We went over to say goodbye to our Australian friends and left the port at 9.30. Our first two locks were going up and since they were each around 3 metres, involved Skip climbing the ladder to attached lines. We shared the lock with a friendly French foursome who were very efficient. The locks, however were very slow!
We followed the French hire boat out of the locks but found them painfully slow....1.3 kph!! We had a 10km cruise to our next double locks, which had a drop of 9.3 metres and at this rate, we wouldn’t get there until the lunch closure, so we needed to overtake them. This was not an easy task as the canal was very narrow with few opportunities to pass. After about half an hour though, Skip managed it and we made the double locks with 15 minutes to spare!
We had been following a very slow passenger boat full of jolly people enjoying lunch. After a while Skip took the opportunity to overtake him and we arrived at our next lock at 12.30, so we tied off for a cooling beer as it was by now, very warm. The passenger boat arrived about 15 minutes later and the lock keeper waved them into the lock then also invited us to join them, which we did. Whilst in the lock the captain of the passenger boat suggested to Skip that we overtake him after the next bridge. Then just an 8 km run into the port of Marseilles les Aubigny, arriving at 2 p.m.
A strange port this, with, as far as we could see just two spaces for visitors. As both were free we made our selection and moored. Although it all looked a bit neglected and no signs of life on any of the other boats, the power bourne worked and we settled in.
Across the canal we spotted a bar/tabac, a patisserie and a small grocers and a butcher ( both closed unfortunately!). Still two out of four is not bad and Skip went over to buy a fresh baguette for our late lunch, along with two very good quiches. There was not much to see in this small town so we rested up and decided to go over to the bar for a couple of drinks later to celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary. The idea was to find a nice restaurant but as neither of us felt very hungry we decided to be lazy. In any event the closest good restaurant was about a mile and a half away!
We walk across to the bar around 7.30 after freshening up and found a mixed party of locals enjoying drinks and chat. After our intended two drinks, one of the men offered us a drink, so it would be churlish to refuse! This began quite a long discourse between us all and after Skip buying a round and a lot of chatter, we didn’t leave until after 10 p.m. We got back to Aphrodite and broke out the cheese and red wine, then a little TV and bed.
27 km 5 locks 4 1/2 hours
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