Hi Everyone,
So, all is well for the trip. Thanks to all of you for lending a hand and being brave enough to embark on the adventure to find me and then to negotiate all those locks all in aid of drinking and eating fine French fare. The distance is approximately 1300 kms and 136 locks!
The second adjoining project is to move the boat from Port St Louis near Marseilles down the 300 miles to Valencia to the marina berth, and I am pretty sure I have that secured as well. Trying to second guess when I might arrive in Valencia is a bit of a lottery, but I am sure that we can make it all fit.
My secret weapon Tony Jenks continues to be absolutely great at doing the French stuff. So far he has negotiated the mast removal and reinstatement in Le Havre and Port St Louis, bought the vignette (licence for the canals) and managed to secure a place in either Arsenal marina or it’s neighbour which is controlled by the same authority. He continues to be absolutely invaluable which has allowed me to continue working as much as I can. What he doesn’t know is that I need him to talk to Honfleur about the lock and when we can get out.
We need to be able to embark on the River Seine 2 hours before low water in order to get to Rouen on one tide. There is a new lock there that works all the time except for one hour either side on low water. This should allow us to lock out at the right time to set off up the river. We have about 10 hours of flood and it takes about nine hours to get from Honfleur to Rouen.
David Nutton also continues to help me by providing me with support and encouragement, charts and his notes about his trip 5 years ago. He was over at the weekend helping me to understand what difficulties there might be. You will all be pleased to hear that, apart from the locks, there are no difficulties! Did I say there were 134 of them? Hopefully by the time the Southampton to Paris crew leave me I will vaguely know how to handle them – but don’t count on it! We do have to lock in and out at Hythe, but I have a feeling this trip is a totally different ball game.
As far as the hotel goes (Kea Two) – it has not been out of the marina yet! I have had a tons of work done on the boat to ensure that we are safe and that we can all be as comfortable as possible. I have taken a lot of stuff off (16 years of junk) and will be putting tons of stuff on. We have holding tanks but don’t need to use them until the med. David has told me that the French don’t much care what goes into their canals and there is nowhere to pump out the tanks anyway! Why am I not surprised by that? I also have brand swanky new electronic equipment – don’t know how to work it, but it looks very impressive. Don’t worry though I proved last summer, following a catastrophic electronics failure of 14 year old equipment, that I could still navigate with a pair of pointy things and a parallel rule! There are, of course, other skippers on the boat when we do the sea bits, so I am sure all will be well. Don’t suppose I will want AIS in the French canals. (I will explain that to you later if you don’t know what I mean). I have left five sets of foul weather gear on board, so you don’t need to bring any with you if you don’t want to. I am working on the basis that if the weather is foul we won’t be on the boat we will be in the nearest bar sampling the delights of......??. I also have mosquito nets on order for the hatches, but you will need personal spray stuff as well and I have sleeping bag liners so you don’t have to bring sleeping bags if you don’t want to. We have a new (secondhand dinghy) – bigger than the one I had, and much more stable if we need to tow the wine cellar! This might well occur if we run out of water to float on. If we have to lighten the load after that it will be a couple of us on bikes on the towpath. If in doubt we will just stop and open another bottle.
If any of you want to join earlier, please contact me and I will see if it is possible. Please don’t try to leave early though, because that could potentially leave me in a situation where I cannot move forward. Paris is busy on the boat as you would expect, but I am sure it will be a lot of fun.
Plan at the moment is to be in Paris (or very close by 1st July). Peter Hickson has to leave Paris on that day, so the closer we can get the better. As long as we are not held up by weather that should be easy. Peter and Judy will be coming over a bit ahead of their schedule. I have talked to them about it and will stay in touch with them to give them an accurate arrival time once we embark from Le Havre or Rouen. I am still not sure who else will be on board at Paris, so could Paul confirm when he needs to depart and whether Belinda is coming over to join in for a few days. (Need this info for accommodation purposes and also I think Tracey will probably join the trip earlier than is currently showing on the Gant chart). I know about Tony’s arrangements – I think he is staying for a couple of days to make sure Peter, Judy and I can manage the locks OK. (I had to beg!!).
After we leave Paris we will be wandering a bit more slowly. Tony will get off before we leave the Paris environs. So that he can get back to the centre easily. Next pick up will be Judy in the St Mammes area. She is actually in a car and mobile, so can come and find us fairly easily I hope. I will try to be in places where there are good stations for pick up and departures. My feeling is that this should work most of the time, but there may be occasions, particularly further down when a short taxi ride may follow a train journey. Just call my mobile and find out where I am.
I am sure we will all have a ball. I hope you are all looking forward to it as much as I am.
The boat continues to cause me a bit of stress – trying to remember everything I need as well as working as much as I can. I think this is a good year to take 10 weeks out because the work is not going to be there from about mid June to Mid September. With all your help you might persuade me to stop completely! Maybe I won’t come back at all – now there’s a good idea.......
My mobile phone number is 07769 700935 and you all have my email address. I will have my pc with me to stay in touch with the possibility of work in September.
Hope I have covered everything, if not mail me and I will try to answer any of your questions.
With love, Val xx