The Journey -
'Rosy' at Vitry

We left Chalon-en-Champagne, after a bit of backing out onto the main channel.  Taking narrow-boats astern is a chancy business at the best of times, but I'm now getting used to the quirks of Rosy, and the wind and current were both (for once) favourable, and everything went to plan - to the disappointment of the boaty gongoozlers who had appeared to watch the fun.  It was a beautiful, bright, sunny morning, except for small black cloud that hovered overhead.  It stayed directly overhead for 2 hours, growing bigger and bigger.  Then it flashed and thundered, and slooshed down.  The rest of the sky was blue.  Why I should be singled out?  I don't know.  I stopped at a little 'Halte Nautique' immediately above the lock at Soulanges.  No water or electricity, but a comfortable mooring.  At 6-ish the rain stopped, and at 8-ish the youths of the tiny village appeared - I was encroaching on their meeting place.

I left the next morning, and only travelled for a few hours before I arrived at the little halte nautique in Vitry-le-Francois.  Rosy was too long to get in, but there was a comfortable mooring just outside.  Free water and electricity, plus an extremely keen lady from the local tourist information office to see that all is well, and to thrust maps and information at one.  The only rule seems to be that you can't leave your boat unattended for more than 24 hours.  The 'halte' is on a sharp, right-angled, narrow bend, so the barges (4 or 5 a day) have to slow down.

Shortly after I arrived, my canal cred received a welcome boost, when a barge went by and hailed me 'BILL!!  BILL!!  ARE YOU THERE?' It was the peniche Floan run by George and Helen who I met in Gent.  It's the only peniche I know, and there it was!!  A few hurried words as they went by - heard by the peniches across the way, and the pleasure boats here. But I'm now known as the boater who knows REAL boaters!! 

Vitry is an old canal town.  Next door to Rosy is the Bourse, where cargoes were issued out to the barges.  Now the barge skippers hassle for their own cargoes, or use agents.  There is a barge workshop opposite.  Some ex-bargees are living in a very nice looking shortened peniche.  Also moored up are the two famous peniches that often work together.  One is called 'WhyMe' and the other is 'WhyNot'.  Why should French people use such names - which is/are ideal for a narrow boat pair? 

I made a quick decision to stay here, to await some UK mail that is kindly being forwarded, and this pause has allowed a visit to the laundrette to get the bedding cleaned.

An extremely luxurious (Dutch) motor yacht has just arrived.  35 ft long, I guess, and 10 or 12 ft beam.  Lots of stainless and varnish and teak.  Full radar and GPS and throw-buster.  I was on the point of offering to take a line, when I realised that not a single one of the half-dozen people boozing on the afterdeck were lifting a finger to help moor the boat.  So I left them to it.

Toodle pip!!

Bill