Wednesday 24th May - Dole to Ranchot

1.  We woke to another fine sunny day, albeit a bit windy - I believe that most of Europe is enjoying the same fine weather.  We slipped our lines around 10 a.m. - the first lock was only just around the corner.  Skip had noticed a narrow boat and a big barge leaving the mooring about 45 minutes before we left so the hope was that we wouldn't catch them up but........that was not to be!!!  Just before our third lock lock the big barge hove into view - time for stomachs to sink!  We managed to overtake him as he was going painfully slow but alas not in enough time to avoid sharing the lock with him!  We had to move right up to the lock gate in order for him to fit in behind us.  The whole process took quite a long time and was very hard going with the gush of water hitting us, making control difficult.  We felt a bit mean but we took ourselves through the next lock alone!  What was supposed to be an 'ecluse de garde' (a lock only used in flood situations) didn't quite turn out that way!  We arrived to a red light so we tied off at the waiting pontoon and Skip went for a recce.  It seemed that we had to go through the whole operation so the gates closed then we had to use the zapper to re- start everything.  We got into the lock, started the system off then noticed that there was no movement of water at all!  So we went in, bottom gates closed then the top gates opened immediately......what a waste of time!!  We caught up with the other slow boat soon after (a wide narrow boat, if that makes sense, crewed by a nice English couple) and shared our last two locks with them.  We landed in Ranchot around 2 o'clock and the narrow boat moored behind us.  It turned out that they were travelling with the big barge so we had to try and make .space for the big boy when he turned up.......a very snug berth!!  Lunch and a siesta followed then Skip went to see what Ranchot had to offer - not much really.....a cafe (closed), a boulangerie (open at 6.30 a.m.) and a camp site with a restaurant which was closed as it's still a bit early in the season.  Crew decided to cook the venison steaks for dinner as we needed to ease the load on the freezer so venison, jacket potatoes with chive butter (herb garden going well!) and spinach and peas in creme fraiche - very good!  Still no TV reception so we watched 'Bridget Jones' Baby' and retired around midnight.

21 km 7 locks 4 hours