Wednesday 22nd May - Ranchot to Besancon

There was a mix up about our departure time this morning......Crew thought it was 9 a.m. but cruelly, Skip informed Crew that it was 8.30!!  Not a good start!  We left the mooring more or less on time, by some miracle but obviously with jobs Crew still had to do!  The first lock was very close so they were done before the second of the day as there was 5km between them.
Although quite chilly first thing, the sky was blue and the sun shone down on us, so it warmed up pretty quickly, causing us to perform our usual striptease!
All the locks, although against us, were pretty quick to operate.  The countryside was very green, again with quite a few villages to see and occasional sheer rocky slopes reaching up to the now blue sky with only the odd cloud to cool us down.
Our last lock preceded the 1 kilometre tunnel and sometimes involves a long wait with nowhere to properly tie off in the basin but we were lucky and only waited for about 10 minutes.  We moored on the long quay just after 2.30 p.m.  today was more than an hour behind us, so turned up not much before 4 p.m.......a very late lunch today!
We decided to re- convene for dinner at 7 p.m. and strolled into town half an hour or so later.  The town of Besancon is a university town and is buzzing with young people - the bars and restaurants full of them, enjoying life - a lively place to visit!
We walked back to the boats and opted for an early night so bade Henk goodnight, watched a little TV and so to bed!

35km 12 locks 2 tunnels 6 hours