Hot and sunny with a north-westerly wind. Mike was up at five, the tide had gone out! The water level had dropped between 50-60 cms and our bow side rope was tight around the rotten tree. Mike freed it all off, fortunately there was plenty of water underneath the boat. We untied and set off at 6.10 a.m. as Vaillant, another loaded big boat, came round the bend. I swept up all the tree debris off the front deck as we went under the two bridges at Fourques. The day before there had been a small gap under the concrete fill-in between the legs of the first of the bridges, today the gap between it and the water was over half a metre. Loads more posts were showing by the suspension bridge.
Joined the Rhône at 6.30 a.m. I was steering as Mike was getting the anchor out and ready for deployment should the need arise. Just before the first bend we met a big tug called Silex pushing an empty 82.5m tanker called Annequingt coming downstream. The morning air was still and quiet with just a hint of breeze, later the wind picked up and kept up a 50-60 km/hr blast as we plodded steadily upriver so no sunshade today due to the wind. We met hotel ship Chardonnay at 7.50 a.m. near KP274. Five new monster wind generators had been installed on the left bank before the zone portuaire de Beaucaire, one was on strike already (or just resting?) Tarascon’s castle was on the right. Gabian went past again heading downriver with another load of sand and gravel, he was closely followed by a cruiser. I put my orange self-inflating lifejacket on as we went under Tarascon’s old bridge; I was half an hour too early so I took it off again. Mike called the keeper at Beaucaire lock when we were fifteen minutes away from his lock, he acknowledged the call and said he would see us soon. A loaded downhill boat (Evasion, about 1,000 tonnes) came out of the lock (well timed) and we kept on crawling (at around 4 kph relative to the bank) up the left hand side to the lock, keeping out of as much of the flow as possible. We rose, attached to one floater by our centre roof rope, fifteen and a half metres without the slightest fuss and thanked the keeper as we left. 9.50 a.m. Two French boats, a cruiser and a catamaran, were waiting to go down and milling about above the lock like complete novices.
Arosa Luna, a very large hotel ship flying a German flag, came downriver to the lock. The pontoons at Vallabregues were full and we noted they’d added a new one upstream of the others at forty five degrees to the flow of the river, which would afford some protection from debris brought down in floods; a small concrete quay between the new pontoon and the old ones had also been added. Hotel ship Camargue overtook us at KP255 by the (disused? Or spare capacity?) oil fired power station at Aramon; a very misty Mont Ventoux was visible on the right bank in the distance. At 11.45 a.m. we went under Aramon bridge doing a better speed of 6.4 km/hr. A restaurant boat from Avignon went downstream making a huge wash and we bobbed up down for quite a while after he’d gone. A loaded commercial went past close to the far bank as we passed the river Durance. Lunch on the move. An empty called Jumbo overtook us between the new TVG twin bridges and the girder bridge in Avignon. Three Belgian cruisers went past heading downriver at Villeneuve. Mike spotted the first (or was it the second?) (Second! Ed). topless sunbather of the year. The row of houseboats at Villeneuve seemed to have extended to one very large cruiser and five converted péniches. We were overtaken by a large empty called Nirvana going full pelt for the lock. Avignon lock emptied, the big commercial waited right by the bottom end gates after the keeper had told him fifteen minutes earlier that the lock would be ready in twenty minutes. Mike asked on VHF if we could go in. The keeper answered (eventually) to say we could follow the commercial in. We rose 10m, the empty sitting with one side rope by the cabin at the stern, occasionally giving brief bursts of turning his prop. Left the top at 2.25 p.m. A French yacht was motoring for the lock. Nirvana disappeared into the distance. We passed a German yacht and cruiser as we went under the bridge over the lock cut. A little later we passed two small British yachts heading downhill by KP231.
Yet another yacht went past as we tied up on an empty quay at Roquemaure KP225. It was 4.00 p.m. Gave Mike a hand to get the moped off the roof. He went into the village on the bike to get some bread before he set off to get the car from St Gilles. A hotel ship moored opposite half a mile away on the bend, presumably the passengers went for a short visit to Châteauneuf-du-Pape, then the boat set off again downriver as a three pan pushtow went upriver. The wind picked up and started blowing really hard, water began swilling across the front deck, coming in and out through both scuppers. I kept an eye on it but the level didn’t get more than about a half inch deep by the front doors. At midnight a hotel ship went past heading downriver; our boat tried to leap on to the bank to get away from the rolling waves of his wash.
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