Friday, Sept. 10th

For the last few weeks, we have been on the Saone,
spent a week in Lyon,
and then down the Rhone.
We are currently in Avignon. (I should be a poet.)

We had a really exciting day today... The Rhone is huge with a swift current, and the locks are massive. They sort of 'canalise' the sides when coming up to the lock. 65 km. an hour winds caused us to broach as we slowed down to wait for a lock to open. We ended up facing the wrong way on the wrong side of canal where the 'barrage'** is, being pushed on shore by the wind, going backwards in the current. Our motor wasn't strong enough to push off the shore against the wind. It took us over 30 minutes to painfully get the boat pointing in the right direction, and then to get it off the shoreline and toward the entrance to the huge lock.

But we are having fun.

** for the uninitiated, a 'barrage' is a waterfall. That is why you need a 'lock' to go around it, i.e. in this case to take the barge down so we don't have to go over the waterfall!