Non-Sailing Topics
Canal du Nivernais In the Summer of 1995 five friends and I chartered a self drive canal barge for a cruise on the Canal du Nivernais in the Bourgoune, France. This was an experience most of us had separately wanted to have for a number of years. It was only through the commitment and organization provided by Mike Repass and Deborah Corbin that we were able to achieve our separate goals together and have a great time for a week in France. This is a record of that experience.
Our trip began in Joigny on L'Yonne River, a short drive south of Paris. The trip would take us in and along L'Yonne from Joigny to Chitry le Mine. The Canal du Nivernais parallels L'Yonne providing navigable water where L'Yonne turns into shallow rapids. The water depth in the canal is maintained by a series of weirs or dams on the river which necessitate locks for passage. The total trip was less than 80 kilometers in length (highlighted in red on the map below), but it took us a full six days to make the transit. We averaged about 10 locks per day. These locks combined with the restricted speed imposed by the limited depth and breadth of the waterway meant a slow and stately passage through the Bourgogne. Of course we weren't looking a fast trip and took every opportunity to enjoy the passing countryside and made frequent stops and side trips. Click on active hyperlinks in the map below or the table contents to follow our journey.
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Our crew consisted of Mike and Deborah, Sam and Ada, Clare, and myself. Sam, Ada,
and Clare are fluent in French, which made the trip a lot easier for Mike,
Deborah, and myself since we spoke very limited French. Still, all of us managed
to buy bread, cheese and wine regardless of our language skills. Mike and I were
the only experienced boat drivers in the crew. During the first day of the trip
we encouraged everyone to try their hand at the helm. After that only Mike and I
drove the boat. This was apparently fine with everyone else, and neither Mike
nor I considered this a burden. Everyone helped out when we transited the
locks.
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Our barge was a Penichette 1500 (15 meters in length) from
Locaboat
Plaisance in Joigny. The boat is equipped with a diesel engine, a propane
stove, 12 volt DC refrigeration, and a pressurized fresh water system. There are
four double cabins, two heads, and two showers. Overall the boat was very
comfortable for our crew of six, providing a surprising amount of privacy on a
small boat. The boat was delivered clean and in good condition by Locaboat. We
encountered only two problems: (1) The water capacity did not appear to be the
1,500 liters advertised, and we were miss-informed that the heads pumped river
water, rather than fresh water from the tanks. The combination of these two
discrepancies resulted in our running out of water in the tanks several times
before we realized the true situation; and (2) The propeller came loose during
the trip and eventually dropped off just as we were approaching the Chitry le
Mine quay at the end of our trip. Fortunately this problem did not become
critical until we were in a position where I could stop the boat with the bow
line from shore. At this point the boat could not be stopped by using the
reverse propeller thrust from the engine. If we had been anywhere other than at
the very end of our trip, we would have had to wait for Locaboat to send a
mechanic to resolve the problem. This would have turned at least one of our
cruise days into an ordeal. We never had to test the ability of Locaboat to
resolve these underway problems. Timing is everything!
We chose Locaboat for two primary reasons:
- The Penichette barges they offer are the only ones we could find with essentially equal space and comfort in all cabins. Most the other barges appear to be designed with a family in mind with a large master stateroom for the the parents (who were paying for the trip) and a series of smaller cabins for the children. Since we were a group of couples and singles, each of whom was paying an equal share of the cost of the barge we would have had some difficulty electing the who should be the parents.
- Locaboat allowed one-way trips, although even they had a limited selection. Most companies require you to return the barge to the port from which you left. That meant the last half of the trip would be through the same country side you passed through in the first half. On a another barge cruise a few years later we accepted a charter that required us to return the vessel and determined our choice of paying extra for a one-way was well worth the cost.
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Most of the locks encountered on the Canal du Nivernais have lock keepers (Eclusier), although many of these keepers are inexperienced students on summer break. A number of the locks were unmanned (or "un-womaned" since many of the students were women). In any case it is expected that the boat crew will assist in the operation of the locks. This operation involves closing the entrance lock gates behind, opening the sluices on the exit lock gates to raise or lower the water, closing the sluices, and opening the exit lock gates. If there was an Eclusier, we generally gave a 5FF tip for the service. The main function of the crew is to maintain the position of the boat in the lock while the water rushes in or out. This means lines must be continually taken in or let out as the boat rises or falls in the lock. This is not a major effort in the small locks that predominate on the Canal du Nivernais, but it is sometimes a significant task in the large locks of the commercial waterways.
We stayed the first night in Paris, then drove to
Joigny in rental cars the next day. The boat was not scheduled to be ready until
after noon, so we killed some time with an excellent (3,000FF) dinner at the
premier two-star restaurant in Joigny, La Cote Ste. Jacques. Because of this
dinner we were a little late getting to the Port de Plaisance, and there was a
crowd of other barge renters attempting to take possession of their vessels. It
was pretty confusing and took a little time, but eventually we took possession
of "La Joigny", and had our first meal on-board.
The following morning we departed Joigny and headed upstream on L'Yonne river. This first day took us predominately on the river, in the later days we would be predominately on the Canal du Nivernais which parallels the river. At the start we were part of a flotilla of other barges who had also departed Joigny that morning. On L'Yonne this day we passed through several relatively large commercial locks, manned by professional Eclusier. These commercial locks could accommodate a number of the tourist barges. On this part of the trip the river was deep and wide, and the locks were several kilometers apart, allowing us to travel all the way to Auxerre by mid-afternoon. We had to plan our daily distances fairly closely since the locks are closed from 6:00 PM to 7:00 AM as well as for the noon hour. Although we made our planned destination each day, if we had been stopped by a lock that was closed for the night it would not have been a major problem. At almost any point on the canal it was possible to tie the barge off to shore and spend the evening in the canal.
Auxerre is the most picturesque of the cities we encountered on the Canal du Nivernais and L'Yonne. It is known as the city of cathedrals and the name is well earned as we were tied up at the Port de Plaisance with a view of three massively large cathedrals. That evening we noticed that the cathedral directly opposite our berth across the river put on a light show. The following day we spent the morning site seeing and shopping. After lunch we departed for Vincelles.
As we progressed upstream from Auxerre, L'Yonne became
dramatically more narrow and shallow. We began to travel more in the canal than
in the river, The country-side also became rural, as we passed several vineyards
and large fortified farms. On this leg the locks became more frequent, and many
were operated by students for whom this was a summer job. We stopped early this
day at the Port de Plaisance in Vincelles, which is directly across the
river/canal from its twin city of Vincellotes.
The morning after we arrived in Vincelles we took out first (and only) group bicycle trip to the wine making town of Irancy, about 4 kilometers from our berth. It was on this uphill trip that most of us learned how terribly out of shape we were, and the bicycles were seldom used thereafter. However, we did make it to Irancy and were invited to sample the wines of one of the vintners in a town of approximately 30 vintners. It seemed that almost every home and building in Irancy had a vintner in residence. The wines we tasted, those of Rene Chariatt, are consumed primarily in France and are not exported which appears to be the case with much of the wine from Irancy. The wife and son of Rene Chariatt were very cordial and spent over an hour offering us samples of their wines. They did this although it was clear we could not transport very much wine in the baskets of our bicycles, and hence they knew we were not going to buy very much. As we were sampling his wines, Msr. Chariatt came into the cave hot and sunburned from working in the vineyard. We had consumed a great deal of water before drinking any wine due to the exertion of the bicycle trip from Vincelles. We were dutifully impressed when Msr. Chariatt passed on the water and drank a tumbler of Pinot Noir to quench his thirst.
Returning (downhill) to Vincelles from Irancy we ate lunch then departed for Mailly le Ville.
We barely cleared the lock below Mailly le Ville before
the six o'clock closing. It was fortunate that we had planned to spend the night
at Mailly le Ville, because just upstream of the town dock was another lock
which was closed before we could have cleared it. The following morning we were
underway just as the Eclusier arrived. The country side was now becoming more
rugged, with large limestone cliffs along the canal. We stopped at Mailly le
Chateau to visit the chateau which sits atop one of these cliffs with a
spectacular view of the Bourgogne. After lunch we were underway again. Now the
locks were coming almost every kilometer as river/canal continued to rise to
eventually join the Loire. We also started to encounter manual lift
bridges on this section of the canal. These lift bridges had a manual
winch which had to be cranked by hand to raise or lower the bidge.
That afternoon we passed the Rochers du Saussois whose
shear limestone cliffs are used by rock climbers.
As we approached Clamecy the scenery became more urban.
Just below Clamecy we went through a heavy industrial area. Clamecy itself was
probably the least interesting of our stops, being very noisy, dirty, and
crowded. Here the evening lock closing prevented us reaching the Port de
Plaisance, and we had to tie off to the town walls along the river. That evening
we observed several local residents practicing jousting from small boats. This
was practice for what we believed to be part of the Bastille Day activities in
Clamecy. L'Yonne and the canal were used to float logs down river to Paris from
the Movran Forest, and this area is apparently the source of the French loggers
who rode the logs on the river. This jousting must be a derivative of the log
riding skills necessary for the float to Paris. I surmise that the
technique of riding logs on a river was developed by the French on L'Yonne and
exported to America in colonial times. Now I understood why in so many
stories and movies about logging in the U.S.A. and Canada there was always at
least one logger called "Frenchie".
After Clamecy we were happy to tie up to a rural Port de Plaisance near the village of Tannay. Dick and Gail, our friends who had been living in Paris for the past six months, joined us at the port and spent the night on board. By this time the pleasantly cool weather of our first few days on the canal had changed to hot and humid. Even by 8:00 in the evening it was too hot to consider cooking. Luckily we discovered that there was a one-star restaurant just across the canal, and we enjoined one more excellent dinner. The following day, our last on La Joigny, the temperature must have been in the high nineties. We left the boat in Chitry le Mines, and donated much of our excess cheese, and other food to a British couple who were on their way to the Med on a catamaran. This last act was our patriotic duty to impress the Brits and other Europeans with our American conspicuous consumption practices. It took several trips to move all of our excess food to the catamaran.
From Chitry our crew split in two. Ada and Sam drove to Dijon, and the rest of drove to Beaune for a few days. From there we returned to Paris, and then back to the states.
