Too Good to Last

It is said that all good things must come to an end, and so is with our string of "things working out the way we hoped" this cruising season in France. 

When we plotted out the "big picture" for what we wanted to do this summer on the boat, it was pretty simple: two weeks in Cergy to prep the boat; five weeks to cruise the Oise, Aisne, and Marne on our way to three weeks in Paris; and a Seine-Yonne cruise to get us to Auxerre by mid-July for the DBA Rally. We assiduously tried to avoid calling this a "pl*n", instead, jokingly, calling this a "hope" or "aspiration." And it worked--we had a marvelous three months with nary a glitch. 

The time after the Rally was always a bit of a blank slate waiting to be filled. We had already reserved a winter slot at the Port de Plaisance in Auxerre, but with no specific start date. We knew we would be having visitors for a few days at the beginning of August, which would give us at least a couple of weeks to cruise before their arrival. As indicated in the last blog entry, we decided to spend that time cruising on the Nivernais canal (essentially a canalized continuation of the Yonne River) before returning to Auxerre to meet up with our guests.

We spent three nights at the Port in Auxerre after the Rally. It was nice--we had plenty of time for the "usual" preparatory chores of grocery shopping and laundry, socialized with other DBA members coming and going from the Port as they continued their own cruising seasons, and even went to a movie.

It's a privilege to always have a waterfront view.

Wednesday, 5 p.m.: the English-language version of the
new Indiana Jones movie was not well-attended. It was just
Lon and me up until show time, when 3 other people joined
us. So-so movie, nice theater.

We had inklings of trouble when we cast off from Auxerre on Thursday morning, July 20. The bow thruster sounded anemic and wasn't producing the usual volume of water power. It wasn't enough of a problem to stop cruising, so we continued on. 

Thursday was a busy day for boats on the canal. We had 7 locks to pass through before reaching our intended destination for the day at Bailly (the same village where we had the tour of the Crémant cave the week before), and at nearly every lock we encountered rental boats, usually in multiples, when we exited. 

At our second lock of the day, we had 3 boats waiting as we
left the lock. It wasn't an easy passage--the narrow waterway 
was rocky and shallow to starboard (on our right).

 

Meeting and passing a large hotel barge in a narrow and 
shallow (we bumped bottom in one section) part of the Nivernais.

When we moored on the quay in Bailly, Lon's initial check of the bow thruster wasn't especially informative. He found a couple of loose connections that he tightened, but left the main investigation to the following day. By then, the bow thruster had no electrical power to it at all. Disconcertingly, his further search found two blown fuses in the electrical system, one of which was to the alternator that normally would charge our batteries when we were underway. As well, the voltage of two of our four house batteries was nearly zero. We needed to get a stand-alone battery charger to test whether the batteries were totally fried, or whether they could be recharged and hold a charge, so we cycled a short way to the village of Vincelles to borrow a charger from our friends Ian and Lisette on Catherina Elisabeth, who were moored there.

It was a beautiful afternoon for biking; too bad
we weren't able to do it strictly for pleasure.

The bad news was that one battery seemed to be kaput--it wouldn't hold a charge at all. The second battery could be charged, but we weren't sure if it was compromised by having been connected to the totally dead battery. The good news was that our other two large house batteries seemed fine and were supplying power to most of our critical systems--navigation instruments, refrigerator, range, etc.--and were being recharged by our solar panels. The "bad" batteries were responsible for powering the bow thruster and our Kabola heating system. Much as we'd hoped to explore further up the Nivernais, we decided that if there were room for us at the port in Auxerre we would cruise back there on Saturday, July 22. At least there we would be hooked up to electricity and we would have a much better chance to order new batteries and arrange for an electrician to find the reason(s) for the blown fuses and dead battery.

While Lon was working on CARIB, I cycled into
the nearby village of Saint-Bris-le-Vineux,
with its narrow streets and old buildings.

The old Chapelle de Bailly in Saint Bris was no
 longer functioning as a religious building, but
housed an art gallery featuring the works of
artist Georges Hosotte, as well as those of his
son, Tristan Hosotte.

 

We had company on Friday night, DBA boats Phoenician and
Matilda (and a LocaBoat hire boat). Happy Hour on Matilda turned
into a late dinner aboard Phoenician. It was a nice break from 
thinking about electrical issues. The Cave de Bailly building
is visible at the top of the photo.

Our return to Auxerre on Saturday was uneventful. Lon drives really well without the bow thruster, so its unavailability was never a problem. We didn't encounter much boat traffic, and just enjoyed the beautiful day. Southern Europe may be suffering from a heat wave, but the temperatures in our part of France have been perfect for July.

We passed this chateau along the way. What you can't see is
the moat that surrounds it.

The railroad bridge and water frame our approach to the lock.

The locks on the Nivernais are all manually operated and are fully
staffed. Most of the eclusiers were college students for whom it
was a summer job. Lon got off the boat when he could to assist
with the lock operations and save the eclusiers a few steps.

Approaching a lock in a park-like setting.

On our way downstream through the shallowest stretch of
the Nivernais. Unlike our trip upstream, we neither had to pass
a large barge on this narrow stretch, nor did we bump the bottom.

In Champs-sur-Yonne, the canal leading up to the lock is separated from
 the river by a stone wall. We didn't think much about it on our
 way upriver, but on our return, it provided a "port in the storm"
when we had to stop as the locks closed for lunch, and we were in a
 portion of the Nivernais without good options for mooring a boat of our size.

So, we are now moored again at the Aquarelle port in Auxerre. It's lovely to be under the watchful gaze of the Cathedral, but we wish that the reason for being back early was better. It was so lovely to have had a problem-free cruise up to this point, and it's been a "reality check" to be reminded that "pl*ns" in boating often have to be changed. Lon's efforts this morning have convinced him that he is in territory that is beyond his understanding of marine electricity, so an electrician will need to be consulted. However, as we are now in the vacation season in France, we may have to wait a bit for an electrician to be available. 

The "lemonade" to be made of this particular lemon is that we have the time and opportunity to explore Auxerre in more detail, take some local bike rides to interesting places, and maybe book a day trip or two to a nearby town on the rail system.