Friday 4th July 2008 Vic to Pont d’en Serny. C. du Midi

Sunny, clear blue sky and cooler. We were moving before nine after putting the small blue cruiser back where it was before we arrived and retrieving our rope that we’d used to moored it. 7.5 kms of winding shady canal to the first lock of the day at Montgiscard. The gates were closed but the lock was empty, so I got off and walked up to the lock house. No one there and a small girl said her papa was next door. I went to the “reception” where a very young schoolgirl came out to work the lock. She insisted on us having two ropes, we’d already got the centre ropes around the vertical metal bars set in the extended walls of the chamber, but she wanted one on the bollards by the tail end gates too. Mike threw a rope up and I put the loop on the bollard and dropped the rest back down to him, where he let it drape over the back deck, then I went to get Bill’s rope. Mike was already annoyed before we got to the lock as the adjustments he’d made to the rudder were still causing the boat to want to turn left. We pulled out of the lock into the top chamber of the old former staircase and paused while he gave the rudder a bang with the sledgehammer and a pinch bar. Followed Rosy 3.7 kms to Aigues-Vives. A wide narrowboat called Saint Margaux went past heading downhill, a little later an ex-Connoisseur hire boat went past also heading downhill. A middle aged bearded man (resident keeper) worked the lock for us. It was the last lengthened lock and 4.4m deep. We rose with centre ropes only attached to the vertical metal bars. Mike paused again to give the rudder another whack with the sledge hammer, much to the amusement of the keeper - I told him we were doing technical modifications! 1.5 kms to Sanglier, a two-rise staircase. Rosy went first again. The gates were closed and Mike could see the keeper was mowing the grass. Bill hooted, nothing happened; then a lady whose car was parked by the lock walked up to tell him we were waiting. Rose with just our centre ropes round bollards in the middle of the oval lock chambers. We left the top at 11.55 a.m. The next pound was 3.7 kms long but we stopped about half way at Pont d’en Serny bridge. Rosy moored under the trees but the overhanging branches were too thick for good satellite access so Bill said we could moor alongside Rosy as he was tying to the roots. It was 12.20 p.m. when we tied up. Mike left the car to stay where it was and started working on the angle grinders that failed while we were on the dry dock. Both  machines had burned out a short length of wire leading from the brushes to the field windings. Exactly the same fault in exactly the same place on both  motors. A possible design fault??