Of Foreign Build (17 page)

We became residents in Port Ajaccio for a week and whilst it was a nice place – and a good anchorage – we were eager to leave. Time spent here was eating into our time in the canals. There had been strong winds in the Golfe Du Lion, where we were heading, but those winds were abating. We only needed two days for the 200 mile jump and our last overnight trip.

I don’t mind overnight sails on the whole. In fact, I came to enjoy them more and more, especially when it was hot. Hot, hazy days hid boats on the horizon, whereas at night, you could spot the lights from another vessel from miles away. The cruise ships were so huge, you could see the loom of their lights before they popped over the horizon. I liked a good eight hours sleep at night, so that was the only part I disliked. However, I did enjoy a snooze during the day to catch up and of course the rewards of a safe arrival into a new port.

Darkness seemed to bring out the “night-horrors,” and I had to work at not letting myself indulge in sorrowful memories or horror stories. During the day, I’d never think about death or feel fear. I trained myself to calm my thoughts and enjoy what the night offered, winking stars, cool air, vivid moon, and wonderment at, ‘what was out there.’

We found the perfect weather window and skedaddled as fast as the Yanmar would allow to Port Saint Louis at the bottom of France. We anchored outside the port in calm weather near a huge industrial area and cracked open the champers. An enormous wave of relief lay on both our shoulders. Anchoring in the dark in unknown waters didn’t faze us one bit.
Mariah
was our home; we knew every part of her and every part of each other’s character. Our teamwork was like poetry or a fine song, flowing, easy on the nerves, and enjoyable. It had almost been a year since we had left Australia and three years living permanently on board.

There was little time to waste. The following day, testing my poor French, we were in the marina booking in for our mast to be taken down. We didn’t know much about the canals, only that our depth of five feet was about the maximum you would want. There are many different off-shoots and routes to take, but we selected to traverse one of the main routes to maintain the necessary depth beneath. This route took us from south to north, right through the middle of France.

We had gathered advice along the way and knew that we could obtain additional fenders from boats that had just traversed the canals (from north to south) and wanted to be rid of their plastic covered tyres. As usual, the worries about how it would all happen dissolved with the patience of time.

We spent one day preparing for the mast to come down, removing most of the rigging, the boom, and organising a place for the boom and mast to lie. I became Noel’s assistant; he had it all figured out and I was there to simply hold this, pull that, and hang on to the other.

The following day, we cautiously puttered over to the wharf where the mast would be taken down. The young lad scampered up the mast to fix the crane’s loop in place; he was sinewy and quick, clearly having done this a thousand times. Our mast was timber and extraordinarily heavy, it was about thirty-four feet high, so we needed a good crane. The mast came down in minutes while we stood and watched. Hardly a word passed between us all. Our mast was as long as the boat, so it fit pretty well. That afternoon, we ventured into our first lock and into the labyrinth of the French Canals.

I was not sure whose idea it was to take this route. We wanted to get to England, spend time with my family, and fulfil Noel’s dream of sailing to England. We could have sailed north along the coast of Portugal and France, but the predominant winds were north and therefore it meant bashing our way up the coast. We’d had enough of head winds and once the idea of France was planted it grew and made perfect sense. Plus, of course, there was the added enticement of French wine, baguettes, and poetic language.

This was the first time we had taken the mast down, and it was far more complicated than I ever imagined. You needed the mind of a technician, which Noel had. With the mast down, the dynamics of the boat completely changed. We were now on a motor boat. While sailing, we were a formidable team, but I couldn’t help wondering how we’d cope in the canals. For a start, they were narrow and traffic was a constant consideration. The depth was shallow, too near the edge, and we’d run aground. Umpteen locks had to be traversed, which called for clever boat handling. With this mix of changes, potential problems, and caring for a timber boat in harsh metal constructed locks, I wondered if we would maintain our composure. Was our great teamwork that we were so proud of going to start showing some cracks? It became a whole new challenge to be met head on.

My first mistake was to say I was from the UK. Many French do not like the English for historical reasons and probably culinary reasons too. I did most of the radio work with limited French. On the radio I tended to have a heightened British accent, which wasn’t helpful. We proudly flew the Australian flag, but on reflection I think it would have been better to start every conversation with, ‘We’re Australians!’

With a fair bit of confusion regarding the opening times, and with our mast securely lashed down with a web of ropes on deck, we were ready to tackle our first lock. It was not too scary as the lift was only half a metre. Once we had managed to clamber up the wall to tie to the bollards, yelled at the lock master not to yell at us, (‘allez!, allez!’), everyone calmed down and the procedure was quite easy.

It was fairly simple, and my fear of what occurred in the locks vanished, replaced with a serene calm – I knew I was going to like this. All of a sudden, we found ourselves in the mighty Rhone!

We were moving through the water at six knots and doing three to four over the ground, the Rhone having a good flow to contend with. In Cyprus, we had received mixed messages about the French Canals. One such article in a sailing magazine had, within its opening paragraph, stated, ‘… and so commenced our long awaited canal voyage, which could only be described as two months of hell.’ Cheery.

On our first day, we reached Arles. To travel in the locks, we were required to purchase a license, which was pretty straightforward. After a booklet of rules, navigation, and money was exchanged, we were let lose. It’s amazing freedom. There’s no lecture, just a few pointers, and off you go. The great thing was that we weren’t allowed to travel at night. We
had
to stop. After endless nights of plunging into darkness, this was a welcomed relief. There were plenty of ports, anchorage spots, or jetties hidden away, where we could tie up or drop the pick and relax.

When we landed in Arles, we took a couple of days to sort the deck out. It was quite unusual to have the mast horizontal. We rigged up some shade, as frying in the extreme heat everyday was a trifle boring. We generally got ourselves ready to move further up the river and encounter our next lock. In Arles, we experienced our first bullfight, of the spectator kind, not the participating kind. We sat in a two-thousand year old amphitheatre, where many bottoms had sat before, and watched huge, black, powerful beasts become tense and wound up by skinny little white human. It was all quite fascinating.

Let me reassure anyone contemplating the journey through here that the canals are bloody marvellous. We state this even though we had had a robbery on board and that the locks, especially at first, can cause severe palpitations of the heart and generally made you wish that mummy was close to hand. It was beautiful. We were mostly surrounded by trees, parks, twittering birds, and people picnicking on the grassy banks. We puttered through the most handsome towns we had ever seen, stone houses, bending with age, cobbled streets full to the brim with character. It was like sitting in a postcard.

The locks deserve a mention, as they were quite incredible. The locks in the Rhone were huge, absolutely bloomin’ enormous actually. There was still some commercial traffic on the Rhone (although not much), and large barges had to traverse the locks, too. The whole process was really amusing. I was in charge of communications, and I think it was fair to say that I gave the lock-keepers a good laugh. It is one thing ordering steak, chips, and a beer, but to organise for us to go through the lock via a radio was quite another.

The large locks were daunting, a bit like puttering into a horror movie. At some point the lock-keepers obliged by opening the doors. The doors were painted a lovely shade of black in order to match the decor within. This of course made it a trifle difficult to actually distinguish any difference in the door being open and the door being shut. But not to worry, we only had a three knot current against us and a one hundred metre long barge up our backside to contend with. When we’d worked out the lock was ready, we puttered into the big, creaking, groaning, metal chamber.

The walls, as stated, were black. There was the sound of dripping water, the groaning of some internal machinations and the occasional screech of a buzzer to summon the spectators, to witness yet another witch hunt trial; a trial by immersion. That, of course, was only my imagination, and the reality was much worse. First, we needed to slow the boat down, maintain steerage, and find something (besides each other) to tie on to.

The bollards were neatly hidden within the wall, identified as a darker vertical cavity running up the walls and spaced about fifty metres apart. These bollards floated within the cavity and rose with us. For the first three locks, we tied the stern on to one bollard and the bow to the next further along; we were also slow learners. Noel would try and steer the boat (as the boat slowed, steerage ability lessened), control the throttle, pay out, and add more line by tying knots and fumbling. Noel, of course, felt like a complete tosser, not in control at anytime and generally not enjoying the entire proceedings. Then I would simply loop a line onto the second bollard, and we would centre the boat between the two bollards.

Finally, we settled on tying the boat to the one bollard with lines running fore and aft and even an additional line amidships, so I could work all the lines while Noel concentrated on steering. We utilised a plank over two fenders amidships to save the fenders as well as keeping the boat steadier in the swirling current. Being a canoe stern, we also had a big, fat fender sitting on a tyre on
Mariah
’s quarter as well and yet another big, fat fender fine on the bow. All lines ran back to their own cleats for ease of release.

Most days, we travelled a little further north; the French wave at us from the grassy banks, offering us wine if we could stop. When we did stop and met people in cafes and bars, they were friendly, but knew little English, which was good for me as it was like having a French lesson every time we stepped ashore. My French was improving, so I loved having a go. I certainly kept most of the nation thoroughly amused and didn’t mind one bit that I was making a complete twit of myself.

Unfortunately, I had to learn the words for “thieves,” “stolen,” and “angry,” along with just about every swear word you can imagine.

At a quiet jetty in a town called Roquemaure, we went shopping for a few hours, only to return and find the boat ransacked. We had been robbed. I marched straight off to the Gendarmerie. They couldn’t do much until we had gone through and worked out what was gone: a GPS, camera, portable CD players and cassettes, Christmas presents, jewellery and jewellery box, and personal items that could never be replaced – about two thousand pounds worth of gear had been lifted. After the initial shock, anger, and helplessness all we could do was spend an hour giving a statement to the police (armed with French/English dictionary). So we packed up and moved on. Fortunately, they hadn’t damaged the boat in any way and, of course, we were unharmed. So with that in mind, we decided to square our shoulders and just get over it as quickly as possible.

We tried hard not to let it affect the whole trip through France, and it didn’t. We met some lovely people after that day, and our faith in humanity was restored. We were close to Lyon now, a place I visited a few years ago and had loved. We hoped to find email here to communicate with family, who must have assumed we had been snatched by aliens by now. So far, the tiny, quaint towns we had stopped in were marvellous for respite, but not keeping in touch with the world as we knew it.

All in all, it was wonderful, no weather to worry about, no waves, no big winds. It was peaceful and resting. Though, I do think we were becoming a bit travel weary. We looked forward to stopping in England for a while.

We reached the Canal Du Centre, where the water levels were a lot lower and the river was about ten metres wide. It was just like puttering along a creek, and most days were spent in the middle of fields. The cows and horses nonchalantly watched us putter by while chewing the rich, green grass. We ran aground a couple of times, but fortunately, only on mud.

When the big barges came past, it was necessary for us to move to the edge to allow them to pass, which meant we then became stuck. Often we managed to rock, reverse, or ram our way through the mud. On occasions, a friendly lock-keeper would let some water out from an upstream lock, which gave us a bit of a lift.

But, best of all was when we spied a bakery and a vineyard and an accommodating tree; we’d loop a rope around the tree and toddle off for supplies.

It was now August, and we found that the whole population of Southern France went on holiday in August. This made us explore hidden parts of the towns and seek small shops where the locals purchased supplies. The experience provided new tastes, smells, and a rather relaxed state of being.

Further north, our ability to adapt was tested further by different locks. They ranged between two-and-a-half metres high to about five metres high. The bigger locks had floating bollards and were the same as before. The two-and-a-half metre locks were a bit more interesting. Noel, controlling the boat magnificently, manoeuvred us right alongside the wall as I stood with a fore and aft line looped onto each shoulder, ready to grab hold of and jump onto the wet, slimy ladder. I found that usually there was no top to the ladder, and my tearing fingernails had to claw at the concrete wharf to haul myself up. To add to the fun, there were thick cobwebs with resident spiders near the top that I had to ignore – I was scared of spiders. Once I had traversed the thorny bush and stinging nettles at the end of the ascent, I could tie up the lines onto bollards, some metres above Noel and
Mariah
. I would pass the stern line back to Noel so he could control it, while I handled the bow line. Pulling a blue cord, which was always well hidden, operated the locks.