Sunday 19th August - Vitry-le-Francois to Orconte

Skip had promised to help the couple moored next to us out of their berth at 9 a.m. as it was a very tight squeeze for them.  Slowly he made it out with no damage at all.  We left at 10 a.m. a little before Henk to make it easier for him to extricate himself from his berth.
The locks are all over 3 metres so a bit more time consuming.  The first went OK except that it was very dirty, so filthy ropes and fenders again!  We were given a telecommande for our next series of locks but on both getting settled in the lock the back gate wouldn’t close properly so after a few attempts at calling the VNF we managed to get through and help was on its’ way.  It being Sunday it took around half an hour for the engineer to arrive.  The locks on this system are also a bit more aggressive than the previous ones, so not all that pleasurable!
We arrived in Orconte about 1.30 p.m. and were greeted by the crew who we helped out this morning - a British skipper and his German wife.  They helped us tie up and then we all assisted Henk in behind us. When we stopped here last year Crew was somewhat annoyed that we had to pay €8 to stay overnight, without power or even a bollard to tie off on - we managed to use one bollard this time at least and we could have used a long lead to obtain power but we decided against as it was only for one night.
We had a late lunch and Crew planned to cook dinner.  The bank was under the trees so we had no need of the canopy and the temperature was absolutely perfect so went spent most time up top, even dining outside......lovely evening!  Added to which, it being Sunday, we paid nothing for the mooring - sometimes the typical French laziness works to our advantage!
For some reason we all felt quite tired so Henk retired before 10 p.m. and we had a relatively early night.

13.5 km. 6 locks. 3 1/2 hours