The end of the Canal du Centre/River Soane to St Jean de Losne

Monday 24^th April

Fragnes to St Jean de Losne

68km/3 locks/7hrs 50mins

After a relaxing day on Sunday, we departed Fragnes Monday morning at 8.30am.  A hire boat left just in front of us. We both had to wait at the big lock 34b for a hotel boat to come through and we were out of the lock by 9.40am.

It was so lovely being on the River Soane; it looked like glass it was so smooth.  We wanted to try and stop at Suerre overnight.  We had tried to pre-book but we were told they weren’t that busy so were not taking bookings.  When we arrived at Suerre we couldn’t get onto the main visitor pontoon as it was full so we carried on.  The reason we wanted to stop was that we felt it was better to arrive at St Jean de Losne late morning rather than late afternoon as it gets busy there on the quay.  But we needn’t have worried because as it is still early in the season there was plenty of space for us when we arrived at 4.20pm.

It was a long, but very easy day, and we now know we wont be cruising for at least a week so we can chill.

Waiting for Deborah hotel barge to exit the lock

Going down! 11m deep, give or take

Exiting lock 34b

Beautiful River Soane

Hotel barge Jeanine

This mummy is going to have her hands full, they swam past us on the river.
The babies almost ran across the water to keep up with mum!

One of the two commercial locks we went through
We've been through them before so know that they are pretty easy

You have to change the position of the rope as you go up

Arriving at St Jean de Losne, its so nice to see space for us on the quay,
on the left just after the bridge

This monster turned around before the bridge and backed up to its mooring
We were pleased we didn't know it was behind us on the river, it would have been travelling much fast than us.
It arrived about 2 hours after us 

This hotel boat had to wait for a smaller hotel boat to move off the mooring

On Wednesday, Richard and Julia (Piper barge Ettie) arrived from Dijon.  They had a long days cruising in not very good weather conditions and they just managed to get through the last lock before they closed at 7pm.  I’d cooked a beef bourguignon, which suited the miserable weather perfectly. We had a lovely evening catching up and drinking a little too much vino!

We moved Rangali and Ettie on Friday to moor up where the Piper Rally was going to be held.  It looked fantastic to see 9 Piper barges and 1 Piper narrow boats all moored up in one place.  For the past week we have had some very sociable days and evenings with old and new friends.  

Saturday and Sunday was very busy with prospective Piper Barge owners viewing the various Piper barges.  On Friday evening Pipers organized a BBQ and on Saturday we all were taken out for dinner and we had a fabulous meal.

The locks were closed on Monday May 1^st due to it being a holiday, so no barges moved until Tuesday.

Three Pipers all in a row

Rangali and Ettie moored alongside each other, they are sisters with about one month in between in age
We loved having Richard and Julia moored alongside us,
but I'm not so sure they liked having to clamber around our boat to get to shore.
They are earlier risers than us and they very kindly bought us our baguette and croissants each day...we miss you Richard and Julia!!!

Some expert mooring by Bella Fortuna

On Sunday lunchtime there was a bit of a drama in the port.  To allow all the Piper barges to moor up in the port, five boats, barges of various sizes, including a hotel barge, and a commercial barge, were moved to the opposite bank, they were all tethered together alongside each other.  

I was down in the salon showing the boat to a prospective buyer, Richard, Julia and Kev were having a coffee on the back deck.  They suddenly noticed that ALL 5 barges had started to drift away from their mooring on one large lump.  It had become very windy, with strong gusts, and the wind turned the group of barges 180 degrees and they were slowly headed, bow first, towards the Piper gathering.  Richard and Kevin ran to alert Simon Piper as he would know who to call for assistance.  Simon then proceeded to use Monchique, his barge, as a tug to try and push the group of loose barges away to prevent damage to the moored up Piper barges. It was quite a stressful thing to watch, but luckily he was successful and then about 20 minutes later a pusher tug from the port arrived and managed to take the five barges back to their original position tie them up securely, albeit now facing the opposite way round!

(Photo courtesy of Richard and Julia Ettie)
Simon Piper on Monchique (turquoise barge) trying to stop the progress of the loose barges heading towards the
Piper narrow boat and brand new Piper barge Octavian

(Photo courtesy of Richard and Julia Ettie)
Fenders in hand to stop any damage, the bow of this
unmanned commercial barge missed Octavian by inches
and the hotel barge in the background only just missed the narrow boat

Kev was given a rope to hold that was attached to the rogue group of barges
He's on the left in a light red top.  He looks very nonchalant but he told me afterwards the rope was very degraded so couldn't tug too hard, it snapped later.

Monchique (turquoise barge on the left) still trying to stop a disaster happening

At last the pusher tug arrived 

All peaceful at last.
Another hotel barge has arrived to join the other boats that were loose earlier.
We are hoping they are all tied up securely now.

One of our very enjoyable get togethers over the weekend
Richard and Julia off Ettie and Stuart and Christine off Hilda May and of course Kev!

 We are now moored back on the Quay at St Jean de Losne.  It rained heavily this morning, so we are staying put and we will be setting off tomorrow to continue our travels.