With anodes installed, all repairs were done. (Or so I thought at the time.)
It was time to start cruising. After all, that was why we bought Aleau. On May 7, we started off on the Canal de Bourgogne from St. Jean-de-Losne towards Dijon. But first, we needed to buy fuel.
Aleau has two fuel tanks – each holding approximately 1,500 litres. One is for white diesel – gazole as it is called in France. That is what is used to run the engine. The other is for red diesel – GNR (Gazole Non Routier). Red diesel is used to run the generator (which supplies electricity when we’re not using the engine or when we’re not plugged in to shore power) and run the boiler which supplies hot water for washing and to the radiators. Red diesel is tax-free and about 35 per cent cheaper than white diesel. There are heavy fines if you are caught with red diesel in your engine. The red dye is permanent. Just a little bit of red diesel in your engine can be detected many years later. You must be very careful when filling to make sure no red diesel gets into the white tank.
In the photo below, Jeannie is filling one of the tanks. It is a long process. When we purchased Aleau both tanks were empty.
These photos were taken at the fuel dock in St. Jean-de-Losne. There are very few places where barges can buy fuel in France. We were lucky that when we bought Aleau she was in St. Jean-de-Losne. The fuel dock, along with three shipyards and two marinas, have given the town the nickname “the barging capital of France.”
Fortunately, full tanks should last for a full season of cruising. If more fuel is needed, it is sometimes possible to hire a tanker truck to deliver fuel to the barge. This requires a substantial minimum purchase and/or finding other bargees to also place an order.
To complicate matters… White diesel is available by credit card at any time – similar to a typical gasoline station for cars. Red diesel, however, is only available when the fuel dock office is open as there is paperwork that has to be done. (It’s tax-free – that means government forms need to be filled out.) The hours the office is open is posted at the office. Generally, if you need red diesel, the office will be closed. We once waited in St. Jean-de-Losne for two days in order to buy red diesel.
The fuel dock is on the Saône – a river with a sometimes swiftly moving current. If approaching from upstream, which was always the case for us, it is crucial to go past the fuel dock, make a U-turn, and then approach the dock from downstream. Heading into the current, the engine is used to counter the flow of the river. If we attempted to moor while going downstream, the current would push us past the fuel dock.