A few minutes after leaving Moret-sur-Loing, we had a choice. Left onto the Seine and a two-day trip to Paris. Or right onto the Seine and a two-hour trip to the Yonne River. We weren’t due in Paris until October 1 – more than a month away. We turned right.
Life was different on the Seine. Just one minute after turning onto it, we passed commercial barges tied up – waiting to carry cargo.
When empty, they sit high in the water. Visibility in front is non-existent for hundreds of metres.
When loaded, they sit very low in the water. This barge looked like adding one more pebble would make it sink.
We turned off the Seine and moored for the night in Montereau-Fault-Yonne. The spot was tiny – the church across from us was anything but.
The next morning, we came across something we had never seen before – a lock with sloping sides. On both sides.
This had me confused – and worried. How do we tie up in the lock? (This photo was taken when the lock was half-full. When fully empty or completely filled, the difficulty and risk is much more evident.) We were going upstream. The lock would fill as we were in it. As we were at the bottom, we were a long way from the edge of the lock at the top. To compound matters, the bollards were set way back – basically impossible to reach. But we needed to tie up as the turbulent waters coming in as the lock filled would toss Aleau around. I had no idea how we were going to safely pass through this lock.
“C’est la Vie” to the rescue.
It’s a gorgeous hotel barge that we had been following. It entered the lock ahead of us. Casting pride aside, I asked the captain what to do. He generously allowed us to raft against him. Tied securely alongside “C’est la Vie,” we had nothing to do. Its crew would deal with the sloping sides.
The male crew, that is. The female crew got to take a break and sit with the captain and owner in the wheelhouse as “C’est la Vie” rose in the lock.
We followed “C’est la Vie” to Pont-sur-Yonne where we both moored for the night.
We continued to enjoy the beauty of the Yonne as we cruised to our next mooring – in Sens.
