Capers on the Canal

Boating on the Canal du Midi: 26 – 30 April

The Canal du Midi - A Little History
The canal starts at Sete on the Mediterranean and ends at the Garonne River which empties into the Atlantic. It is 240 km long (2 m deep and 16 – 20 m wide) with 63 locks, 126 bridges, 62 aqueducts, 6 dams, 1 spillway, and 1 tunnel. It was a built to transport goods (including wine) from the Mediterranean avoiding a long trip around Spain and Portugal during the reign of Louise XIV by Pierre-Paul Riquet (1667 - 1681). Commercial usage began to decline with the introduction of the railway and finally stopped in the late 1980s however tourism has grown since the 1960’s and more importantly is used for irrigation.

Preparing for the Canal Trip
We grabbed the opportunity to cruise the Canal whilst we had 4 visitors. We introduced my bro Paul and wife Ness to our friend Jax and waited for husband Jeff to arrive – his plan was to ride his bike from Carcassonne to our apartment. After waiting in vain we went to our favourite bar on the square. Jax was a little worried and kept checking her phone; I visualised him hit by a drunken farmer lying unconscious under the vines however John was unperturbed and ordered a second round of drinks. Jeff turned up at the bar quite a bit later and was surprised at our concern as he had sent John a number of texts telling him what he was doing.

We managed to get all six of us, plus food, drinks, luggage and a bike to the Le Boat depot at Trèbes without too many issues.

Le Boat
We hired a boat from Le Boat (French for The boat). After waiting (a French pastime) for repairs to be done to our boat we boarded and unpacked our provisions. The boat is about 13 metres long with a top deck to sit, relax or eat, below there are 3 cabins with ensuites and galley and dining areas. Steering can be done either on the top deck or below, inside if raining. The boat is quite manoeuvrable with bow thrusters (noted by my brother for the whole trip as bowel thrusters) at the front.

We had an induction in French. That was interesting – when canal is pronounced "kennel" you know there are going to be some misunderstanding. Lucky all of us have had some boating experience

so with sign language, some translation by me (the French language expert – ha ha) and all 6 of us listening to the induction we felt reasonably inducted.

Le Crew

JOHN - the skipper. He is vastly experienced in everything nautical including nautical fashion and he wore a captain’s hat to prove this. He also allocated himself the best cabin and was good at delegating.

JEFF– deck hand. Some nautical experience learnt in the bilge of dirty, old, prawn trawlers in the Cairns inlet. He learned that storing your beer in your pocket is not good for iPhones.

PAUL – deck hand. Previous motor boat experience who’s favourite saying is “if you can’t tie a knot, tie a lot” which is unfortunate in the boating world. Got marks for avoiding a head on collision with a commercial canal boat whilst using only one hand and not putting his beer down. Always seen with beer in hand.

KATHY – skippers wife. Has Competent Crew qualifications but deliberately avoided crew work so other crew felt competent.

JAX – deck hand. Superior to Jeff in all aspects of deck hand work except consumption of beer and wine. Particularly good at finding things lost by Jeff.

NESS – deck hand. Always participated in crew activity including onshore excursions to bakeries. Gold star for her.


What’s a Lock?

A lock is an enclosure that allows you to go up and down hills on a waterway. The boat moves into an enclosure that once closed, fills to go up hill or empties to go downhill. When the enclosure reopens the boat is higher or lower than it was on entering the lock. At one spot on the canal there is an 8 lock staircase.

Very soon after leaving Trèbes we entered a 3 lock staircase to go downhill – very exciting. No-one knew that Ness had never been in a lock before (or eaten du canard) – she must have freaked out when we entered an uphill lock where the water gushes in at great volume.

You have to be careful entering a lock; the bowel thruster is very useful. This is where a lot of the fun is – tying up boats, pushing

other boats away, laughing at efforts to fit into the lock (one guy went in sideways), skippers who treat their crew like slaves and meeting people from other boats.

Each lock is managed by a lock keeper who lives on site and in typical French fashion the locks are only open certain hours, closed for lunch and do not open on public holidays (and there are many in France). The lock keepers seem to have a lot of influence on how their lock is managed – some have art, produce or souvenirs for sale and others have dogs round up the boats sort of like sheep.

Locks on our route were: Trèbes, Marseillette, Fonfile, Saint-Martin, Aiguille, Puichéric, Jouarres, Homps, Ognon, Pechlaurier and Argens.

Aiguille Lock
The lockkeeper Joel Barthes is an artist with an obsession for male parts and has some really humorous sculptures. It’s worth having a look at this site. http://www.spacesarchives.org/explore/collection/environment/joel-barthes/ You can buy some of the art work if you wish. I think my sister Clare the artist would enjoy the collection.

The Romantic Lock
We waited for what we thought was too long after the lunch break. Another boat eventually went into the lock keepers garden to get her. After passing through the lock we found a lovely table set up in the garden with red wine etc. Sooo romantic for them.

Le Route
There are many beautiful villages and towns along the Canal du Midi. Some towns cater to the passing trade from the canal and others completely ignore it – agricultural towns deal with the business of agriculture only. We popped into towns for basic provisions (wine or bread) or to look around. There were two towns that stood out:

La Somail
Catered for passing boats with food shops and restaurants. The canal was lined with colourful canal boats. It would have been great to stay a little longer.

Ventenac-en-Minervois
Was our favourite. We had many adventures there. We walked around the village trying to find something open. Instead the Mairie (mayor) introduced himself and told us much about his rugby treize (13 – which means it is Rugby league not union) career and many other things that we did not understand.

Then we visited the Chateau which had wine sales and tastings on the ground floor and a museum about the wine history of the town on the second and third floors. Good views over the countryside. We met up with fellow “boaties” from Canada.

In the evening we went to a family restaurant La Grillade du Chateau. On arrival we were told to wait as the family hadn’t finished eating (we were early). We amused ourselves watching the family, the dog

with a bucket on its head and the chook wandering the restaurant picking up any random food crumbs. When ordering the meal we all tried as well as we could to order in French, crossing our fingers that there wasn’t any gesiers in the dish. John asked for lamb chops which earnt him a lambasting from all of us as we know he is multilingual. He still insists to this day that his menu was in English.

EPILOGUE
All too quickly the trip was over. The weather had cleared the last few days and it was really great to sit in the sun watching the scenery. We got a taxi back to Limoux which was a bit of a luxury but worth it for the surprise we got when we returned home. Our taxi driver took the complex way to our unit – through the old town and the town square. Just prior to the town square a group of young men dressed in costume, most of them lady’s outfits jumped on our taxi. It took a while to clear. The taxi driver was mumbling something unintelligible. Great to be back in Limoux.

Next:
Bye Bye in Barcelona - May 2017