sur la pont d'Avignon

17th September. Finding a place to stop on the Rhone is becoming more difficult as the pleasure boats become more scarce and the big commercial traffic tends to dominate. After travelling from Condieu, through a 15 m lock we saw that the marina at Laveyron had been taken by the river so we continued to just past St Vallier and tied up against a concrete quay that was constructed with a submerged dyke as flood protection. This was not in our guide book but it was getting late and we didn’t have a lot of options. During the night the wind started to howl and we got bashed against the pile by a particularly large barge wake and cracked a stanchion (one that Boyd and Nick had welded up in Belgium). Add this to the list of jobs for Port St Louis!

18th September. Travelled 88km through locks of 11.8m, 14m, 13.5m and 18.5m in vertical drop to a lovely fortified little town called Viviers dating back to the Roman period and still very unspoiled by tourism and the 21st century. By that stage the wind was howling 30 – 40 knots and we were received by many willing hands on the marina to assist in us getting tied up safely. Several other yachts had hunkered down here during the inclement weather. The following day we carried out maintenance on the yacht (restitching life ring webbing, re-erected the dingy davits, made a new bracket to support the mast top wind instruments, etc) and explored the town on bike whilst the wind and rain persuaded us not to venture on. Caroline and David (and their little son Charley) from ‘Navita’ invited us on board for a drink that evening with Christine and Yokken from ‘Heidi(something)’. We chatted and drank red wine till it was well pissed ted bine.

19th September. Did the biggest lock on the Rhone today; Ecluse de Bollene is around 26 metres. We had left Viviers with two Bittish boats, Voyager with Kerry and June, and the 1917 Dutch tug Van Speyke with Britts Colin and Sue and it was good to have company in the lock for perspective and of course someone to talk to whilst the slimy green vertical walls grow taller and the sky closes in above you. Apparently the upstream gates failed on this lock, when it was still the largest in the world a number of years ago, sinking a river barge and drowning its driver. Now all people transiting locks must wear lifejackets, much to Nick’s disgust.

We had everyone above on board Pina Colada for drinks that evening in Avignon just 200 metres or so up from the famous bridge of the French nursery rhyme.