And . . . We're Stopped

We had hoped to depart Dammarie today and do a very short, 4-kilometer, cruise to the town we cycled to yesterday, Rogny-les-Sept-Ecluses. Unfortunately, Mother Nature and the French waterway authorities (vnf) had other ideas. 

When we cycled to Rogny we noticed that the water was flowing full and fast over the spillways. This was no doubt thanks to the sometimes-heavy rain over the last few days.

Lower: water from the canal enters the spillway
Upper: the departing water, definitely more than usual

A vnf employee we spoke to in Rogny told us that the Pont-canal Briare--the aquaduct over the Loire River at the town of Briare that facilitated the joining of the Canal de Briare and Canal lateral a la Loire--had been closed due to high water. This resulted in a navigation stop between the two canals. Although we will ultimately need to pass through the Pont-canal, the closure was not an immediate concern for us because we knew we had several days of cruising ahead of us before getting to that area and it was likely--given the current weather forecasts--that the high-water problem will be resolved within a few days. 

What is a problem for us is that, yesterday afternoon, the vnf imposed an additional navigation stop in two new sections of the Canal de Briare due to flooding from the rains. The section of the canal from Rogny to Dammarie is now closed to navigation as is a section of the canal from Dammarie to the first lock downstream of Chatillon-Coligny. As we are currently moored in the Rogny-Dammarie section we are directly impacted. A vnf employee stopped by our boat yesterday evening to inform us of the closures and tell us that we needed to stay moored where we were until the navigation stop is lifted. (Had we checked our email earlier for waterway advisories we get from the vnf we would have seen the notification there.) We will keep monitoring the situation and hope that the water goes down sooner rather than later, although the heavy rain we received in the overnight hours probably did not help. While we think the mooring here in Dammarie is beautiful and comfortable, the adjacent village doesn't have much going on, and we're in a bit of a grocery store "desert". 

For entertainment yesterday and today, we have been watching participants in the "Race Across
France 2024" ultra cycling event go past us. The 10-day event started on June 20 and finishes on
June 30. Participants can select one of 5 distances--ranging from 200 to 2500 kilometers--to 
complete during that time period. Given the route map, the cyclists that we are seeing are those
attempting to complete 2500 kilometers. No wonder they all looked so fit!

Although it's still raining this Saturday morning, the rain is supposed to move out of here during the afternoon and the next few days promise sunshine and warmer temperatures. Fingers crossed! Even if we can't move the boat immediately, at least we'll be able to go places on our bikes as long as we don't have to worry about getting wet.

In the meantime, all we can do is say, "C'est la vie," and raise a toast to the unpredictability of life and cruising.