Ranchot to Dole and beyond

The day before we left Besançon we were sitting in the salon doing nothing when we heard a loud crash near our stern. Going to back to see what the noise was we discovered the tempered glass window in our head had literally exploded. The rest of the day was spent determining that we could not get a replacement in Besançson and then finding plywood to make a patch.

The Nichols charter fleet is in port of Dole with the fall weather

After arriving in Dole we were able to locate a glass shop only to find it will take 10 days for a new window to be produced, not wanting to wait that long we decided to wait and move on to Saint Jean de Losne (our wintering spot for this year).

Peniche fully loaded with a bulk cargo emerges from the ecluse that we are waiting for. Better here than on a turn.

Our trip down the Rhone au Rhíne was going smooth till our third ecluse. We were all lined up ready to enter when the red green lights (meaning the ecluse was working on our request) went to red (in this case, start over), and the now full ecluse began to drain without opening to let us in. It turns out that Peniches (the working barges that fill an entire ecluse with inches to spare) have the ability to override the system. Fortunately there was a reasonable place for us to tie up and wait, plus be out of the way when he finally emerged and passed with little room to spare.