Wednesday 15 th June - Negra Lock to Le Segala

We left just after 10 and arrived at our first lock of the day (a double) in a half an hour or so.  Coming up to our second lock Skip received a phone call from David to say that there was a problem with the third lock and that boats were only being let through singly!  Happy to say that by the time we arrived  everything worked normally.  The problem at our fourth (another double) was that there were two boats waiting and it was lunchtime!  The double and triple locks are manned and Eclusiers can't work without lunch.......they are French after all!!  As it was only one o'clock and we believed that lunch was until 1.30, we tied off albeit using spikes (the other two boats were on the landing stage).  We decided on a bite of lunch since we had to let the other two through first so it would be a bit of a wait.  We got through around 2.30!

At the next lock we moored on the landing stage but they are so small that we sway around a lot, so Henk stayed back.  The same scenario as before - the two I front of us went up then a Hotel Boat came down.

  Crew walked up to the lock to check the situation as there were no lights showing.  A VNF man was operating the lock with his own gizmo.  When the Hotel Boat had passed we approached but the mean VNF man had closed the gates so Crew had to be let off with a boat hook as the lock was over 3 metres.  A very slow lock day!!
We arrived in Le Segala to the usual welcoming committee who got us secured and sitting in the nearby bar/ restaurant in no time!!  A table was booked for 7.30 p.m.  For quite a scruffy little restaurant, the food was remarkably good and the host very amenable - a good evening was had by all!

21 km 8 locks 6 1/2 hours