Hot and sunny. Chilly start before the sun was over the hills at 6.20 a.m. It was very calm with little wind, so we had the canopy up all morning. The water level, which had been dropping when we went to bed, had risen by half a metre when we set off. Mike had got up at five. He said two commercials had already gone past, and a large white van had been parked on the top of the high quay with its back doors to the edge of the quay, the driver had left its engine running and walked down the concrete coping along the edge of the slipway. Another van had arrived towing a small trailer with a fishing boat which he’d slipped then set off downriver. It had been very busy, very early, for what had seemed such a quiet spot!
The road alongside the river through St Vallier was very busy too for 6.30 a.m. Noted there were still “No mooring” signs all the way along the quay, with just one mooring for passenger boats at the downstream end. The river was flat as a millpond as the sun was creeping up behind the hills. Coming up to Andance/Andancette Mike measured the flow rate as being 2.5 kph. There was a small blue and white cruiser, with a scooter on the back, moored on the pontoon at Andancette (each time we’d passed by boat or by car, we’d never ever seen that pontoon vacant). A large commercial was catching us up fast - Guadiana, 135m x 1.45m 4,000T, running empty, overtook us at KP67.5. There was no chance of keeping up with it to go through the next lock, it was soon gone! Tug Audacieux and two empty pans went downstream, its crew waving.
A hotel ship was catching up as we entered the lock cut. 2 kms to Sablons, lock 3. They were doing maintenance work on the dolphins, a crane boat was moored between two of them. We motored up to the pontoon which was very close to the lock. The cruise ship Swiss Pearl followed us and sat against the dividing wall between the lock entrance and the weir/hydro-electric power plant (one on every lock). The lock lights were two vertical reds, indicating a problem with the lock. It was nine thirty. Not long afterwards the gates opened and a small Norwegian yacht came out. Mike asked the keeper on VHF if we could follow in behind Swiss Pearl. The keeper said yes, OK. The big hotel boat crawled into the chamber using its left engine and bow and stern thrusters to keep it against the wall. It took ages. We followed it in and I roped on to the last floater in the right hand corner below the lock keeper’s cabin. There was about 20m free space in front of us. I didn’t see any ropes on the right hand side of the ship, in fact their side decks were twice our cabin height above the top floating bollard (there are two in each slot, a high one and a low one - we use the higher one as it is about half a metre higher than our cabin roof, which is ideal for our rope from the centre stud on the roof) and the steerer kept giving the left engine bursts of forward all the time we were in the chamber, so we thought it was most likely they had no ropes on at all. We rose 15.3m and eventually followed the boat out. Said merci, au’voir to the keeper who was hanging out of his cabin window way up above us (he’d probably been listening to us saying what a slow boat the hotel boat was, except when going past us at midnight!)
Nirvanah, another empty 135m long commercial, was waiting above - almost in the lock mouth - he had his blue board out to pass the wrong side of the hotel boat, we passed on the wrong side too. As soon as we’d cleared his bows he started up his bow thruster to move into the lock. A small Dutch cruiser was flying downriver to get in the lock with the commercial. It was 10.15 a.m. The hotel boat ignited his other engine and was soon a dot in the distance on the long canal section. The quays at Salaise-Sablons were a hive of activity. Low profile coaster Nina (registered in Kingstown – we were having bets that it had never been there!) was being unloaded of a cargo of what looked like peat into lorries by JCB;
beyond it another 135m barge called Sirius had nearly finished loading grain from the silos and dust was lying everywhere - its car behind the wheelhouse was white and so was the guy directing the loading tube, head to foot. He slapped both arms around his body as we passed and almost disappeared in a cloud; tug Europa with two empty pans was sitting waiting at the coal berth. An empty pan pushed by tug Pierre et Paul went past us as we went under the bridge, it took the unmarked arch on the left. By the bridge a converted péniche had been hauled out on the bank. Low profile coaster Frelon from Valetta was being loaded with scrap by a bulldozer and a JCB with a peeled onion grab was spreading the scrap in the hold. At KP 54 a very fast small French cruiser coming towards us was almost on the plane and had a rolling wash bank to bank. Mike went up on the front deck to photograph it but it slowed down before it came within range of a decent shot. I had to go inside for a while and sit down as my back was aching; I went back outside within twenty minutes as we were only 2 kms from tying up. Mike said a CNR (Compagnie Nationale du Rhône) launch had passed us heading downriver but had turned at the weir and gone back upriver. We could see it was now moored on the pontoon we were heading for, we hoped there would be enough room for us. Tug Atlas and two empty pans were moored just upstream of the new road bridge at Chavanay. Said hello to the crew as we passed by.
There was room on the pontoon for our fore end behind the CNR launch and we tied the stern to a bit of metal sticking up out of the rocks by the remains of the old suspension bridge behind us. We had some lunch. The little cruiser from Andancette moored opposite, (anchored we thought) for lunch. The crew of the CNR boat returned at 2.15 p.m. I asked if they were coming back, no, they were off to Les Roches-de-Condrieu - too expensive there for us, I told them - they said it was free for them. Mike said he’d bet they didn’t have to buy the petrol for the two 200 HP outboard motors that powered their vessel when they set off upstream at about fifty miles an hour and did several circles which leaned the boat over at 45°! It was only 6 kms upriver to Les Roches-de-Condrieu, so they’d be there in ten minutes. We moved the boat forward, retied it and got the moped off using a plank. Mike went to get the car from Ponsas. I made a start on the chores. Saw a head appear around the front door and thought it was Mike. He didn’t get on the boat so I went out to look and came face to face with a youth! There were two of them on the pontoon so I said hello, all OK? Yeah, hot, came the reply. I agreed it was too hot and retreated indoors out of the full glare of the sun. They were still on the pontoon when Mike returned half an hour later. He chatted with them and they asked him for some water so he gave them some icy cold water out of the ‘fridge. Got the bike back on the roof after they’d gone. Sweated buckets cooking a stir-fry for dinner.
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