Hot and sunny, cloudy lunchtime, sun out again after about an hour. Untied and set off to be at the top of Fonserannes flight before eight. A Belgian cruiser passed us just as we were throwing ropes aboard. We followed him to join the queue. Two passenger boats, (including the turquoise one Mike had shouted at the day before for travelling too fast) were moored, plus a tangle of hireboats. Several hireboats moved off at 8.30 a.m. as the lock started filling, so we slotted in between the ones left and a little British yacht. Mike went for a walk down to the lock with the skippers off the yacht and the cruiser. The British hotel boat was booked for 9.00 a.m. The first load of hireboats went down, then the turquoise passenger boat, followed by hotel boat, then more hireboats. The keeper shut one hireboat out, so he went into the next full chamber first then we all piled in behind, the yacht and the cruiser on the right hand side and we went behind the hireboat. It was a very tight fit, our bows were overhanging the swimming platform of the large hireboat and Mike made sure we missed the cill by not allowing us to run backwards.
The yacht had only a small outboard for propulsion so the lady of the boat stayed up top and pulled the yacht on ropes into each chamber. It got hotter and hotter as we went down the flight and more and more gongoozlers appeared. I thought the crew on the boat in front were Americans, they didn’t speak. Cleared the flight, turned sharp right and over the aqueduct and waited with the others for the next lock, l’Orb, to fill. A yacht came up and we all went in, minus the little yacht, and dropped down the deep chamber 6.19m. Mike had a rope on the stern slider but I couldn’t reach the forward one, but there was nowhere to go as we were tight against the fenders on the cruiser alongside us. A friend’s cruiser was moored just below the lock next to a péniche, with a small Dutch Barge behind him that was also tied to the péniche. We went on board for coffee and a chat. P was in France to do some work on his boat but he was going to stay in Beziers as he had friends coming out at the beginning of August. Mike went to find a postbox to post a birthday card and had to go to the Post Office as all the boxes he saw were morning collections. He was back around one, ate his lunch and went to help P get his generator working. We spent a convivial evening chatting with P and drinking wine until late.
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