Friday 11th July 2008 St Jory to Lacourt-St-Pierre Canal de Garonne

Hot and sunny morning, breezy, clouding over mid morning. Sultry, we had a thunderstorm later. We set off at about the same time as Grand Duchy. They told us they were going to Toulouse to leave their boat there for a month to go back to the UK, then they were coming back to explore the Baïse. Might see them later. The cruiser had set off earlier, winded and was heading downhill, same way as us. We carried on downhill to lock 6 l’Hers, with an aqueduct over the river of the same name just above the lock. No signs of life at the lock, we were back to keeper operated electric (we thought that maybe there was one keeper for the two locks and he’d gone off to the second lock with the cruiser) so Mike gave a couple of hoots as we slung a rope round a bollard on the quay above the lock. A young man with a baby in arms came out and pressed the button to fill the lock and a young lady came out to take over and work the lock for us, so there was a resident keeper on duty. The controls for the lock were at the base of a 2.5m high panel which caused the young lady to have to squat to hold down the levers.  800m to the next lock N° 8, Castelnau. A very chatty young student lad pressed the buttons. As we left the lock a British replica Dutch barge arrived below the lock so when the keeper started closing the gates we all yelled “il y a un montant!” (one to come up!) He reopened the gates and they carried on in. Bill sent a text to ask for Paul’s ‘phone number and we asked where he was – Rosy was just approaching Carcassonne. It was 3.2 kms to lock 9, Emballens, also operated by a keeper. As this one was operated by an older bloke I asked why the locks were keeper operated. He said that quite simply the VNF ran out of money and never finished the project. It was 10.30 a.m. as we set off on the long pound, 18.5 kms to Lavache. At eleven we passed through Grisolles. A replica Dutch barge and a cruiser (both British) were moored there, surrounded by fishermen. No signs of life, they must have gone early to find the well-recommended restaurant. The crew of Grand Duchy said there was water at Grisolles, but we looked and couldn’t see a tap. A purple heron flew off in front, landed and flew off again to land again a few dozens of metres in front. The lock at Lavache was automatic, (we’d forgotten), so we went down it five minutes before the end of lunch break time. A VNF man came out of the house and asked if we were continuing down Montech. We told him we were going to Lacourt-St-Pierre for a few days. The moorings at Montech were more or less full; we’re too long for their end-on moorings anyway - the one end was for the trip boat (we’d just seen that above Lavache) and the other end was occupied by another British steel boat. The crew of the latter spoke to us from their aft deck as we went past. Turned right on to the Montauban arm and ran down the 4 kms to Lacourt. The mooring was empty so we had our choice of which end to moor so we tied up at the upstream end as before, connected the electricity and started some washing. I said it would be a good idea to switch off the hot water supply as it seemed to be using hot water to rinse the clothes too. Mike did. Then the machine didn’t want to work. He pulled the machine out from under the work top to check the water controlling solenoids, then he spotted that he’d reversed the pipes, connected the hot pipe to the cold input. Italian for cold is freddo and hot is calda! Rats! He’d done that during the winter at Valence, which didn’t matter as all the water was cold then. Swapped the pipes over and the washing continued working OK. At 4.45 p.m. the British Dutch Barge arrived and occupied the remaining length of quay. Mike went out to lend a hand with ropes as it was shallow (we were on the bottom) but the crew said they were OK. A distant thunderstorm took the last fifteen minutes of Corrie off so we watched the re-run on ITV2 later at 1.00 a.m.