Libra Sail

The Canal du Centre Part 4: Montchanin to Saint-Léger-sur-Dheune (or what a lot of bollards)

OK, the answer to yesterday's question: This sculpture is called 'La borne des 7 écluses' by Gilles Richard.  To save you googling it here is what the website La borne des 7 écluses ; monment commémoratif (canal du Centre) says after you translate it: "The work is placed on the left

The Canal du Centre Part 3: Montceau les Mines to Montchanin

Friday 2nd June 2023 Today was the day that the lads were traveling home. Matt had Cup Final tickets for tomorrow and, while he was enjoying the boating life, he didn't want to miss the match. By 9.30 they had set off on the long drive to Calais, taking

The Canal du Centre Part 2: Genelard to Montceau-les-Mines

1st June 2023 It was another beautiful morning with the promise of a hot day ahead. We had a logistical issue: the car was in Digoin where we had left the boat during our visit home, today we were heading further down the canal to Montceau-les-Mines and tomorrow the boys

The Canal du Centre Part 1: Back to the boat!

It was lovely to arrive home but it was even better setting off again. After about a week of flush toilets that were within our house, twenty (open) takeaways/restaurants within a five minute walk and everybody speaking the same language as us we were well and truly ready to

Did we stay or did we go?

Sunday 28th May 2023 To cut a long story short we decided to go and left Digoin on Thursday 18th May. There were good reasons to make the decision either way but when we arrived in Digoin we were relieved to find 1.6 metres of water under our keel.

The Canal Latéral à la Loire Part 5 (final stretch)

Wednesday 17th May 2023 For the last week or so we have woken to mist or even fog. There was no incentive to do anything other than drink coffee, eat cheese and wrap up warm. Today was different. A beautiful sunny morning and we weren't expected at the lock until

The Canal Latéral à la Loire Part 4

Already at Part 4 for this canal, shows how much longer it is than the Canal de Loing or Canal de Briare! The evening of Monday 15th May saw us stranded on the wrong side of the lock gates at Vanneaux. This was nowhere near the disaster we originally thought.

The Canal Latéral à la Loire Part 3

When we last met I was prisoner on a pontoon. There was a locked gate between me and dry land. The nice German (Swiss?) couple in a hire boat, legitimately using the moorings, had a key but it was for the gate to the other pontoon. It was dinner time.

The Canal Latéral à la Loire Part 2

My last post saw us rafted to a rusty old barge in Saint Satur. The day, or at least the scenery, had to improve. Saturday 13th May 2023 We woke up bright and early as usual. A motorboat had passed us and we felt a slight wash. There was no

The Canal Latéral à la Loire: Part 1

The Canal Latéral à la Loire starts in the most impressive way possible, with the utterly breathtaking Briare Aqueduct. This 660m long bridge that carries the canal across the Loire is a marvel in so many ways that words almost fail me, or rather the opposite. If I got the

Some more 'marina' reports

I put marina in inverted commas as we have mostly been roughing it and some of the so called marinas we've been to haven't really met my expectations of what a marina should be. That sounds pompous. Shall I rephrase? To me a marina involves an office that tells you

The Canal de Briare Part 2

Yesterday's post saw us moored in the town of Rogny, bowled over by the sight of the ancient Sept Ecluses. If you think that was overwhelming, wait until you see what we saw today (though a photograph barely does it justice). I was so gobsmacked yesterday I forgot to mention

The Canal de Briare: part 1

Monday 8th May 2023 As my previous post noted, we did not enjoy our introduction to the Canal de Briare. To be stranded overnight in a shallow canal miles from anywhere worth walking to next to a slightly dodgy towpath would not be my first choice. We got up punctually

The Loing Canal

We left Samois-sur-Seine around midday on 5th May. It had rained heavily all night so we waited for the skies to clear a little before we set off. While we waited we did some boat housekeeping chores, there is always something to do (and it's often too disgusting to mention

Port aux Cerises to Samois-sur-Seine

Some days you have a plan and everything goes beautifully. Other days you have a plan and everything goes pear shaped. On some, very lucky days you have a plan that goes pear shaped but the end result is even better than you hoped for. That was today. Yesterday we

Through Paris

Ever since we first considered taking the boat through the French canals rather than going through Biscay I have been really, really excited at the prospect of going through Paris. I visited the city as a child, and our recces over the last couple of days have made the prospect

Rueil-Malmaison and Paris (on foot)

Over the long cold winter we have watched a lot of videos about people doing the same trip as we are now undertaking. The only one we watched where they stopped at Rueil gave us cause to worry. The YouTubers said that the pontoon was a meeting place for feral

Port Ilon to Port St Louis

We set off to Port St Louis having only heard very negative reports. I'd like to tell you that these are misguided, but that would be a big fib. The trip up the river was only around 40km and we covered it in around 5 1/2 hours. No locks

Port Ilon

Once we'd moored at Port Ilon and eaten our dinner we decided to go for a walk. It's an absolutely beautiful spot, calm clear lakes surrounded by forest, lots of birds, geese with their goslings, cormorants on the buoys, magical. We needed some exercise and the nearest village is about

From Vernon to Port Ilon

Leaving Vernon was not straightforward. As I mentioned, there is a shallow patch of water to negotiate between the main channel of the Seine and the Yacht Club. Despite what it says in the guide books and Navionics chart it isn't buoyed. We had a few tricky moments on the

The importance of situational awareness - Vernon

One of the difficulties of using older reference works as guide books for a trip like this is the temptation to rely on things staying the same for 5, 10 or even 20+ years.  An older guide will say 'this is a very pleasant marina and the harbourmaster Gaston speaks

More about Poses

We ended up staying three nights in Poses, so had a chance for a bit of exploration. There isn't a marina there but I thought it might be helpful to give some information in a similar format to my previous post, The marinas so far, an overview (librasail.uk) Amenities:

Time and tide Poses question

In case you're wondering about the stray capital P it's a pun. Today was the day we set off from Rouen. Igor, in his habitual thorough way, checked what state of tide was best to help us with the journey. This morning, low water was around 6.30 am so

Enfin, démâtage!

My last post may have given the impression that our plans were suffering from a holdup.  To cut a long story short, everything has worked out very well indeed. If we'd followed our original plan of travelling Thursday and demasting Friday we simply wouldn't have had time to prepare. We

Great timing

This morning we woke at 6.00 am so that we could catch the ferry to Calais. I checked the traffic, clear roads so no rush to set off.  We did our last minute packing and were just about to eat breakfast when Igor's phone rang. A French number. It