Exit the Canal de Garonne, enter the Canal Du Midi

[Kyle]We started our day knowing we’d have to find a way to leave that rickety dock, but before that Maryanne wondered off into town to find a boulangerie and buy bread for the day (oh, and a Chocolate croissant thing for me!). We’d hoped the marina office would open before we left (no hours were published) and we’d be able to use the Internet, but no luck. The shutters were still fully down and lights out when we left around 8:30am.

At our first lock, some way from the town, we encountered our first boats heading in the opposite direction, one British, the next French.

The canal then took us towards Toulouse, and as we approached its NW outskirts. We were not impressed; the pretty French countryside gradually became more and more industrial and more and more run down. There were warehouses, factories, train stations and urban decay everywhere. The route the canal takes was not intended to highlight the city. We must remember that the canals were primarily built for commerce, not tourism, and it is only relatively recently that the ‘waterfronts’ of the world are being turned into tourist attractions, and family friendly destinations.


Entrance to Toulouse; we couldn't work out if this was a fancy fishing shack or a Homeless camp
Finally we made it to the center of Toulouse, the canal de Garonne ends, and an abrupt left turn took us into the canal de Midi. The canal de Midi is a much older canal (built in the 1600’s), and we had been warned in our guidebook that the locks had not been automated and we’d have to operate them manually, winding up the sluice gates to stop/start the water flow and winding open and closed the gates as required. It’s considered so special a canal it is actually a UNESCO world heritage site for its full length.

We weren’t quite sure what to expect, but the gates were open and a green light at the entrance to the first lock was showing and we proceeded in. There was no sign of a lock keeper, so as a default we did what had become our habit and one of us climbed up the ladder with a line while the other stayed on the boat and tossed the other line up. We stood their for a second wondering what we needed to do next, when a guy in a VNF shirt came out of a hut and asked if we were planning to enter the canal; seemed moot at that point! We politely said we were, and could we please purchase a pass (we’d been trying since Castets), but were again told no, not here, and were handed an cartoon information pamphlet on how to operate the newly automated locks in the coming stretch. The VNF employee then escaped back into his ‘hut’ and ignored us for the rest of the locking process.


Some big locks
The first part of the Canal du Midi passes right through the center of Toulouse, and all of the locks have been ‘upgraded’ from their 17th century originals, to more modern, larger locks. I’m sure Toulouse has many beautiful and historic districts but by this point we’d not seen any. The canal went through a slightly run down part of town, lots of traffic, smog and litter. At one point we picked up a garbage bag that had completely wrapped around the propeller, it was not nice cruising. The next lock was enormous, having been converted from 3 of the original smaller locks into a modern one. With our new instructions to hand, indicating we’d have to land someone to press a button to open the doors, we were surprised to find the doors opening as we approached. This time because of the position of the ladder it was Maryanne’s turn to go up with the first line while I stayed on the boat and attached my line to a bar recessed into the lock wall for the purpose. The climb was quite high, and the ladder had spent most of its time submerged in pretty miserable water so the climb was not pleasant, easy, or safe, but Maryanne made it. She then went in search of the control panel (per the instructions) to start off the locking process, she could find nothing, and found it very confusing. After some time, the locking process began without her intervention, we can only assume that the cameras looking down on us were being monitored by a control center, and we soon wondered why we’d been given the instruction sheet at all.

Each lock as we passed through the center was entirely different in setup. The ladders, rails, and bollards were all in different locations from the previous lock, so we were never able to feel comfortable that we knew what to expect. As we found ourselves in the more pleasant true city center, one lock had floating bollards on one end, and I happily used it for both fore and aft lines to the boat. Unfortunately it was too far back, and nothing else was placed at a convenient point forwards. Maryanne luckily noticed this problem as the water rose, and just in time to stop our mast being caught on the lock door gangway I managed to maneuver the boat forward out of harms way. Close call! We were not enjoying these locks at all.

Apart from the locks, the rest of the canal through the city center was an obstacle course of obstructions. We lost a fender passing through a narrow tunnel (we were too close to the side, and it was ripped off). There were bridges, logs and litter everywhere, we were concerned for our rudders, prop and engine intake. It just wasn’t fun at all.


Footprint floats up in front of Toulouse Railway Station
As I’ve already said, I’m sure Toulouse has some wonderful parts of the city, but we weren’t there and we found no appeal to what we saw from the canal, so we just kept going. As we started to exit Toulouse however we saw a much nicer side to the city: park lands, manicured gardens, University buildings, etc. - so much nicer than the SW corner of the city. Lots of converted working barges (Peniches) now line the canal as homes. Some are beautiful, some practically derelict. Often the presence of the barges narrows the canal significantly and we have to get quite close to pass. One scared us, having two very frightening, fierce looking, barking, growling rottweilers, clearly not liking us so close. They looked very much like they were looking for a way to jump on our boat and dig their teeth into us. We were very glad to be passed that barge, but most just added to the charm of this stretch of canal.

We moored for the night at Port-Sud (only 12km/8miles from Toulouse center) where we expected to refuel the boat and hoped to get Internet at last. The fuel pump turned out to be broken, as well as the water and power connection at that dock. The Port captain said if we didn’t need any water or power we were fine to spend the night at the fuel dock (fine with us as it was an easy dock and close to the facilities).


At last, some of the nicer parts of the Canal du Midi
Maryanne asked about wifi (pronounced weefee) and was told they had Internet (yay!) but we had to plug in our computers at the office and could only use it while the office was open (it would close in 1 hour). This caused a mad dash to do my June schedule bid, book flights, trains and other Internet essentials, but still not enough time to post blogs and catch up with emails. After 10 minute of use however, the captain decided he’d go home early and rather than say anything just turned off the internet while we were frantically trying to catch up – I was right in the middle of booking my train ticket! We decided we’d have to leave late next day, to wait until the office opened at 9am when we could plug into the Internet again to finish off these critical tasks. This hurt our progress but we felt much better after abusing their shower faculties to remove several days of sweat and dirt.

Medieval France - More canal de Garonne

Moissac

[Kyle]Another 9am sharp turn of the lock control bar started our next day on the canal. We made excellent time until arriving at the town of Moissac when a low swing bridge blocked our passage. We sounded the horn as instructed to request the opening, but to no avail, it was lunchtime, and we’d have to wait. We tied to a ring in the wall of the canal and set about having our own lunch. Moissac seemed a very picturesque town, and the walls of the canal were at such a height that it was just possible that a mad jump from the boat could get me over the wall and onto its streets. Maryanne asked me to buy a baguette if I was going to leave the boat, and that was all the incentive I needed to jump that wall.

I had thirty minutes before the bridge tender came back, so I had to make it fast. Oh what a lovely little town it was, with stone bridges crossing the canal every block or so. I walked towards the prominent church steeple and just across the street found a perfect looking boulangarie where I purchased a grand baguette to eat with our lunch. I squeezed in a whirlwind tour of the small town and fell in love with it. Passing an outdoor bazaar, alongside the moored barges, I walked down to the bank of the Garonne and revealed in the pleasure of walking through a pretty French village with a fresh baguette tucked under my arm.

I got back to the boat jumped the gap (helped by Maryanne) and begged her to go out and see the town. It was just too far of a jump for her comfort though and she decided to give it a miss despite my protests. A few short minutes later the bridge tender showed up with apologies for taking her lunch, and let us through. We’d had some boats back up behind us during the wait and were expecting we’d need to share the next lock with them just outside of town, but they pulled off before we made it to the lock so we felt guiltily relieved to have it to ourselves.

These locks surprised us by not having the usual traffic lights and pole, but were controlled by a young lockkeeper who would operate the lock and then jump on his moped to ready the next lock for our arrival. He didn’t say much but was very nice, and at the last lock of the series Maryanne offered him chocolate in way of small thanks – he acted like she’d given him keys to a new moped.

As we stood in the locks waiting for the water level to rise, several passers by stopped to enjoy the spectacle. These ranged from little kids running towards us, pulling their parents behind and yelling ‘le bateau! le bateau!’ to many others watching silently using us as an excuse for a rest on a long walk. One family had an adorable little girl on a pink bicycle whom kept boldly running up to us out of curiosity and then, standing before us silent with shyness. They followed us for a couple of locks and eventually it was the father who raised the courage to talk with us; he spoke with Maryanne at the bow while I had a conversation at the stern with my 5-year old level French (Maryanne: he thinks he’s that good), with a woman passed retirement age. She asked the usual questions, where are you going? Where did you come from? Did you cross the Atlantic? Is it just the two of you? Where do you sleep? And as I gave every other answer or so she would respond with ‘très formidable’; I liked that. She asked where we lived, and when I told her we lived on the boat, she responded with another ‘très formidable’. She and her friends were completing an equally ambitious adventure – they were cycling the route between the two seas and staying at hotels along the way, living out of the tiny panniers they carried on their bicycles; and yet she called us très formidable, I liked that very much.

We made it to the top of the flight and passed over another long aqueduct, crossing the Tarn river (a Garonne tributary). At the next lock we arrived as the lock keeper was having a heated and animated argument with a drunk on a bicycle who wanted to use the lock door cat-walk to cross the canal (rather than walk the extra 20m to the bridge). There was lots of yelling back and forth and arm waving that from a distance could have let them be mistake them for Italians.

At some point in the afternoon as we were in a lock about the start the locking down process when we turned back to notice another boat trying to make it, and called to the lock keeper to wait for the 2nd boat. The second boat turned out to be more Brits (they seem to make up at least 80% of the canal users); but when Maryanne tried to chat with them she bristled at all their ‘friendly advice’ as they treated her like an idiot and answered every question with a quite irrelevant statement made to make them look fantastic. At the second lock we shared with them, the ‘gentleman’ requested us to speed up. Maryanne was confused at this. The speed limit is 8km and we were (kind-a) pushing it ourselves.. ‘The speed limit is 8, she told him, but he insisted we were only going 3 or 4 at most. We suspect our great superior sailors had confused km/h with knots (normal boat speed measurement), so rather than argue, we asked them to pass us once we exited the lock and enter the next lock without us. We were glad to be rid of them, and have the locks to ourselves again as it’s much less intimidating when you don’t have to worry about other boats in the lock with you.

Alone we then had a series of locks operated by another friendly kid (who also loved chocolate) who shuttled himself between locks on a bicycle. Finally we arrived at the last lock before Montech, just 5 minutes before closing and were ‘greeted’ by a dour faced woman with arms folded across her chest and sending a clear message that she had no intention of moving or helping in anyway. Apart from the motion to push the button on her remote, she didn’t move nor change expression for the full process of locking up. I guess we are seeing the full gamut of human nature – all part of the great flavour of travel!


More canal stuff! Includes Kyle hidden in the trees and the derelict chic of French buildings
Arriving at the little town of Montech we attempted to do something that should be fairly straight forward for us – to pull into a slip. It turned out to be way harder than we expected. There was a cross current and it was such that if I tried to land Maryanne on the tiny little finger pier, I’d be pushed sideways and she couldn’t reach. She attempted to reach for the rings at the end of the float with the boat hook, but they seemed to be sized and weighted in such away that the boat hook would not grab them. Eventually, after about 5 attempts, entering at an alarming angle, Maryanne was able to climb off the boat with a line, and we hoped to soon gain full control of the docking situation. However the float I landed her on was very narrow and as soon as her foot touched it, entered some sort of fairground ride harmonic of increasing oscillation that would surely result in pitching her over into the drink. Instinctively she dropped down on all fours to lower her center of gravity which didn’t reduce the oscillations but did make it much more entertaining for the crowd that by then had gathered. The main spectator was an older man who sat at the bench directly beside the dock, staring at us with the same blank look of the teenage lockkeeper the day before. Eventually Maryanne managed to make her way gingerly to the point where the pontoon attached to the concrete wall, here the motion calmed down slightly, and for the benefit of the dispassionate observers we proceeded to go through a Laurel and Hardy routine of tying lines the wrong way, tripping over them etc. We somehow managed to make even first time canal boat rental captains look like old salts by comparison. Once everything was finally safely in order, and not a moment before, the Port Captain arrived and demanded payment - now, and dragged Maryanne off to the office to complete the paperwork before they closed. Then she immediately shut the whole place down and once closed there would be no access to the shower, toilets, laundry or Internet. All we got for our fee was to entertain the locals! Luckily it was a very small fee.

We had been hoping to find wifi, but of course the port didn’t have any once we’d arrived, so we spent the next few hours wondering around town looking for a signal or any internet cafes, we asked at hotels, restaurants and coffee shops – nothing. Nobody was even able to send us anywhere else they knew had it.

The town of Montech was somewhat interesting, dominated by an enormous Cathedral, and surrounded by buildings with a distinctly French look (shuttered windows, patches of plaster fallen off, etc). On one pretty little side street we were surrounded by swifts nesting for the night using every available crevice between the bricks of a worn out building. It was getting dark, we were tired, so we called it a night on our wifi search and retired to our rickety dock and Footprint.