Au Revoir Auxerre

We left the wall at Auxerre and were immediately joined by two other boats. There were now five boats all entering the lock, fortunately it was a huge lock and we all fit. I was making small talk with the man behind us and found out that his wife had fallen the night before and was in hospital, he had new crew helping him move the boat up to Joigny. Sid & Evelyn were on our boat for the day so Garth was on the wall doing lines. He helped the man and his new crew set a spring line for locking through. Unfortunately, the man proceeded to undo the lines Garth had set and cleat off a bow line and a stern line. Humm, if you had seen the post from last week where we were having lunch in a lock and were cleated off you understand that it is a big no no to cleat a boat off in a lock as you are preparing to go up or down.  You also saw the pictures of what can happen in the blink of an eye.  It all worked out for him as we were only dropping a few feet, but I must say we all had our cameras ready and since last week we travel with a knife on the helm for just such an occasion!

 

Just one of the many beautiful bridges

Evelyn hard at work as usual!

We stopped in Migennes at the Le Boat base to get fuel, water and clean linens. It took a long time as the lock was very slow and it was a huge lift up .

Fishing seems to be the national past time for men in France. This gentleman was not impressed that the three of us were in his little space while waiting for the lock to open.

Just waiting

Finally

 Going up, the three of us were in together but going down The Royals had to wait a little longer so the Clippers went ahead. We entered the lock and got behind a Locoboat rental with a family aboard. For some  reason one of the teenagers cleated off the stern. George was at our bow and noticed that she had done that. The water was being drained and before you knew it their stern was hanging four feet in the air. George started yelling at them, I yelled ARRET to the lock keeper and soon the knife was flying off our helm and being delivered to the man on the Locoboat.  At first he did not want to cut the line and for some strange reason he kept trying to untie the line....instinct I guess...anyhow, we were all yelling CUT IT and a second later we heard a huge POP and then saw the boat drop four feet down into the lock.  Sorry no pictures - it all happened too fast. The man explained that they were all experienced boaters and thanked us for the knife. It all worked out in the end but they were lucky no one was hurt by the snapping of the rope or the cleat popping off the boat. Like our friend Dan (Quest) says - "Sometimes you're the show and sometimes you're the audience"   Today, thank goodness, we were the audience!

We arrived in Joigny and tied off to the bank right downtown. Some random pics of Joigny.

Friend of yours?

We had a great spaghetti dinner on board then retired to the flybridge for the evening . The Royals all came back from their pizza dinner and Frank had found some Marc De Bourgogne - a regional cognac/perfume  .. .. I have the bottle as a souvenir, and a good time was had by all.

In the morning we all headed to the local market - wow - it was awesome. They had everything under the sun ...every fresh vegetable you can imagine,  cheese, butter, meat, pastries, chocolate,shoes, tablecloths...you name it, even a stall that just sold mushrooms! It was a wonderful assault on our senses, just wandering  and taking in all the sights and smells. I asked at the charcuterie if I could buy a reusable decorative bag but was told I needed to buy meat and then the bag would be a gift. I walked away cause my French did not allow me to say that I really did not need any meat I just liked the bag, when the owner realized I was a tourist she called after me and  gave me one. We all stocked up and left Joigny about 12:30, headed for Sens .

Our backyard in Joigny.

Joigny's other side

Well we were headed for Sens but it appears that the locks here are on a different time...humm! Turns out we were two locks short of our destination. The charts showed a wall in a small town that we could tie up to but it appeared that the local fisherman had the wall occupied ! So, we tied up to the outside of lock number 8 -Rosoi and spent a quite night.