Wednesday 2nd May 2018 St-Jean-de-Losne to Chazelles 22.8kms 1 lock

Mooring pontoon for passing boats (plus a resident boat)

3.1ºC Grey overcast and cold 7.4ºC when we set off just after 9am to get to the fuel pontoon for when they opened at 9.15am. Topped up our red diesel tank for the central heating. 161 litres at 85c/litre. A queue was forming – a Le Boat and an ex-Connoiseur hireboat had just come out of the old gare d’eau (H2O and Blanquarts plus the Le Boat hirebase) and were hovering mid-river waiting to fill up. Carried on downriver at 9.35am passing a large (100m x 9.55m 1,825

Boatyard at St Jean-de-Losne

tonnes) boat called Hercule loading grain at the silos. 7kms of fairly straight river, then the river went off to our right and over a weir as we went into the 10kms long canal section. Fishermen with a large well-equipped van were fishing in the very wide deep canal, and one lone cyclist went past (so there must be a cycle path again). More fishermen were either side of Pagny bridge. Nothing loading in the big offline basin. A cruiser was fast catching us up, one went past heading uphill as the canal started a long bend to the

Moored boats in St Jean-de-Losne

left to the lock. The cruiser (Swedish) went past and the ex-hireboat followed it – we increased speed to try to keep up, otherwise we’d have been shut out of the next lock until it had emptied and refilled again. Lock 21 Seurre was the first of the very big locks (185m long x 12m wide) and the keepers from now on insist boaters wear their lifejackets (we did). Centre rope down the bollards in the wall as we went down 4.3m. 30kms to the next lock (but not all that today). The old Connoiseur was

Fuel quay in St Jean-de-Losne

soon out of sight but the Swedish boat stopped to moor on the pontoons in Seurre. The big basin in Seurre (owned by H2O) looked pretty packed out with DBs. A narrowboat called Leander was on the bank in a shed in Seurre along with several DBs. Downriver passing the old lock and weir, the old lock house still lived in with VNF van parked outside. The river was starting to get much wider and deeper. Weather improving too, warmer, although the hazy

Hercule loading grain

clouds didn’t let much sunshine through. A large cargo coaster called Frelon from Valletta (with a very smoky forward engine – generator or bow thruster? went past heading upriver while we were looking for our wild mooring spot at Chazelle that we’d used several times before. 12.45pm. The wind picked up conveniently and blew the boat sideways into the bank and Mike applied forward and reverse to get the boat in exactly the right spot, stern under the overhanging tree. A VNF tug

Smoky coaster Frelon near Chazelle

pushing a crane boat went past heading downriver as a hotel boat went past heading upriver, wash not too bad as the river is wide here. Fishermen had made crude steps down to the water, useful to get up to the top of the bank for us. Fore end line round some exposed tree roots, centre rope temporarily round the KP181 sign while Mike put a quant pole out from the bows to keep the boat off the sandy bottom, tree stumps at the stern made ideal bollards and a long line out to a mooring pin forwards. Settled. TV sorted and after over half an hour’s tying up

Wild mooring near Chazelle

we had a late lunch. Hercule went past, going who knows where to unload his cargo of grain. 

Hercule loaded and heading south