A Polish couple we'd met the day before came along on their bikes and stopped to chat and exchange e-mail addresses. They said next year they would go up to St Mammes then the Yonne and Nivernais. No lights came on the lock at nine and the man in the van arrived about five past and helped a Finnish yacht through lock 34. The lock emptied and sat with gates open and a green light on. It was 9.30 a.m. when we went into the lock. Mike went right to the front gates while I pulled the blue cord, nothing happened until the keeper arrived and did something in the shed and then left us to it. The lock house had a beautiful garden and a lovely Pink Siris tree, with pink fluffy fan-shaped flowers, right outside the house. The chamber of the shallow (2.23m) first lock filled, gates opened and we motored along the 1.5 km pond to lock 33. There were lovely misty views across to the distant hills on our left. The towpath cycle piste was in full use with walkers, cyclists, roller-bladers and dog walkers. The lock was ready with gates open and a green light. Stooged up to the top end and I yanked on the string and the gates shut behind us, Mike backed off to sit the boat by the bottom end gates and nothing happened. Back up to the front of the chamber and I climbed the very narrow ladder, impeded somewhat by my longish skirt (I was aware of almost treading on the edge) and the control ropes at the back of the rungs. I pressed the button on the intercom and told the tinny female voice that lock 33 was "en panne" out of order. Heaven knows what she said in reply the audio was so distorted, I hoped she said she’d tell the itinerant and he’d be on his way soon – I said merci, au’voir. He must have got the message as the usual chatty young guy arrived within minutes. He went in the old lock cabin and reset the lock which started filling. I saw water coming over the top end gate and asked if there was a downhill boat. No, he said it was the yacht in front of us going uphill. I told him that it had stayed overnight in the lock chamber. He replied that they’d told him they’d stayed in the port! In their defence I said if they’d come up the Rhône and Saône then that would be their first automatic lock and they might not have noticed that fact and were waiting for a lock keeper to appear! He said he would pull the cord for us on the next as it was the first of the deep ones at 5.12m. 1.9 kms to lock 32. A small plane kept taking off from a local field and dropping parachutists. True to his word the keeper was at the lock and pulled the cord for us, then left. We started off on the right hand side of the chamber with a rope on a floater, but the water pushed us over to the left, so I took the rope off. When the lock was half full the water pattern changed and we went gently back across to the right. At 11.10 a.m. we moored next to the piling by the bridge at Fontaines. The water was deep so we were OK when the lock filled behind us and when the hireboats went past making big waves. The man in the VNF van came to see how long we were stopping. Told him about our car problems (we'd got a leaking heater radiator) and said we’d probably stay a couple of days. He gave us his phone number to call him to set the locks for us. Mike walked the 4.6 kms back to Fragnes to fetch the car as he said it wasn’t worth getting the bike off the roof. He returned just as I finished making lunch. After lunch he started work on the car. I went to lend moral support and fetched tools he’d forgotten, etc. Changing the heater radiator wasn't difficult but it involved a lot of stripping down - the dashboard, the steering column, and the windscreen wiper plus its motor. Then the stupid dashboard wouldn’t come off - Mike ended up banging the end of a plastic peg under the bonnet and that did the trick. A bunch of teenage lads arrived, four in a car and one on his bike. They put all their stuff on the picnic bench and went swimming in the canal – well, jumping off the road bridge actually. They weren’t rude or intimidating at all, but still made me nervous of leaving the boat open and unattended while they were running back and forth (memories of the UK still linger!). They left at six and we packed up just after that. Mike found a wasp spider and took photos of it. He showed it to the skipper of the replica Dutch barge moored in front of us (who’d been watching him crawling on the tarmac to photograph it) and he asked him if he collected spiders!
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