Logbook and Photos

As soon as we arrive at the marina at Port Napoleon, near where the Rhône River drains into the Mediterranean Sea, Chris rushes to the office to make an appointment to have our mast removed first thing Monday morning, hopefully before the wind really builds for the day, but the best we can get is mid-afternoon.  If you've read the previous log, you will know that things have been a real struggle for us lately with the mistral wind (a relentlessly strong northerly wind caused by semi-permanent pressure systems).  Chris figures that if we can't get our mast out today, we might have to wait days for the next opportunity.  So when the crane operators can't find the owners of the next scheduled boat and Chris is standing by ready, we get the go-ahead.  And a good thing, too, because the wind is screaming again by the time we finish and the crane is shut-down -- for days as it turns out.

We have decided to have our mast professional shipped  (www.deryachtgraf.de) to the Netherlands rather than carry it horizontally in a cradle above the deck. (If we don't remove it at all, the first bridge will take it out!).  We feel our 17m mast with 5 meters of overhang will be hard to manage in the locks and might even sustain damage.  Plus we want a clean deck and room for bicycles.  So, for the next few days, we prepare the mast and sails for shipment and TIOGA for river/canal cruising and do a little local sight seeing while we wait for the mistral to abate.

At the southern end of the Rhône River where we are, the region is called the Camargue, an immense delta famed for its desolate beauty and incredibly varied bird life, including huge flocks of flamingos.  In certain areas, the Carmargue's famous herds of cream-coloured horses can still be found, along with the black bulls that are raised for bullfighting and roam free under the watchful eyes of the mounted gardian, a 'Camargue Cowboy'.  We take a little time out from working on the boat to have a poke around. 

In this part of France, bullfighting is popular, but it's not the Spanish-style corrida where the bull ends up dead.  Here, we are introduced to a junior Course Camarguaise (Camargue-style bullfighting) where white-clad razeteurs try to remove ribbons tied to the bull's horns with special hooks held between their fingers.  Of course, the bull feels like skewering the razeteurs instead so the whole thing is more like bull racing with some great athleticism!

The mistral wind has finally let up and today we leave salt water and enter the fresh water river system of the Rhône.  Our first lock is turbulent, not because of a great change in elevation (only 10 cm!), but due to the mixing of the salt and fresh water, waters of different densities. We are in great spirits to finally be underway. 

Our first stop 42 km up river is the City of Arles, where our first order of business is to get bicycles for everyone.  Arles turns out to be the perfect stop and also an opportunity to rest up after considerable work getting to this stage of our adventure.  We stay tied up to a floating  pontoon for three nights ....and yes, 4 brand new bikes are on TIOGA's bow when we leave!

Arles is a pretty town.   Initially occupied by Celtic tribes, then by a Greek colony, Arles became Roman when Julius Caesar gave the colony to the veterans of his armies.  Several of the sights in town are on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Monuments, including a massive amphitheater built around 90 AD with seating for 20,000 spectators.  Quaint and currently quiet cafes line the streets, but within a couple of weeks the place will be jammed for the Fetes d'Arles, the annual fair and bullfights (courses Camarguaises).   Arles' most famous resident was the painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-90).

On one of our bike rides in the area, while waiting for Sheila and Gerrit to catch up, Chris and Joel hear a faint bleating in a nearby bush .  Upon investigation, they discover a lamb caught up in the bramble and in barbed-wire.  The animal is scared but quietly accepts our help.  Moments later, it bounds off to join its distant flock, bleating all the way for his mother.  Mama! Mama! I'm here! I'm here!

So, a little more information for you about our first river, the Rhône.  It has been fully canalized over a total length of 310km from the City of Lyon down to the lock where we started from.  Prior to the vast programme of works started in 1933 and only completed in 1980, the Rhône was a very difficult river to navigate - fast flowing, shallows, etc.  Today, the river is navigable throughout the year by large barges and push-tows, with a guaranteed minimum depth.  It has 12 hydroelectric plants with a total head (drop) of 162m and producing 16% of France's hydroelectric output.  At each of the plants, there is a dam and a lock such as the one we are approaching.  The locks are all standard dimensions of 195m by 12m wide and the fall (or rise in our case) varies between 6.7m and a stunning 22m, as shown here in the second locking picture (though further upstream).  If you look closely at the expanded picture, you'll see us hooking our lines to a floating bollard.  As the water goes up, so does our boat's connection point.  Much easier to handle!

Next up the river is the city of Avignon, known to us for the bridge in the famous French song “Sous le Pont d'Avignon”.  Only a portion of the bridge 'Saint Bénézet' (12th century) remains, having been rebuilt and washed away countless times by the merciless Rhône during flood.

From 1309 to 1377,  Avignon served as the seat of the papal court when Pope Clement V fled political turmoil in Rome.  Under seven French-born popes, huge sums of money were invested in buildings, decorating the papal palace, and on other important church edifies.   Avignon flourished to the point of depravity. The last pope, Gregory XI left Avignon in 1376 and after his death two years later the church had a period (1378-1417) during which rival popes - up to three at one time, each with its own College of Cardinals - resided at Avignon and Rome and spent most of their energies denouncing and excommunicating each other.  They also expended great efforts on gaining control of church revenues; one of the sources was the sale of indulgences (the promise of favorable treatment in heaven in consequence for sin on earth).

As we proceed upstream, we begin to discover that the Rhône Valley is much more than bulls, Roman ruins, vineyards, and petrochemical plants.  It's also France's most important nuclear power centre.  Over 75% of France's electrical needs are nuclear-generated. One of these nuclear plants on the Rhône is rated at a stunning 1300 megawatts - enough to supply the needs of a city of 20 million people!

Though the Rhône is a big, wide, and deep river, there is a fair amount of commercial barge traffic, channel markers, and other hazards to avoid.  Unlike cruising at sea, the helm station must be manned and a sharp lookout maintained constantly, lest one ends up high and dry like this poor fellow!  The attention required on the river is akin to that of one driving a car on a highway as opposed to someone in the passenger seat who has the opportunity to read a book or watch the scenery pass by. 

With a normal travel day being about six hours per day, the helmsman needs to be comfortable, out of the blazing sun, and have a good forward view.  Our bimini (cockpit cover) and zip-in sunshades keep us cool, two folding camping chairs with drink holders give us comfort and a good viewing location, and the auto-pilot reduces the effort to hand steer to adjusting the course control with a thumb and index finger.  We keep our river navigation guide book on the cockpit table, a set of binoculars handy, and thoroughly enjoy the pace!

Under the Romans, winemaking flourished in this region, as it does today.  Heading up river, just before Lyon we start to get good first views of Côtes du Rhône vineyards.   Côtes du Rhône means on the banks of or next to, in this case, the Rhône. This area is known for vintages offering good value for money.  We can't wait to start the savings!  Our plan of attack for French wines is to buy regional wines as we go through each region and to learn sip by sip! 

Well, we finally make it to Lyon, situated at the confluence of the upper Rhône and the south end of the Saône River.  Though the trip up the Rhône has been fabulous, we're not sad to be off it with its constant threat of flood and mistral winds.

We hope one of this lively bunch of French students from Lyon drop us an e-mail to say hi when they see their picture. We are winding down for the night after a busy day of sight-seeing when a chorus of singers, upon spotting our flag, begins singing Oh Canada! at the top of their lungs.  Besides knowing our anthem in English (for some reason) we soon discover they had just finished their exams (and a number of beers) and are out on the town.  The fellow on the far right has even been to Saskatchewan!

FYI - INTERPOL or the International Criminal Police Organization has it headquarters in Lyon.  Interpol was established in 1923 to promote mutual cooperation between police authorities around the world and to develop means of effectively preventing crime. The majority of the world's countries (177 in 1997) belong to Interpol, and only government-approved police bodies may hold membership.  From these very headquarters, it coordinates the international activities of member countries, holds a library of international criminal records, and organizes regular meetings at which delegates can exchange information on police work.

Here's something new and different for us.  Beneath and between the city's ancient stone houses, shops, and cafes, narrow traboules (secret passages) wind their way through apartment blocks, under streets and into courtyards.  There are 315 such passages linking 230 streets and with a combined length of 50km!  The history of the passages are long and varied, beginning in Roman times.  A number of the passages were built in the 19th century by the region's many silk-weavers to transport silk in inclement weather.  Finally, French resistance fighters found them equally handy during the Nazi occupation of WWII.

We have just left Lyon, now traveling upstream on the Saône River, and have spent a delightful night tied quietly to pontoon by a park in a place called Albigny-sur-Saône.  The rivers are filled with bird life including plentiful swans and their newborn babies. These two 'cowboy' cygnets are riding Mama 'bare-back' while she snoops around our boat wondering what we are having for breakfast.  Swans may live up to 35 years, and they pair for life.

The most renowned wine-producing regions in France, and possibly the world, are Bordeaux, a region on the southwestern coast of the country, and Burgundy, in central France where we are now.  The town of Mâcon, on the right bank of the Saône River 74km north of Lyon, is our base to explore the Mâconnais, a southern Burgundy wine-growing area.  (In the case of Burgundy, it is also an administrative region in France similar to a US state or Canadian province.)

Burgundy's red wines are produced with the Pinot Noir grapes in the centre, and the Gamay in the south.  Most white wine is made from the Chardonnay grape.   The five main wine-growing areas of Burgundy, generally from north to south, are Chablis, Côte d'Or, Côte Chalonnais, Mâconnais, and Beaujolais. 

Throughout our area, there is a 117km paved cycling path called 'la voie verte' (the greenway) along a former railway line and canal towpaths.  For our day out, it runs through the vineyards connecting the country villages and we spend hours pedaling leisurely through the countryside, soaking in the scenery, and stopping from time to time at a 'degustation' (sampling & sales) point.

Finally, at the end of our day, we collapse for thirst at a cafe along the way... but wine is not foremost on our minds anymore.  A local points out Mont-Pouilly and her vineyards in the distant, but our compass will point home for supper. 

We read later that from the area surrounding the Pouilly outcropping come many famous vintage names, including the area's most highly prized vintage, the renowned Pouilly-Fuissé, a white that bolsters the Mâcon-area label worldwide.

We have been promising the boys a trip to a Go-Kart park ever since they saw a brochure at a Tourist Information centre.  When a track turns out to be in bicycle-range of our boat, we head out for a few laps in these 150cc units.  The kids are great pilots and we have to wonder - where did they learn to drive?

A village since 988, we are not sure that the Chardonnay grape originated here per se, but it is in the heart of the Mâconaisse region and we just had to visit.  Just south of here, monks from the Abbey in Cluny, centre of Christendom in Middle-Age Europe, began making wine in earnest from their great monastic land estates in the 11th and 12th centuries.  Under the old French naming scheme for wines, villages did not have the double-barreled names of the present day, but went by their original single name.   So perhaps, when the monks told the nobility that it was a "Chardonnay", it meant a vintage from this town using the grape of the area.  Today, the production from this area would be known as a Mâcon Villages - Chardonnay, meaning the region - or appellation - where the wine is from and the grape variety, and would be further refined by the name of the winery.

As we cycle down into the village of Chardonnay, one can see abundant vines growing on the slopes of the valley.  High quality wine-making requires dry growing conditions, from a slope without an underground water table and that does not hold water.  At the other end of the adaptability spectrum from the Pinot Noir vine, the Chardonnay is said to be the cameleon of vines, as it can adapt to any growing environment in the world provided it has little water, and, with the slightest variation in soil or climate, produces wines that are 'remarkably specific and original and with amazing intensity'.  

We are now in Chalon-sur-Saône (the town of Chalon on the Saône River), the birthplace of French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833), who made the first permanent photographic images.  Niépce used a 'camera obscura' (a forerunner of the camera), which is essentially a pinhole in a box. Light passes through the hole and forms an inverted, backwards image of the subject on the back of the box. The image is somewhat dim, but the detail sharp enough that properly placed film or plate might produce a photograph.  Niépce continued his photography work and experiments and, in 1816, he successfully made the first surviving permanent photograph, of the courtyard of his house, using a bitumen-coated pewter plate exposed in a camera obscura. 

After a nice stay in Chalon, we are anxious to arrive at the town of Saint Jean-de-Losne, which marks for us the beginning of the Bourgogne (Burgundy) Canal.  Here, we will spend a few days stocking the boat, catching up on a few projects, laundry, fueling, etc. before tackling our first serious locking exercise.   The Canal de Bourgogne is the most heavily-locked, hence the slowest, of the routes to Paris.  But its redeeming attribute is that is supposed to be one of the most beautiful canal routes in France, going through the heart of Burgundy.  It is 242km in length and has 189 locks!  We figure that it will take 87 hours to traverse traveling at a crawl of 6km/h and budgeting 15 minutes per lock! So we had better get going.  Join us in our next log for the ups and downs of this journey.