Sunday 2nd June - Montbeliard to Montreaux-Chateau

We left the port at 9.30 as arranged and met up again with our friendly VNF man at the first lock.  Crew applauded him for his English and he said that he had only learned it at school and that it was a long time ago........the same for both of us!

We had a little trouble getting our zapper to work until we were almost on the lock gates with a couple of locks - we suspect that the trees and foliage were blocking the signal. 

Todays’ cruise is a little complicated, with changes of canals and a chain of five manned locks at the end.  Henk had started an hour behind us as usual but when we arrived at our 6th lock, the VNF man was there.  We had to relinquish our zapper as the last five locks were manual and then we were told that we must wait for another boat to join us........it would be Henk!  So Crew having risen relatively early, could have had another hour in bed!!!  Zut alors!

When the locks are manned, they close between 12.30 and 1.30 for lunch of course, so we had to tie off in the seventh lock and wait until 1.30 p.m., making it a longer day than we would have wished.  The plus point was that the weather was beautiful.....it could have been raining!

Our lock keeper arrived just before 1.30 in the event and it took us less than two hours to get to Montreaux.  The temperature had been steadily rising during the morning and by the time we were settled we were sweltering in around 30c......Crew now has flip-flop marks on her feet!!

Arriving at 3.15 meant a very late lunch since we needed some recuperative beers on landing!
Siestas were definitely in order today.....the heat has debilitated us all.
We dined fairly late on deck and scooted off to bed reasonably early.

22 km 11 locks 6 hours