Chatillon-en-Bazois to Baye

Saturday 14th Sepember

Chatillon-en-Bazois to Bae

16km and 14 locks

We left Chatillon-en-Bazois at 9am, infact we got to the lock early as it was open thinking we would wait for the lock keeper and a lady lock keeper we’d not seen before appeared at 8.50 and worked the lock for us so we were through by 9.05am, very prompt.

A tight turn out of Chatillon en Bazois

 There weren’t so many awkward bridges today, although there was one at PK 62 that on our guide says it is 2.70m high but we had no problems with it.  We had the same lock keeper for 5 locks, he was great but conversation was stilted as he had no English and our French is ……….! 

We had some double and treble locks today, all went well, and nearly all our locks were on our own, no other boats.  The last three locks we shared with a young French couple in a hire boat.  The young guy was very keen on working the sluices with the lock keeper which was a real pain, as he left his poor girlfriend manning the ropes (and she was struggling, scary as you could see that she was near to falling in at one point)  Also all our lock keepers so far have been really good at slowly opening the sluices, watching how our boat moves with the force of the water.  Because the young guy was opening one of the sluices as well as the lock keeper the flow of water was really strong and hard for me to hold the bow in.  Luckily our last lock was too deep for the young guy to get out, he did try to get up the ladder but decided not to.

We are now at the top of the hill at Baye, over looking the lake (Etang), all our locks from now on, after the Baye tunnels, will be down hill. We are aiming to do the 16 locks down hill tomorrow, its 16 locks in a distance of only 4km.   They are all 2.5m deep so we should get very slick at them by the end.

We are not sure of what time the departure will be tomorrow, we have to check with the lock keeper at Lock 1 to see if its 9am or 10am.  Depends what’s coming the other way.

The weather hasn’t been fantastic today, and its raining at the moment. Our barometer shows storm/rain so the outlook isn’t great.  We can't complain though, we've had some amazing weather this year.

A double lock, very interesting watching the water coming to us from the far gates

Moored up and waiting for a boat to come down the Chavence locks

The last Chavance lock this was part of a treble lock

Water rushing in but the young lock keeper was gentle with us.

This was supposed to be low (2.7m)
but we didn't think it was any worse than any other others we'd been through

Maybe we are getting used to them

Rather excessive greenery on this lock gate at Baye

Our mooring at Baye over looking the lake (Etang)
We like the view