Le Pont Canal, Briare to Sancerre

We started our morning with the most amazing site: this aqueduct was built from 1890 to 1894. It is the longest in Europe - 662.69 meters, Gustave Eiffel designed the four masonry piers/corners.

The Royals followed by Clipper Two.

WOW!

A pretty good start to our morning! We went from this beautiful site to this....

Le Boat - opening time 9 am??

 We needed to fuel up the boats and get clean linens so we arrived at the Le Boat base a little before 9.  At about 9:10 we started to wonder if anyone would be coming to work, at 9:20 Garth called the office that we originally got the boats from. He explained where we were and that there was no one around. Notice the nice neat piles of dirty sheets and towels piled up in front of the door. Long story short, the mechanic would not be back for at least an hour and a half and we now understand French time, so that would probably mean noon. Then of course there would be the obligatory hour off for lunch so we would be lucky to see the whites of his eyes before 2 pm. We decided to just carry on and let them catch up to us.  We had a pretty long day ahead of us and wanted to get to Sancerre.

As we were debating on what to do the big boat that could not dock the night before in Briare came in to the base. We really needed to get ahead of them as none of us wanted to be stuck in a lock with them. Another boat with three Germans on it also left at the same time we did.  The next thing we knew Clipper Two was behind us but The Royals were still back at the base. They had decided to put on water and that meant we now had the Germans in the lock with us. We all met back up at lunch although The Royals got stuck behind the lock for lunch and we made it through the lock. As we were sitting on the side of the canal having lunch at a bar the out of control boat came. They put the nose of the boat under the bridge and then backed up, the people were last seen having lunch in that little town. They were headed to Sancerre. We have been here for over 24 hours and have yet to see them, thank goodness!
Le Boat came by and brought fuel in jerry cans for The Royals and dropped off clean linen for everyone! Yeah, it was not as planned but it all worked out in the end.

GRAPES ANYONE?

There are two places to dock in Sancerre area - we went to check out the first one and did not like it so we headed to the second one. As we were turning in to the harbour a boat came out and said there was no room left. Garth and Sid decided to judge for themselves and in we came. We found two spots on the bank and proceed to get settled. Just as we finished a big boat came in and they were having generator problems so they needed to dock. They asked us if they could raft to us but we needed to save the space for the Royals. With all the yelling back and forth about where they were going to go and where are you from - they had a Canadian flag flying - one of their crew fell off the boat.

Woops!

They had been the show all day - when they left the place they were last night they dropped a bike in the water and had to retrieve it and then tonight this poor guy ended up in the canal! They were able to raft to the boat in front of us and it all turned out OK. Unfortunately, this was not the end of the show because shortly after this the Germans came in, I am not really sure what happened but the women on board jumped off the bow, lost her footing and ended up hurting herself. Frank took over some ice.
The Royals ice business has not really panned out as well as they thought. They are either delivering ice to the wounded or giving ice away to other boaters in need of a way to cool their drinks off!

Sometimes you're the show and sometimes you're the audience!