Thursday 6th September - St-Maurice-sur-Vingeanne to Oisilly

We knew that the commerce would leave at 7 a.m. when the locks open so we decided on 8 a.m. as our departure time since rain was expected later.  At eight o’clock however, the barge was still in the lock with two red lights showing, meaning that the lock wasn’t functioning.  A VNF man was in attendance, clearing the lock of weed which seemed to be the reason for the malfunction.  We then had to wait another half an hour or so for him to pull out yet more weed - all the while Crew bemoaning the fact that she could have had another half an hour or so in bed!!  We eventually left the mooring at 8.45 a.m.
After two locks we caught up with the commerce who was just entering the lock, meaning we had to wait for him to pass through and re-set the lock for ourselves - quite a delay!  In fact each lock was now taking us almost half an hour, as opposed to around ten minutes - a long tedious day with 12 more locks to pass through yet!!
So as to save some time preparing dinner, Crew set to work with said task......nothing much else to do really!
We didn’t moor where originally planned as we spotted two dolphins and thought it wise to stop as we were not too sure about both of us mooring on the small pontoon after the Oisilly lock.  It meant one more lock tomorrow but, to be frank, we had all had enough by then anyway....arrival time 3.45 p.m.
Well deserved nibbles and drinks were partaken of on arrival!!  This was not a bad spot to stop at all, with the added bonus of six or seven Charolais cows to watch - as they were observing us!  We managed to dine outside - the promised rain having not arrived, although we did hear a few rumblings of thunder.  One of Henks’ daughters called him just as we had finished dinner.  When he returned we just stayed on deck for a while but decided to have an early night.....we were all pretty bushed after our long days’ cruising!

21 km. 12 locks. 7 hours