclusers along with another craft and we decended. The water fell. the gates opened and one after another we glided down in a smooth operation. The lock keepers did all the work and we went down on the water. Easy peezey.

After visiting Agde and the Mediterranean we returned to queue at the foot of the stairs. This time the lock keepers beckoned all the plastic cruisers into the lock past us. I thought we had been forgotten and then our tres joli bateau anglais (a nerrowboat) was brought in at the rear. The lockkeepers shouted and cajoled a dutch teenage beauty who was draped across the front of her cruiser to get inside. She reluctantly complied and then saw why. The water entered the lock and we started to bob up with such force that she would have been swept off the bow of the boat. We too realised that we were placed at the back of the lock because the inrush from the gate paddles would have swamped our fore well deck with disasterous results.

When about half full the gates opened and we bobbed forward into the next lock chamber against the flow. It was as near to white water rafting as I have been in a narrowboat.

But that wasn't the worst of it. In each lock I had to throw up to the lockside a line fore and aft. This was about a twelve foot throw. We were short of crew as we were travelling with Piglet, my four year old son, who could hold but not throw, and Poohbear, my special needs ten year old who can't throw or catch. My Best Mate was on lockside to catch at the bow end and a dutch lass helped out by catching the rope that I threw from the stern. That was except in the third lock of seven when, to my horror, she missed my throw and I saw the rope's end disappear into the water followed by all the rest of the line as the other end flipped off the 'T' post!

I reported to the lock keeper that there was about 15 meters of rope in his lock. He did not go to look for it imediately. We had four more locks to ascend.

We got out at the top and were glad of the reprieve and the long pound back to the hire base where we replenished our stock of mooring line. The next one was polypropelene. It floats! [to be continued