Wednesday 30th August - Chamouilley to Chevillon

We left our lovely Chamouilley at 10 a.m., again not knowing for sure where we would end up.  Crew rather likes these ' mystery tours'!  Approaching our first lock very close to the mooring we noticed another boat creep up behind us - hmm......company for the first time!  Crew was seriously hoping that the locks weren't too violent as now, we would be right up front.  No problem as the first lock filled from underneath and all was well, if a bit tight.  Our lock companions were two Swiss men on a twin-engined steel boat,who clearly knew what they were doing so there were no problems, apart from keeping ourselves from the front of the lock and them keeping themselves from the back.  He had the same problem as us with weed in his filter but being twin engined he could keep going on one engine whilst clearing the other side - we had to stop once to clear ours. We successfully locked through five times with them and moored in Chevillon, waving them 'goodbye'.  We managed to tie our aft line onto a metal spike but had to use our mooring pins for the forward and central lines.  The water was very high, meaning that all fenders had to be lowered.
We got settled and had some lunch, during which the VNF turned up to cut the grass.  A very polite young man came to inform us that this was happening.  Crew walked up to the bridge to investigate the restaurant on the other side of the canal - it didn't look all that interesting......if, indeed it was open at all.  Decided on making steak tartare for dinner.
Skip went to help a lone Dutchman in - we already had another boat moored behind us.  A little later he came over to us and asked us to,join him for a drink but we reversed the invitation and he came aboard for a beer.  Although Dutch Joe, had lived in London for many years and was divorced.  He said that he was giving up the cruising to find other things to do.  He stayed until almost 9 p.m. - of course, it was now too late to make dinner so we made do with cheese.  We watched a DVD and bed.

11 km 5 locks 2 1/2 hours