Saturday 28th September - Besancon to Ranchot

We left at 9.45 under occasional blue skies but still with a cold wind - it promises to be an improving sort of day.....hope the forecast is right.  The city of Besancon is surrounded by water so our first job is to get through a small tunnel, ending in a lock - then another lock straight away.  When we got into the lock, the keeper started to close the gates before Henk had got in, so Skip hooted and he stopped the process - don’t fully understand how he didn’t know that two boats were coming through. Crew was informed by Skip that the locks become fewer......not quite sure when as we have eleven today it seems!!
The wind seemed to get even sharper, resulting in Crew resorting to wearing a very unbecoming ski hat!!  All the locks behaved themselves today and we arrived in Ranchot just before three o’clock.  It takes longer to get settled now that the weather is not so good - a lot of canopy to put up,
so a very late lunch today!
After lunch, Henk went over to the restaurant to try and book a table for dinner but alas, it was closed.  So he tried over at the camp site on the other side of the river.....the restaurant there is evidently only open in July and August.  So, dining on board it is!
We only had a pack of minced beef left in the freezer, so Bolognaise it was to be again.  TV behaved itself but as usual, on a Saturday, nothing much we wanted to watch, so we watched The Theory of Everything, Stephen Hawkins’ biography, which we enjoyed very much.

34 km 11 locks 5 1/2 hours