Wind and rain on the Canal de Lens, Arnaud and Arnaud  at Arleux, less-than-loquacious lock-keepers, biking in Hermies, tripartite tunnel at Ruyancourt, montant vs avalant, Péronne market and double-mooring Dutchmen in the port de plaisance

Béthune to Courriéres (Canal de Lens)

We woke up to rain, strong wind and the threat of worse to come. Pessimist that I am, I feared that Karanja would be blown all over the place, but my Ancient Mariner is made of sterner stuff and insisted we set off. In fact, it he found it no problem to navigate in winds gusting at up to 45 km/h.

Just one lock today – Cuinchy – again different from the three we came through yesterday. Plus, this was the first lock we’d had to share: we’d come in behind an enormous commercial double-barge. I climbed my first green and slimy lock ladder to get the aft rope around the bollard indicated by M. Éclusier.

Then, just as the lock finished filling, Mother Nature sent a nasty rain-squall to dash my pride and bring me back to a more accurate understanding of my place in the universe.

Overnight at an halte nautique at Courriéres, on the Canal de Lens. An halte nautique, by the way, can be no more than a floating pontoon, sometimes just big enough for one or two boats like us. And we are the exception – almost all the vessels we’re seeing are huge commercial barges; often, they’re double, the rear one pushing the one in front.

Most of them have a car on the back; some are adorned with potted flowering plants. Their drivers are extremely polite, too, at least in this part of the country; often, they’ll slow down as they pass a tiddler like us, so as to minimise their wake, and they’ll always wave.

Courriéres (Canal de Lens) to Arleux

Three locks today – Douais, Courchelettes and Goeulzin – and a few new experiences.

Once again without internet, we trudged into Arleux in search of a telecomms shop. Nothing like it in this little village, but there was a great little bar where the two charming Arnauds called us a cab to the nearest Bouygues, at Sin-le-Noble.

It cost over €60 for cabbie Eric’s aller-retour; Roy was gloomy to say the least. We’ve supposedly used 2G of data in one day, though just on email, basic internet searches and un petit peu de Facebook. Impossible, right? Putain!

Arleux to Hermies

Up early and braced to go through seven locks – Arleux, Palleul, Marqion, two at Sains-lés Marquion, Moeuvres, and two at Graincourt-lès-Havrincourt. Try saying that last one over the VHF radio as you approach the lock.

That’s my job, by the way – much as I detested doing the RYA VHF radio course at Bysham Abbey last summer on the Thames. As we approach each lock, I’ve got to say, for example:

“Écluse (lock) Arleux, Écluse Arleux, c’est Karanja, bateau Karanja, plaisanciér (pleasure boat), montant (or avalant, depending whether we’re heading upstream or downstream), je suis à 5 (or whatever) kilometres distance. Over.”

They may or may not answer. If they do, I may or may not understand them. No matter – they know we’re coming, and everything seems to happen as it should.

Hermies to Péronne

A big day, indeed! – starting with Ruyancourt Tunnel, over 4km kilometres long and divided into three sections. The first is one-way, the second two-way and the third one-way. If the light is green at the end of the first section, you of course go. If it’s red – and for us it was – you pull up to the side, attach a rope to a bollard and wait.

As two monster barges approached and passed us, it took our combined strength to keep Karanja’s bow against the side.

Montant vs Avalant #101

After that came four locks in quick succession – but now, for the first time, we were going downstream (avalant) – rather than upstream (montant) and had to learn new tricks.

For the uninitiated:

* When you’re montant in locks like these, you enter at the bottom of an empty lock chamber; you attach your rope to a bollard set low into the wall and use it to hold the boat to the side of the lock wall; as the lock progressively fills, your rope slips off the bollard and you attach it to the bollard above it, and so on until the lock has filled.

* When you’re avalant, you enter a full lock chamber and attach your rope to a big bollard at ground level. As the lock empties, you attempt to release your bollard in time and attach it to the one below it.

Two nights in Péronne

I’d phoned ahead, and thank goodness they had a mooring for us in the port de plaisance at Péronne. After six nights on the trot, it was nice to plug into shore-power, do the laundry, and fill up the water-tank at our leisure.

At La Péronnaise a couple of hundred metres up the road from our mooring – brasserie, pizzeria, loto, bar and tabac all in one – we had the three-course menu for €12 a head. Great value!

Next morning, we took the short walk into town to catch the Saturday market. Apart from some pretty good fresh produce (artichokes, asparagus and melons are in season), a sterling fishmonger and a butcher flogging the dreaded andouillette – that stinky pork tripe sausage we heaved over last summer, in Chablis – it included myriad vendors of cheap clothing, shoes, household gadgets and even an upholsterer.

Though we liked the look of Les Archers, we instead had a great lunch at Bistrot d’Antoine on the edge of the market square.

Back at the port de plaisance, a couple of jolly Dutch couples on two boats had merrily double-moored next to us. Roy bristled a bit with testostero-territoriality, but they’d got permission from the port authority, they explained. No doubt there’ll come a day when we’ll be happy and relieved to be able to do the same.