From the Mediterranean to the English Channel by boat - episode 5

FLAMING JUNE BUT NOT MANY BOATS

Simon Jenkins is a well known figure on the British canal system and has been a boater for decades, living on, working and owning boats and, for the last couple of decades, the managing director of Norbury Wharf on the Shropshire Union Canal.

Simon Jenkins at Norbury Wharf

There he runs a brokerage, hire fleet, day boats, a trip boat and a chandlery, as well as a paint dock, dry dock and full engineering services. Simon has dipped his toe in to the waters of other boat-related ideas including sea-going charters, but the inland waterways are his first love and he has turned his gaze to Europe, with it’s wide waterways and fully functioning system of commercial river and canal navigations. He is just back from the boat buying trip of a lifetime, bringing his first historic barge back to Belgium, the country in which it was built, from the shores of the Mediterranean. Last month he was boarded by armed police as he entered the River Saône. Now he enters a world of locks and tunnels and the obligatory daft Englishman in a GRP boat. There is also a meeting with an old friend. This is his story, in his own words.

The Saône is another river that is a canalised and has sections of lock cuts, something commonplace in France, and in other parts of Europe, and on some parts of the UK system too.

On some of these canalised sections there are tunnels and this was a first for us with this boat. The first one we came was on a traffic lights, we had a short wait whilst another boat was coming the other way and then it was our turn.

It wasn't a long tunnel and dead straight, so nothing to get excited about - but there were more to come! Mile after mile, lock after lock; meandering our way through some stunning countryside and hardly passing other boats.

This was June, and flaming June at that, temperatures were in the high 30s and the canal and rivers seemed so quiet, much quieter than we are used to in the UK. All of a sudden we came to something quite different and a bit challenging.

Now the locks are a tight squeeze – the maximum dimensions are 38 metres by 5 metres

We locked off the river on to another canalised section - this time it was a control lock with a lock keeper, the canal was dead straight and wide enough for two 5M boats to pass so we carried on.

Then the narrows came in to sight, nothing to worry about - except they had been carved out of a hill and it was the entrance to a narrow tunnel, as we went around the bends, slowly, the bow was almost touching the bank at the front whilst the stern was almost touching the opposite side at the rear. I would imagine that a 38 m barge would actually be touching at both ends. We squeezed our way around this bendy section and then plummeted in to a dark cavernous tunnel. Soon we emerged back in to bright sunshine.

Sometimes the canal itself looks too narrow, especially this approach to a tunnel

Bends in a concrete channel can leave only inches as you turn

Then the tunnel – which looks too small to accommodate us

All is going well with the barge, really getting to grips with it, not much traffic about and then in the distance just as we were coming off a river section and heading for a very narrow old flood lock I see a small cruiser approaching.

We are just slowing down from 12kmh and the narrows are fast approaching. All lined up and then the cruiser decided that he is going to go through the narrows first. This guy must have had a death wish, challenging a much larger craft with much less manoeuvrability in a restricted waterway is madness.

Hard astern was all I could do, I managed to keep the boat under control and bring it to almost perfect standstill as he comes flying past us just like Eric Sykes on his plastic cruiser in the film The Barge. To make matters worse he was bloody English. I’m sure he was related to old Sykes!

The river is starting to become much smaller now, narrower and bendier, lots more care is needed going around very tight bends, speed is much slower too, nearly at the end of the navigation for us and then on to a proper canal!

We entered the narrow canal at Corre. This section is 93km long and has 93 locks, so now its going to get even more interesting and really slow our pace down. The locks are now controlled by a remote control - something like a garage door opener.

The locks are now controlled by a remote control - something like a garage door opener

Very amusing indeed. As you approach a lock there is a receiver box somewhere and you have to aim your remote at it and press the button - and hopefully it works and a flashing light appears on the box letting you know it has accepted your signal and the lock is preparing.

As you approach the lock there are traffic lights. Red, well that’s obvious; Red-and green means the lock is setting for you; and green is obvious too. Once in the lock the same procedure as before, two bars, blue to operate the lock and red to stop it.

So off we go, the canal is now a proper canal – shallow and narrow; and progress is slow, but still very interesting indeed. Meeting other boats is now fun and virtually all the locks have a lock keepers cottage on the lock side.

They are pretty places, some are occupied and some are not, especially the more remote ones. You can imagine, in the past, that there would have been a great community feel amongst the boatmen and all the staff running the canals, just like the UK canals would have been years ago.

The canal is mostly rural, passing through small, quiet villages and small towns following the river Le Coney, and we had been climbing the locks steadily until we reached the summit pound.

We were meandering along the summit pound looking for a stopping place rumoured to be close to a Boulangerie (bakery to us) - well when in France one has to have fresh Baguettes everyday - when I saw a petite looking blonde lady waving like mad.

Good God it was Laura, the partner of a chap called Roger Murray. Some of you might recognise his name, he is a proper canal nut and used to own the ex FMC steamer Monarch, also a lovely tug called Kyle. Now he has a Dutch barge in Holland and they were on their way from her pad in Palma driving up to the barge.

Roger Murray, a proper canal nut and used to own the ex FMC steamer Monarch.

It just so happened that their journey coincided with ours so they jumped on board and we had the most pleasant evening in the company of these two wonderful people.

As the spare bed was made up it went without saying that they would dine with us and stay the night and we sat out on the back deck until late, drinking and reminiscing.

The next day saw them come with us and do a few miles and a few locks, we had now started going down the ‘other side’ they departed from us at the junction with the Épinal canal. They got a taxi and we waved them farewell - that was a nice surprise, and a welcome one too.

In the next episode: Simon and his crew come up against manual locks which take them onto another of Europe’s major waterways - and an angry Frenchman