It was the first hot, DRY and sunny day for ages. Mike was up at eight and fetched some bread. We got ready and then disaster - Rosy wouldn’t start - air in the fuel lines; so Bill had to bleed it. Mike was chatting to Mike off yacht Shebah, so he went to help Bill. We left at 9.40 a.m. - our engine refused to start and it had worked OK earlier - it was an easily fixed electrical problem - wonky fuse (poor contact) - a few minutes after a hire boat had gone stooging past, also heading uphill. The hire boat had just cleared Valence, lock 30 as we arrived; Bill turned the pole, the lock emptied and we followed Rosy into the chamber. Water swirling everywhere from the lock emptying sent the bows left and right. Once in the chamber I went up the mud-coated ladder to press the green button and activate the lock cycle. The lock filled and the boats stayed at the back of the chamber, ropeless, as usual. 1.9 kms to Pommevic, lock 29. The boat in front was still in the lock when Rosy arrived to turn the pole. Nothing happened. We sat and waited. A few minutes later a VNF man in a van arrived. I got off at a new wooden landing stage below the lock and walked up. The man had fixed the lock and he and his van had gone before I got there. Once the boats were in I pressed the button and went to stand in the shade under the trees in front of a derelict lock house. The cherries had all gone but the nut tree next to it was covered in hazelnuts.
1.5 kms to Braguel, lock 28. The water level was about a foot down. The hire boat had cleared the lock and another was in it coming down. VNF men were working on the lock side. I walked up and pressed the button and we rose ropeless again. One of the VNF guys, a cheeky young lad with face piercings, started telling Mike (in very rough English) that the rules state that he should have at least one rope on a bollard. A ten minute lecture ensued, one that he didn’t get all his own way either. A woman on a small French yacht was nasty, waving us away when we said “bon jour” as we’d kept her waiting while we were being lectured by the VNF guy. A longer pound of 5.7 kms to the next lock Petit-Bézy, 27. The moorings at Malause had a few new residents; a large Dutch barge with American and British flags on the front and a Dutch
one on the rear, a British replica Dutch barge (large and uninhabited), a small French cruiser with some pleasant waving people on board and Steve and his wife Kit on the Dutch barge Vrouwe Jeanette (they waved too). Rosy was way off in front. The next lock was empty with gates open and a green light on long before Bill got there to turn the pole. The light went red, Bill turned the pole and the light reverted to green. I got off at the steps at the tail of the lock as the water wasn’t swirling about as it had emptied some time beforehand. Bill put a rope around a vertical pole in the wall on the right hand side of the lock, Rosy kept going forward and slewed across the lock to the left in front of us. Mike chucked a rope up on to the lock side, there was no bollard so it stayed on the ground. 3.8 kms to Espagnette, lock 26. We set off first. Mike had to turn the pole as it was much too high for me to reach. I got off at the wooden landing stage and Mike steered into the empty lock. Once Rosy was in the chamber, I pressed the button. The VNF lock house was inhabited, but they were all at lunch. A sign said that the lock was the last of the automatic locks and the next few were subject to closure at the keeper’s lunch break time 12.30 until 1.30 p.m. We followed Rosy up the canal into Moissac. As we went past the maintenance yard all the VNF men were getting into two vans and going back to work, lunch break over. A girl operated the swing bridge and asked if we were continuing or staying in the port. Continuing, we said, same as him in front. We slowed down as we went past Liberty and had a chat with Paul and Neil. Paul said his engine was working very well, he’d had his greenies on (overalls) and had found just one small oil leak which he could live with! I asked if he knew Mike off yacht Shebah’s ‘phone number, no. I told him I was going to ‘phone to tell him that the radio news had said there was to be a simulated nuclear accident at Golfech the following day and a two kilometre exclusion zone around the nuclear power station would make life interesting for the motorists at least! I couldn’t find his number - he’ll find out about it soon enough. We followed Rosy into the first of the three locks at Moissac. A man with a pony tail worked the first lock from a small console on the lock side. I got on the roof and slung the centre rope round a bollard. Mike looked after the boat and I made some lunch. Rosy rose ropeless up lock 25, Moissac. Two young ladies worked 24, Grégonne and 23, Cacor. Bill tied on with a single line to our stern. 2.5 kms to the next 22, Artel. A group of young lads on the aqueduct were about to swim in the canal (the river Tarn below was in flood and very muddy) They shouted “Do you speak English?” in English And we shouted back “Pas de tout!” (Not at all!) in French - that stopped whatever they were going to do next. There was a resident keeper (an enthusiastic young man) at 22, Artel. He checked we’d got ropes attached (Rosy had a single stern line to our stern) before he opened the paddles. Once the gates opened he cycled up the towpath to operate lock 21, Les Verriès. A short pound took us to lock 20, St Jean where an elderly bearded man pressed the buttons, and then he cycled on to lock 19 Castelsarrasin.
There was no bollard our side, only a bar in the wall, so Bill slung a rope to the bollard his side from his roof and we attached to Rosy’s stern. We told the keeper we were continuing above the next lock and not stopping in the port. We lead the way through the town, between the floating duck kennels (loads of eggs in the nests); a barnacle goose was standing on one with the ducks and a few odd white geese roamed the grass by the senior citizens retirement home. The moorings were more or less full. A large hotel boat took up a lot of the space along the quay by the fountain. In the boatyard a lady in bikini top and shorts was working on a yellow topped Bermuda (ex-hire boat) and getting her back brick red – that’ll hurt next day! Two boats came down Prades, lock 18. I got off at the lock steps and went to press the button but there was a VNF lady waiting to do that, so I stood in the shade. We moored on the towpath side, opposite a sign for a restaurant, where it was surprisingly deep. Bill winded Rosy to moor bow to bows (keeping his engine room doors on the outside - like we do with our side doors, we can leave them open and not have passers-by peering in the boat). It was 5.10 p.m. We were hot and tired. Mike left the car at Valence to stay where it was, he said he would move it on Friday when we have a day off.
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