Chitry-les Mines to the marina in the middle of no where May 20 - 26

 May 20th

Checking tire pressure for our ride to Corbigny
Outdoor restaurant at Chitry-les-Mines in back

Got a 9:30 start - our eclusiers had spent a half hour preparing écluses so they were up and ready for us allowing us to make good time. We had two new young men who worked well together and had us to the end of what we thought was their territory in time to hopefully be at our destination before lunch break. Just when we thought we had it made, our next écluse, a double, had a boat coming up - the clock was ticking. Made it though with maybe enough time. Got to the second to the last écluse for the day and our two guys were back with us. Made it through the first of their two écluses with less than ten minutes till their lunch break. We said our goodbyes and assumed we would have to wait for an hour to do our final écluse. As we began looking for a place to tie to shore and wait, Joan noticed, with the binoculars, that our guys were at the next écluse and they were opening the door for our arrival. It has to have been a first for us to have an éclusier work into their lunch break. We finished our last kilometer or so and tied up for the night at Chitry-les Mines. A small town that had supported silver mining in its past. Today there is a château and a small outdoor restaurant at the quay.

Made an afternoon bike ride to Corbigny, a very nice small town, that was a good climb out of the valley, on our bikes for groceries. Had our first dinner of the season on our sundeck, followed up by dessert at the restaurant.

May 21st

The water should have been up to the horizontal
board at the top. Be touched bottom once.

Rode back to Corbigny via back roads to get a closer look at what there was to see. Being off
season, and Sunday that turned out to almost nothing. Biking back we decided to take a route that would allow us to ride along the canal for a bit. Ran into our eclusiers working with three hire boats in a single lockage. On the spot we decided we’d like to schedule a 13h00 start for today.

Our start was great. We had the écluse to ourself, although we would be picking up another boat a few écluse ahead. At our third écluse the gates were closed. We idled around as a couple of VNF cars went by. Soon there were éclusiers at our écluse, but nothing happening. After a while a couple of them began walking up the canal towards us. Turned out there was a leak in the section of canal ahead and a boat was aground, so we’d have to wait till they could get the water level back up. We began getting Juniper ready to spend some time (maybe the night) tied  up with our mooring stakes. No sooner got her secured and a VNF truck drove up asking us if we were continuing on today. We were in the écluse in a matter of minutes ready to continue our voyage. The water in the canal was very low and we did hear Juniper’s bottom drag over the canal’s bottom once.

Our view for nearly a week, while we waited for
a mechanic. At least it was picturesque

Somewhere in all the confusion, one of us must have kicked the float attached to the engine key, shutting it off. With a diesel, your engine keeps running but it can play havoc on the electrical system of the boat. We didn’t discover what had happened till we were tied up at Tannay and the kill switch wouldn’t shut the engine off. After  finding a way to stop the engine we fired it up again and it appeared we might have damaged the alternator charging our house batteries. Guess we’ll have to get a mechanic to check it out - don’t want to ruin our new batteries.

Flez-Cuzy, just across the river & canal from us
we found our mechanic in the last building on the right

May 23-26

Finding a mechanic proved to be a problem. We were tied up at a hire boat base, but they want nothing to do with private boats. All they were concerned about was us paying moorage fees, no time to have one of their mechanics even look at Juniper

Walking around  the nearby village of Flez-Cuzy we saw an independent auto mechanic still working in his shop, with the help of Google translate we were able to see if he could give us a hand. He let us know he’d be over as soon as he was off work. True to his word he showed up with his wife and his multimeter. It appeared we were overcharging, so we began our search for a marine mechanic/electrician. The rest of the

Sylvie to the rescue

week we were stuck aboard for the day waiting for someone that never showed.Our mechanic friend put us in touch with an English barge captain, none of his contacts worked out. We contacted a friend of ours that is a retired barge captain - none of his contacts worked out. Our local éclusier talked with a hire boat mechanic that promised to come by, and never showed, I put a notice on the Dutch Barge Association forum and within an hour had a lead. We send a text to Sophie asking if she could help (translated by Google translate). Got a call back with a promise to be at the boat the next day 15h00. She was right on time, figured out our issue was a loose wire and alternator belt. At last a good night’s sleep with hope of being back on the water tomorrow morning.

In Flez-Cuzy, they plant cats. Require little water
and can feed themselves