Bicycle to Santenay - Beautiful wine village Friday 29 April

 Today was predicted to be 70° and partly cloudy - a perfect day to bicycle to the wine village of Santenay. Most of our distance was done riding the tow path trail along the Canal du Centre with a couple of kilometers on back roads
.

Santenay, with vineyards right up to town

We started our exploration at the tourist information office at the train station. Armed with tourist brochures we found a comfortable spot in village square to have a café au lait and plan our day. Here we were in a village, literally surrounded by vineyards, some huge and some stuck into a tiny corner, all well tended just showing the first leaves of this year’s growing season. We toyed with the idea of doing a wine tasting or two, till we realized neither of us really wanted to do that. Instead we spent nearly the entire day walking through the vineyards and up to moulin Shrine, built in the early 1800s perched on the hilltop where it could take advantage of the wind. It was also the perfect viewpoint to see the village and how completely it was surrounded by working vineyards. Following backroads we came back into the village via The Château Santenay, once a fortified château belonging to Philip the Bold one of the famous Burgundian Dukes. Now a working wine château for the past few hundred years.

Château Santenay

By this time we were getting hungry, unfortunately our bodies are not yet fully on French time. By the time we felt the need, the grocery store was closed for two hours, the boulangerie was closed till 16h00 and the only restaurant still open was closing in 15 minutes. We took a chance and sat down. Turned out to be a great choice, even if it was a few times more than we had intended to spend. We both had wonderful salads and a nice Santenay Blanc wine to go with it.

Salmon Salad - Bon Appétit

Although the weather was predicted to be fine, the growing clouds said differently. After our unfashionably late lunch we returned to Juniper in Chagny, arriving just minutes before the rain hit. Spent the rest of the day reading and relaxing, oh and working on the toilet (but that’s part of life aboard a boat.

Fragnes to Chagny on the Canal du Centre - Thursday April 28

Canal du Centre - between Fragnes & Chagny

 We had a relaxing afternoon and evening in Fragnes with plans to get an early start on the canal this morning. We checked in with the Capitainery to see if we could get the first écluse time this morning. Unfortunately the two hotel barges, also staying in Fragnes, had claimed the early times. Our best bet was to wait till 10h30 or later to give them a good head start as they are much slower in the écluses.

As I was walking to the boulangerie for our morning croissants another pleasure boat was headed for the écluse half an hour before opening. Apparently someone at the VNF decided to let them go early. Unfortunately we had not even begun to get ready, or we could have gone with them.

Joan in tug of war with current

We waited till almost 10h30 before taking off at a slow pace (didn't want to catch up too quick). The écluses we would be going through today were up to 5.8 meters deep and the line you had to pull to activate the écluse was right against the upstream gates. Our solution was to just use one line in the center of the boat. We'd snag the last bollard before the end, then keep moving forward till Joan could reach the cord that closed the lower gates and started the water. We then pull ourselves back till we were alongside the bollard we were already attached to. This worked perfect.

After leaving our third écluse we found the fourth écluse full - it was the hotel barge, we'd already caught up, and we hadn't been underway for even an hour. We stopped above the écluse for a 15 minute break to let them get ahead, plus we started cruising at about 3 or 4 km/hr. We soon caught up and figured we'd have to wait again. We did have to wait, but it was in the écluse. The lower doors had trouble closing, but after 10 minutes or so they seemed tight. However, the only water
getting in to raise us was water coming over the top of the upper gates. We waited and waited. Then tried the boat's French phone and left a message that the écluse was broken. When that didn't work we moved back up to the upper gates and Joan pulled the red cord, indicating an emergency. We had an éclusier overriding the system to get us going in a matter of minutes. She, and her dog, not only got us through that écluse, but accompanied us through our remaining écluse.

Our éclusier and her dog

We arrived in Chagny about five and a half hours after our start time. We'd figured two and a half to three hours. Now in the port du plaisance in Chagny. We have three days of bicycling, wine tasting and dining out planned for this culinary gem of a town.

As the water came into the écluse
It boiled up over the stern of "Juniper"

It's A Long Way Up!
The rope Joan had to pull to start the
écluse was buried in slime - behind the ladder

And the écluse is up - ready to exit. Looking back

The last kilometer into Chagny the canal got very narrow.

Wednesday April 27 - On the canal at last

 Finally time to get on the canals. This morning we left Chalon sur Saône for the Canal du Centre. Getting out of our mooring was interesting (the preparation). Our original location had us pinned against the dock with small logs and more attaching themselves to the boat. We were fortunate to be able to move back a spot. It was just enough to change the angle the current was hitting us at. along with the change we were able to use a boat hook to disentangle ourselves from the debris field that had attached itself to us. With the help of another boater to push our bow out, Joan on a stern spring line and Michael at the wheel, we made it out with no trouble. Getting under the bridge to get back on the Saône took full power to buck the current through narrow slot.

Once on the Saône it was a short hop upstream to the Canal du Centre and the first écluse that has a 10.7 meter (35 foot) rise.

On our way to the first (and only) écluse of the day
We were greeted by Joan's spirit animal - the Heron.
A good omen for a good day.

The entrance to écluse 34 bis.
It was so dark in the opening we thought the doors were closed
Fortunately the éclusier came out onto the balcony and waved us in.

Inside - looking up at the 35' we would soon be rising

Michael on our line to a floating bollard. It was a much
easier trip than we had anticipated.

And… after a few minutes, we were at the top, and it
looks like the top of any écluse.

We traveled a few more kilometers up the Canal du Centre to Fragnes where we tied up for a leisurely afternoon of walking and bicycling. 

Chalon sur Saône

 Tuesday was a work day for us. We had provisioning, laundry, boat cleaning, bike repair etc to get done. We still managed to start the day with croissants and café. With all the rain we'd had on Monday, the channel our marina was in had a current running at well over 2 knots and we were right where the current hit us at about 30° off our bow. This pushed us hard against the dock and piled lots of debri, from small logs to leaves across our bow and stuck between us and the dock. By evening Michael was getting antsy to at least get into town for a bit of sightseeing And a late afternoon café au lait.

Today's blog will just be pictures of our walk around the old city of Chalon sur Saône. I'm sure you'll find them much more interesting that us talking about doing laundry and cleaning the boat.

The marina at Chalon sur Saône - tucked in behind Saint-Laurent Island on the River Saône

Our favorite book store - Michael loves French store
window art.

Closeup of book store window

Window art in butcher shop

Window art in game store

Chimneys and blue sky - great afternoon to walk the old town

Place Saint Vincent - Great place to people watch and catch a glass of wine or a café au lait

Cruising the Saône to Chalon sur Saône

April 23 - Saturday morning we got underway at a reasonable hour, and with next to no wind and a bit of current from recent rains we were back to Saint Jean de Losne before noon. We felt like we’d seen enough of Saint Jean so we didn’t even slow down. The weather radar looked like we had a couple more hours before the rain would begin.

We followed the Saône for a few kilometers before taking the mandatory 10 km deviation around a barrage. The deviation ended with a large scale écluse (lock). The water was already up and in less than 1/2 hour we completed our passage to Suerre, a historic river town that is rediscovering itself, is now welcoming bateau pleasance (pleasure boats, like ours).

April 24 - Sunday we both felt like we were chilled and couldn’t warm up, so we spent most of the day reading. Michael made a trip to the nearest InterMarche for chicken soup fixings to see if that would get us ready to get underway. In the afternoon we took time to do a leisurely walk around town to appreciate small town life in France.

Suerre Town Walk - Stopped to watch a neighborhood Boules Game.
Joan and I have been practicing, but can't throw like the locals

Suerre Town Walk - Fishing is a huge sport along the rivers and canals of France

Suerre Town Walk - One of many interesting houses we passed

Suerre Town Walk - Yet another Rue that begs to be explored

Suerre Town Walk - Exposed beam constructed homes - one stucco and one
filled in with bricks.

April 25 - Monday morning we were ready to cast off and the weather looked like we were good for a few hours of no rain. Approaching our second (and last) large écluse, we once again encountered the gates open and waiting for us. We reached our destination well before noon. With no rain and not too much wind, we decided to push on; this turned out to be a bit of a mistake. By the time we were a few kilometers down river from Verdun sur le Doubs we had a strong headwind, a few whitecaps and pouring rain. Two and a half hours later we arrived at Chalon sur Saône cold, wet and windburned. Lunch and a warm shower helped us feel ready to go shopping by evening. We’re planning to spend Tuesday exploring the city and doing some provisioning before we start the Canal du Centre on Wednesday.

Photo above - Joan moving our écluse line from one bollard to the next as the water level goes down. No éclusier to help with handling lines.

Photo below - One of the small villages we passed traveling down the Saône today

 

Progress

 

Escargot and Crémant de Bourgogne

Saturday April 16th - It’s Boat Show Time - or in France Salon Fluvial. The show had one new boat vender that scheduled a rendezvous for his owners to have boats to show. He had eight very beautiful yachts, all in Bristol condition for us to look at. There was also a large dock of brokerage boats for sale. Shoreside exhibits were everything from manufacturers the VNF (to government department that controls the rivers and canals of France), volunteer organizations supporting canals, house boat builders (one had a house tied up at the queue) charter boats open for touring and of course boat show food. Our favorite was the stand serving escargot with a glass of Crémant de Bourgogne.

Sunday was boat scrubbing time as we got ready to leave on Monday - plus some well earned reading time.

Monday we got up early, excited to finally be underway, did our engine check had all of gear in place and just as Michael went to start the engine we noticed we had no steering fluid showing. We topped it off and headed back to the repair queue. En route we emptied the reservoir again.

Our young contortionist mechanic
installing our hydraulic steering
Without having to remove our engine,

The rest of the week was hurry up and wait time. Late in the week we finally found that the hydraulic cylinder that moves the rudder had a bad seal that was leaking. We were told they would have to remove our engine to make the repair. The mechanic worked off and on in our engine compartment, we assumed getting the engine ready to pull. It turned out a young agile mechanic was able to reach under the engine and unbolt the cylinder. Of course there were no new cylinders available in France, but there were parts for a rebuild. Thursday late afternoon the rebuilt cylinder arrived and our contortionist mechanic was able to install it before quitting time.

We're finally cruising - our first Cafe au Lait
Sunny day for cruise to Auxonne 

Friday we did a quick sea trial on the canal (between two locks) before deciding we were good to go. We had a great cruise, about 18 kilometers, up the Saône River to Auxonne. So far we’ve had no leakage. Hoping to head back down the Saône Saturday, heading for the Canal du Centre, our first canal for this year.

Started to go for a walk - but the dry-dock near the yard working on our boat was changing boats
We spent the afternoon watching the entire process. Letting water in from the canal - moving the boats
to the canal. New boats in, diver positioning supports - emptying water to the Saône river level.  

What do we do while waiting? Spend time with new friends.
A wine night with another NW boat owner from Olympia,
his boat partner from England, Carol (pictured) from NZ and her partner
originally from the UK but has run commercial boats in France for decades

The Waiting Game

Finally on the water - sea trial

The past week has been a busy one, with lots of things to accomplish plus plenty of hurry up and wait time. We started on Saturday with a sea trial up the Burgundy Canal to the first lock and back to our dock. We were checking to see how much steering fluid we were leaking, if any at all. When we arrived the steering fluid reservoir was empty as was most of the steering system.

On our trial it turned out we leaked about a 1/4 inch of fluid on our one hour cruise. This problem will have to be fixed before we start cruising. The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning, reading and walking back and forth to the store.

Monday we met with the owner of the yard that works on Juniper. We basically let him know we would be staying till the steering was fixed. He told us they would get on it maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe Wednesday. Turned out it was Wednesday, end of the day. They gave the system a five minute check and said they’d be back in the morning.

Thursday morning the mechanic was back, and shortly after arriving we saw him walk off with a piece of our steering hydraulic system. That evening we were told they had found a leaky hose and would have a custom hose built in Dijon. But he wasn’t confident anything would happen. While waiting, Joan started picking at some of our colored striping that was coming off and making Juniper look really tacky. Next thing we knew we were on a three day project to take off a stripe, that ran around the house, using a scraper, heat-gun and some really toxic solvent to remove the remaining adhesive - it was just called Universal Solvent - and came with lots of warnings.

Sunny day walk & beer on the quai

Friday morning the mechanic returned with the magic part and reassembled our steering and bleeds the system of air. By this time boats had been moved around and there was no way for us to get out, so we kept removing striping. In the late afternoon a crew showed up to move boats and the next thing we knew we were on our way out for another sea trial, this time on the Saône River. Juniper passed her sea trial with flying colors, so we’ve moved from the repair quai to the marina,  ready to start cruising - Except The Salon Fluvial starts Saturday in Saint Jean de Losne, it’s the biggest inland water boat show in France, and we’re right where it will all be happening. We’ve got to stick around and let Joan do some boat show research, no problem talking Michael into staying - or was it Michael talking Joan into staying.

2022 Moving Aboard April 1 -

We flew out of Seattle April 1 on Iceland Air for our 2022 season aboard Juniper. All went smooth, once we were sure we understood all the new protocols. Arriving in Iceland we had a 1.5 hour connection time to clear passport control and change planes. We had over an hour to spare. The current rules said in order to enter France we needed to show our original  vaccination card and have completed a contact form so we could be contacted in France with CoVid info if needed. Neither of these documents were asked for. Just our passports.

Paris went smooth - A short shuttle on the airport tram to our hotel, a quick check-in and a comfortable bed. Having not slept on the overnight flight, we allowed ourselves a two hour nap before getting up for a dry run to our rental car for tomorrow. Returning to our hotel we sat in the bar for some people watching and reading time. A French beer for me and a glass of wine for Joan; we were finally settling in to being in France.

April 3: Sunday morning we took advantage of the hotel’s French breakfast buffet (espresso, croissants, cheese, etc, etc) where we ate enough to last all day. Another ride on the tram and a walk of less than a kilometer had us in our Renault Clio ready to tackle the roads. With Joan driving and Michael navigating we made the trip to the boat without a single wrong turn. Checked into our favorite B&B and grabbed a lamb kabob sandwich for dinner, sleep came pretty quick.

Lunch entrée

April 4: Monday the work began. Last winter was hard on Juniper - besides all the normal winter dirt we had mold throughout much of the boat, a first for us. On the positive side Juniper was in the water with new bottom paint and her cooking gas lines replaced. All we had to do is get her scrubbed from overhead to floor and make sure the other systems are working.

Joan hard at work

April 5-6: Tuesday - Wednesday - Scrub, scrub and more scrubbing, at least the weather was cooperating and we were able air out mattresses, and leave the windows and doors open while we worked. Wednesday we also took a lunch break to Michael’s favorite blue collar cafe with a fixed prix menu. Quiche Lorraine for the entrée, Beef cooked in a wine sauce with pom frites and a salad for our plat and a good selection of desserts and an espresso to finish it off. And being in France, it also came with wine and baguette.

View from our salon

Thursday the weather turned cold, wet and very windy. We picked this time to move aboard and get unpacked. Plus do our provisioning while we still had a car. We then drove to Dijon to get a new sim card for the boat’s phone, at the most modern shopping mall I’ve seen. It would have been fun to spend some time looking around but we still had to return our car in old town Dijon, then catch a train back to Saint Jean and walk to the boat. Dinner was a bowl of soup.

Friday was still cold wet and very windy. After breakfast, we elected to spend the day sitting in the salon and reading for the day. Michael made the first croissant run of the trip - our vacation is beginning.