A Not-so-Perfect Ratio

A post in early July talked about the kilometers-to-locks ratios on the various canals we've been cruising this summer, and how the Loire Lateral Canal had what I considered to be a good balance of lock-free cruising and locks. The last 10 days has put us on the other side of the kilometers/locks ratio calculations. We've been climbing ever since we transitioned to the Canal du Centre. In the final push to the summit from Blanzy to Montchanin, and then on the subsequent descent, we've had to pass through lots of locks. The days have been either relatively easy or strenuous, depending upon the number of locks, the number of other boaters competing for those locks, lock breakdowns, and the temperatures while cruising. 

Montceau to Blanzy on July 31 was easy. A cruiser "jumped the line" to hurry in front of us as we were departing Monceau, which caused us some delay at the first lock, but thereafter, completing 2 locks and a mere 3 kilometers had us moored by 10:30 a.m. Under usual circumstances we wouldn't cruise such a short distance and stop, but as the day's high was forecast to be in the high 90's, and the Blanzy mooring had electricity for our air conditioning, the short day satisfied two criteria: our desire to move after a lengthy stay in Montceau and a concern for comfort and safety in the heat. We mostly hung about the boat that day, aside from a brief cycle trip to E Leclerc and around the village of Blanzy. The most wonderful thing about the stop was that a new bow thruster chain was delivered to us and installed on the morning of August 1. Truly amazing service! 

The August 1 cruise from Blanzy to Montchanin was also relatively easy. We had only 9 kilometers to cover, and although those 9 kilometers included 7 locks, we didn't have to compete with any other boaters for the use of the locks. Lon had more of a workout than usual at the locks, because instead of 4 control points at each lock from which to trigger the process, there was now typically only one and usually not in a spot that was easily reachable from the boat. So, he found himself using the railings on the flybridge as a makeshift ladder to climb onto the top of the lock wall and access the lock control. 

When we passed through the last lock of our cruising day, we attained the summit of the Canal du Centre and were a bit more than halfway along the length of the canal. A well-maintained, if basic, quay awaited us in Montchanin. The history of Montchanin is similar to that of Montceau, with its early growth in the 19th century attributable to coal mining. It also became the headquarters of one of the most important tile factories in France in the 1800's. A walk around town after the heat of the day had died down revealed a few places to get pizza (including one vending machine), but it was overall a very quiet place and not especially appealing.

Upper: one clever resident had found use for all of their excess plastic.
Lower: A very quiet center of town. The city budget must contain a rather
 large line item for tree shaping.

We'd started to encounter more boats at our stops on the canal, which would prove to affect our cruising speed on subsequent cruising days. On August 2 we hoped to get a slightly early start on the day as we headed for St. Julien-sur-Dheune. We were only going to go 7 kilometers, but there would be 8 locks over that distance. (A 0.875 kilometers/locks ratio is not ideal.) Because we were at the canal summit, the first part of our cruise would include a gloriously lock-free stretch of 3 kilometers before the "down" locks started. This meant that we could start cruising by 8:30 a.m. in order to catch the 9 a.m. opening of the locks. Unfortunately, the folks on the cruiser moored in front of us had the same idea, so we delayed our departure until 9 a.m. to give them a chance to get through the first lock. The slight delay was ultimately not a problem, as we were able to get through all of the day's locks easily and smoothly.

We were now in a stretch of the Canal du Centre that had a number of rather deep locks, at around 5 meters (over 16 feet), so we had another change in lock operations that had to be adapted to. To make it easier for boats to remain secure during the up-or-down locking procedure and not have to deal with long lines attached to the upper lock wall, the deep locks were fitted with "floating bollards". The bollards were at approximately the level of our mid-deck, and when we attached to them they moved down in a channel in the lock wall as the water level in the lock lowered. 

The five deep locks and three "regular" locks all worked well for us, and we managed to arrive in St. Julien before lunch.

The first five locks of the day were very closely spaced, as were the final
three locks. (Top) looking back, we are leaving the first deep lock
and are on our way to the already-visible second deep lock (bottom).

The mooring in St. Julien was lovely, if rather full. We managed to grab the last spot on
the quay. Behind us was Catharina Elisabeth, then a hotel boat, and then (just barely visible)
a barge owned by a French couple.

Another day, another delay in departure. On August 3, all 4 boats in St. Julien had the intention of cruising. Even though commercial boats usually have precedence on the waterways, the captain of the hotel boat was kind enough to let the pleasure boats depart ahead of him because he knew how much more slowly he would be cruising. We were facing the prospect of an 11-lock day before we would arrive in the town of St. Leger-sur-Dheune, so his consideration was much appreciated. Our friends on Catharina Elisabeth departed first. We thought we were going second, but the French bargees had other ideas. OK, number 3 it was. We assumed that the cycling of the locks would not take very long, but we were not aware that the vnf had concerns about creating difficult currents in the canal if they cycled the deep, closely-spaced locks too quickly. As a result, an anticipated 30-minute delay turned into 1 hour 15 minutes. After we finally got started everything moved along well for us, but what could have been a 3.5 hour cruising day had become 5 hours.

We stayed for 2 nights in St. Leger, partly to rest up from the 11-lock
cruising day. The view from the mooring (top) looks peaceful, but
it was a little noisy due to excitable dogs in the adjacent houses, and
a rather busy road on the opposite side of the canal. At bottom, we
can see a hotel boat moored further along in the canal.

We used our August 4 day in port to take a cycle trip to a chateau in the near vicinity that was both a registered historical monument and a wine estate. Our friends Ian and Lisette on Catharina Elisabeth were also in St. Leger at this time and joined us for the 15-minute cycling trip to Chateau de Couches.

The Chateau de Couches was one of the ancient fortresses of the Duchy of Burgundy. The chateau is commonly referred to as Chateau de Marguerite de Bourgogne, due to an unsubstantiated story that the 14th century Queen Marguerite, wife of King Louis X "the Quarrelsome", did not die as a prisoner of her husband, but was taken to her cousin Marie at Couches to live out her life. With roots in the 11th century, the castle has undergone several transformations over the years.

A panoramic view of the various buildings that constitute the castle.

The building at left is the 19th century residential building, attached
to a 13th century round tower. The building to the right is the 15th century
chapel. Although not visible, a second 13th century round tower
was incorporated into its construction.

The square "tower of justice" is likely 12th century, the 
external turret a 15th century addition containing a staircase.

The chapel contained a warren of underground
galleries, some used for earlier winemaking
activities. 

Ian taking a souvenir photo at the request of a friendly Dutch
visitor to the castle as Lisette and Lon look on.

We are solidly in one of the "wine belts" of Burgundy. The chateau
was part of a "First Sunday" wine tasting activity in Couches village,
whereby the 6 euro purchase of a wine glass allowed participants
to visit various winemakers and taste their products. It's a nice
concept, but maybe not at 11 a.m. on a Sunday morning. 

On our return to our boats, we stopped at a canal side restaurant in St. Leger for a tasty--if somewhat expensive--lunch. It obviously had a good reputation, because the place filled up and we felt lucky to be seated without a reservation.

After 2 nights in St. Leger, we were ready to move on. Our experiences of the past few days had given us concerns about potential delays, but there really wasn't much to be done about that. We weren't sure whether our ultimate destination would be Santenay (9 kilometers, 4 locks) or Chagny (14 kilometers, 4 locks). It was going to depend upon where we could get mooring space. We left the mooring in St. Leger before Catarina Elisabeth, and before we passed under the first bridge I could see a cruiser up ahead casting off its lines. Darn! On the bright side, we also passed the hotel boat that had started its engines but wasn't quite ready to leave, so at least we got ahead of them. An eclusier showed up at the first lock around 9 a.m. and processed the cruiser through. We expected that they would reset the lock for us, and even when they drove off--perhaps to assist the cruiser at the next lock?--we expected them to return shortly thereafter. No such luck. After waiting 30 minutes I finally made a telephone call to the lock control center, told them there were now 3 boats waiting to go through the lock, and got them to ready the lock for us. 

Despite the 1-hour delay at the beginning, the rest of the cruise went well. We had a lock malfunction at one of the subsequent locks, but were fortunate that an eclusier happened to be on site and was able to open the recalcitrant gates with a remote-control device.

When we're not having to focus on lock operations, we can actually raise our eyes to
the attractive countryside that we're passing through. It's general agriculture on the
lower levels and when there are surrounding hills one can see lots of vineyards.

We were able to moor at the halte nautique in Santenay. It had no services other than trash disposal and glass recycling, but its parklike setting more than made up for that. Ian and Lisette had been stuck slowly cruising behind the hotel boat that we had managed to avoid, but they ultimately made it to Santenay as well. Time to settle in for 2 or 3 days for sightseeing and to prepare for the next 11-lock cruising day.