Day Five: Tuesday, October 7th On the Canal du Midi!

OK, we are all up early (07:30) as the lock is open at 09:00 and we want to be first in line. It is a beautiful sunny blue sky morning. About 9 degrees early on, but it will substantially warm during the day. In the boat waking up we need to find the heater! Lana figures out that it's a good idea to put her morning clothes in bed with us so they will be warm in the morning when she wakes up. 

We are all pretty excited as this is our first day on the boat and we will be taking locks for the first time. We will be travelling downstream and mostly eastward. You could term this a "travel day". Early in our trip we decide to get as far as we can downstream before stopping for the night. We had no idea of the amount of physicality required to navigate each lock. It would be quite a day!

We decided to set our roles/duties for getting in, through and out each lock. On a good note, each of the locks had a lock keeper so we never had the manage the locks. Phew....Al will be our captain/skipper and task master. I will be jumping out of the boat prior to each lock and then getting the two ropes wrapped around the metal stanchions to hold the boat as the water recedes. Lana will be in the back of the boat and Pat at the front of the boat each with a rope and ensuring it is tight to their stanchion. Sounds easy? Nope! Plus, the ladies need to keep our boat as close to the lock wall as possible. Lana says throwing the ropes especially when wet is like trying to toss a large wet spaghetti noodles with little or no control as to where it goes even if you aim. 

Also, on approaching each lock we need to moor to canal stanchions which will be me and my ability at tying a knot is zero. I get good lessons from Al and over the day I manage to learn a good knot which helps a great deal. A good skill anyway. Oh yeah, you do NOT tie the ropes to the stanchions inside of each lock as the boat needs to rise and/or fall with the water. When there is more than one lock then I need to get to the next lock entrance and be ready for each rope toss. Over the entire day I manage to record around 10,000 steps which gives you a heads up on how much progress we make today downstream. Lana bought us a new pair of water proof gloves so I had something to wear to protect my hands from handling all the wet ropes. 

At the very first set of locks at Trèbes (about five minutes from where we moored at Le Boat) it is three locks in a row! Wow, we need to learn quickly and teamwork is super important. Also, on trying to exit the third lock the gate doesn't open which causes a ten minute delay as the lock keeper trouble shoots. My other role on the boat is the 'navigator' but not in terms of where to go, but recording our times for each lock and time period between locks as we will need this on our return trip. Pretty good map provided by Le Boat though.

Pretty cool to watch the locks water as it fills up and drops. Of course the last lock needs to always be even with the canal depth. Powerful onrush of water between the locks. Some of the locks have the capability/size to take up to four boats at one time. Obviously this slows down our progress when there is another boat in the lock. 

OK, enough text so lets get to our pictures!

In the first set of locks!

Lock gate has opened and now even with the next lock, but still not at canal depth. 

              Pat at the front of the boat and skipper Al looking mighty pleased with himself!  ha ha 

Made it through that entrance without hitting the side. Don't forget me downstream waiting!

Al and Lana surveying the canal with Lana getting some pointers on navigating the boat. 

Lana as our skipper recognizing just how hard it is steering the boat especially with any type of wind.

Here is Randy recording our day one in my journal. I think Al is double-checking my work! Hey, watch the canal. Check out the foliage along the canal and the blue skies. 

Yes, keep going straight down the canal! I checked the map to confirm our next lock and/or town and the number of locks at that lock location. 

Not sure if the pics do justice to the gentle country settings. 

At one particular lock we arrive around 11:50 am. We pull over and moor expecting the lock keeper to wave us on so we can get through the lock before he goes for his 12:00 lunch break (one hour). I am out of the boat looking at him near the lock gate and he doesn't look like he is keen. I make the mistake of motioning to my watch meaning we have ten minute prior to his lunch. He yells something in French and then heads to his vehicle. We are not getting through this lock. When he does return at 13:00 he decides to penalize my impertinence by waving up boats that arrived downstream after us so we lost at least 60 minutes. Valuable lesson for me to not aggravate the lock keeper! They have the power!

On a positive note we had our lunch on the boat up top under the sun. Charcuterie with some chicken. Yummy! Maximum speed on the canal is ten knots. Today, we are trying to see how far we can get so  mostly at max speed where possible. We were fortunate as this time of the year is low season for canal traffic. Our final town was Argens Minervois as we arrived too late to make it through their lock.

During the day we were given recommendations by lock keepers on potential restaurants for dinner. This never worked as the restaurant was either closed, did not appear to be in existence... In Argens Minervois we walked to a couple of places with no luck. Our last resort was to devour most of all the food we had left up top. We finished our dinner on the boat around 19:45.

                                                         Never too many pictures!

Great perspective of approaching the lock gate and this lock had an oval shape. The stone building on the left is the lock keeper's station. Many times after I got out of the boat and moored before the first lock gate I had to walk to the building and find the lock keeper to get him or her moving. 

Each set of locks could be different in terms of setting, size, shapes and the mentality of the lock keeper. 

Great picture as we approach a bridge at one of the towns along the canal. The skipper needed to be careful at each bridge so slow down and keep the boat as straight as possible. 

Different types of boats on the canal. This part of our canal is pretty wide! Fortunately, the vast majority of our day we did not come across many other boats going upstream or even downstream. There is always a trail along the canal where you will see cyclists, walkers, runners, hikers etc. 

Check out the size of these ducks (canards)! Do not get them mad at you either! With all these ducks around it makes sense that Canal du Midi is known for cassoulet as it can be a main ingredient. 

Sunset over the canal! Beautiful!

Incredible boat statistics for today! We managed to get through 19 locks and 31 kms of distance on the canal! We stayed moored overnight at Argens Minervois. Very quiet here and almost total blackness. 

Online picture of Argens Minervois. 

Total steps = 11,240 which shows how busy we were today with the locks and travel. I think we are all pretty exhausted, but happy with our progress! We did get some walking in at this town as well so it was good for all of us to stretch our legs.