Just Cruisin'

Ten days is a long time to leave the boat in one place during the height of the cruising season, so by the time July 16 came around, we were ready to move. Nevers is at the halfway point of the 200-km-long Loire Lateral Canal, so it would take several days of cruising to reach the Canal du Centre, the final waterway of our Bourbonnais Route. With no identified "must do" items along the 100-km length, our stops would mostly be guided by mooring availability and the weather.

We didn't have an auspicious start. For whatever reason, each cruising season seems to present us with a bow thruster problem at some point. This year, that "point" came as we were entering the 2nd lock on the Nevers branch channel taking us to the Loire Lateral Canal. A few disturbing "clunks" were rapidly followed by the sound of a free-wheeling motor and no bow thruster action. There wasn't much to be done at the moment other than to secure ourselves in the lock and revert to "no bow thruster mode" (NBTM) for the rest of our cruising day. NBTM requires slower approaches and entrances to locks, and an overall more thoughtful approach to maneuvers. Lon has always done well with this, and thankfully, nothing had changed in that respect. With not much to be done while underway, we continued to our stop of the day, Fleury-sur-Loire.

Fleury was a small village with a 12th century church, a small bakery/cafe, a few old houses, and a lovely halte nautique with an on-site restaurant.

A small campground was adjacent to the halte, a pretty
 and peaceful setting, and we contentedly tucked in along the quay.

St. Julien church. The bell tower and apse are the
12th C elements registered as historic monuments.

Once stopped, Lon was able to spend some time and effort on the bow thruster problem. The worst-case scenario would have been the loss of the prop, as this would require the bow thruster tunnel to be out of the water during the repairs. It didn't take him too long to determine that the drive chain had broken.

The culprit--our broken three-stranded drive chain. 

Still not the easiest fix, but at least the repair won't require lifting the boat. At this point, however, with no replacement part to be had, our only choice was to continue cruising. And after a day like that, cooking was not an option.

Waterfront dining on a tasty and reasonably priced three courses.
Smiling was the only possible response.

Our destination for July 17 was the town of Decize, at the junction with the Nivernais Canal. Temperatures were now starting on an upward trend and becoming more traditionally "July-like." At this point we were trying to keep our cruising days relatively short to take advantage of cool mornings and avoid hot afternoon sun, necessary because we are still limited to driving from the flybridge. Lack of a working interior helm wouldn't be an issue if we could raise the bimini for shade, but there are many bridges over the canal and most of them are too low for our bimini.

The lock operations in this part of the Loire Lateral Canal have changed. There are still eclusiers at each lock, but most of the locks are now fully manual. Gates and sluices must be cranked open or closed--no "push button" automation. This can involve a lot of walking for the eclusiers so, when possible, Lon and I try to provide at least some assist. We're still going "up" so Lon often helps by closing one of the back lock gates after we've entered, and I usually get off the boat after we've risen in the lock and open one of the front lock gates so that we can leave. It saves the eclusier a few steps and saves us a few minutes in lock passage.

Opening a lock gate is also a good upper body workout for me.

Decize is one of the larger towns along the canal, and we'd originally thought about spending two nights, but we weren't quite ready to take a mini-break so soon after our long break in Nevers. Short, but very warm, walks to the grocery store drained us of any incentive for exploration. Decize had been a fortified town, so it had its sites of interest, but we had to be satisfied with what we could see on an after-dinner bike ride.

The Church of Saint-Aré, with an 11th century chancel
and a 7th-century Merovingian crypt.

Above: a tower and walls of the medieval ramparts
Below: One of the squares in central Decize

We had high hopes for our destination on July 18. Our waterway guides said that Les Vanneaux was the location of Entente Marine, a company with experience in barge repairs. The web site looked OK, so Lon sent off an e-mail to enquire about engaging their services for a bow thruster repair. Our hopes were dashed when the return e-mail said that the owners had retired in December 2023 and the business was closed. I guess we'll be in NBTM a while longer.

There isn't much to say about Les Vanneaux. The public quay was full when we arrived, so we tucked in behind a long-stay boat closer to the former repair shop. 

CARIB is at the far left in this photo. It was a very hot day,
so we didn't even bother to pull the bikes down to seek out
the ruins of an old castle a few kilometers away.

An early start on the 19th and a short cruising day had us on the quay of the halte nautique in Beaulon (power and water--yay) before lunch. On the way we encountered a little bit of canal maintenance.

Weed hasn't been too much of an issue for us this year (so far). In this stretch of the waterway,
the vnf was taking out weed that was implanted along the sides of the canal.

Already on the quay when we got to Beaulon was the barge "Maria," one of those boats that we keep encountering over various cruising seasons. Also on the quay that evening was the boat "Imagine", and its lovely French owners Yves and Marie-dande, who we seem to be keeping pace with this week.

The three boats of Beaulon: Imagine is at our left, Maria is far right.
We hosted "docktails" for all on CARIB and enjoyed an hour of socializing.

The village of Beaulon was a little way off the canal, too far to walk in the day's heat, but it wasn't too bad of a jaunt with the bicycles after we had lunch. It's obviously been around awhile, because it had some half-timbered buildings and a chateau, but the church was relatively new in the scheme of things, and it was hard to find much information about the town.

The Church of Saint-Privat is a 19th century building.

Lon on a bridge over a waterway in the village--old canal or 
old stream? It was hard to tell. The village had a nice "feel" about
it, however.

Upper: a timbered building, now a seemingly
popular restaurant.
Bottom: the Chateau de Beaumont, an events center.

On Day 5 post-Nevers we had enough of the sun fairly early. We covered only 12 km and 3 locks, but by the time we stopped we were through for the day. Dealing with full sun on a 90-degree day was not our definition of a fun cruise. Diou was a very basic stop--the quay was a bit beat up, but serviceable, but with no power or water. There was a Proximarket a short walk away, so I could pop in for a few things I needed. Otherwise, it was a place to wait out a bit of inclement weather on Saturday night.

We had a barge for company on Saturday night, otherwise, all the other boats that
stopped did so only for lunch or a quick run to the market.

Ultimately, I decided that five days in a row of cruising was enough, and I wanted a day off. It was rather cool and cloudy for most of Sunday, July 21, but it was dry enough for us to take the bikes a few kilometers down a side channel to the town of Dompierre-sur-Besbre. It has a Locaboat hire boat base, and it is probably the town where those in the surrounding area come for shopping, but as it was a Sunday, it was pretty quiet. We couldn't even find a restaurant to tempt us for lunch.

Upper: Saint Joseph Church, 19th C.
Lower: A former tithe barn, now a dwelling.

It was a short stay in the town. On the way back to CARIB we diverted to the Abbey of Sept-Fons, founded in the 12th century, for a look at the walls. After a brief scandalous period in the 17th century with some dissolute monks, the abbey redeemed itself and functioned up to the Revolution, when a number of its monks were martyred. It is again an active abbey, not open to the public except for a welcome center that sells products made by the monks.

We paid for our short cruise day on Saturday with a longer than usual cruise on Monday, June 22. Our destination was the town of Digoin, at the end of the Loire Lateral Canal and the beginning of the Canal du Centre.

We passed our friends on "Imagine" on Monday. They had turned around
and were heading back down the Loire Lateral Canal.

It took us about 5 hours to reach Digoin, and the last lock of the day was a bit "exciting," not a good thing in boating.

We were at the lock about 10 or 15 minutes prior to the 1 p.m. opening after the lunch hour. A hire boat was in front of us, and we weren't sure we would fit in the lock with them, but the eclusier waved us in. We've been in locks with 10-meter boats before, but this hire boat was 12-meters, and that extra 6+ feet made it a very tight fit. We had very little space between our bow and the hire boat, and in order to get the back gates closed, Lon had to maneuver our stern from one side of the lock to the other while the gates were closing to ensure that our tender didn't get crunched. We did it, but hope to never repeat the experience.

We had to cross another aqueduct over the Loire to enter Digoin. Above: following
 the hire boat across. Below: a park along the Loire and a side view of the 
aqueduct in the distance (built 1832-1838).

We did a pre-dinner stroll through town and saw as much as we felt we needed to see. The town is making some efforts at urban renewal--the area along the Loire was particularly nice--but it has a ways to go. It did have a nice Italian restaurant not far from the port and we were happy to have dinner there before settling in for the evening at our mooring on the port quay. 

Right: Digoin center, the 19th C church in the middle.
Left: the more modern nature of the church is reflected in the
sculptures over its entry doors.

Digoin was a busy canal town historically and is busy today with its hire boat base and pleasure craft, but we were ready to move on to the next town.