Canal du Midi > Day #1……….downstream or upstream hmmm!

……and we are off to get provisions for the trip. Got everything we need and it is time to check-in with Le Boat….no struggles with French, these are Brits running the operation. We get the boat a bit early and start organizing our stuff, have lunch on board and at 2PM, on the nose, our instructor arrives. Go through the check lists, have a trial run and we are declared fit to take command of the boat.

Over the next few days we will be motoring from Homps to Colombieres then back to Marseillette and finally Homps:

We are off and very soon thereafter we get to our first lock. For the uninitiated: you arrive at the locks, moor your boat until the lock master allows you in (which means you have to bring in your lines, maneuver the boat into the lock, get out and moor inside the lock (the locks here generally take 3-4 boats at a time). The objective of course is not to make it look like a gong show.

First lock and we are in with a minimum of fuss…..lots of stuff that the instructor told us nothing about….but all in all, we have done good. High fives all around.

Descend, get lines and get underway. Haha,this is cake, as we approach the next lock there are several boats there and as we prepare to land/moor, things go awry. More forward, backward (me hanging off the side ready to jump with the line) and we are perfectly perpendicular to the shore…NOT PRETTY!!!. Everyone is gawking at the obvious newbies….until one guy jumps on the boat and takes over, gently instructing us on the finer points of maneuvering this PIG of a boat……..finally everything is shipshape and we are given the signal to enter the lock……the other boats are wary of us, but in the end and with some more encouragement etc. we are in safely, if not elegantly……descend and are on our way….suffice to say pic taking was not possible.

Success you would think, until at the next lock where another British crewed boat asks us where we were planning to overnight……we answer Le Redorte and then there is a curious and extended silence……it seems that in all the excitement of leaving Homps we have gone downstream instead of upstream…….HARUMPH.!!!!!! Of course Bob and I know who the evildoers are, but silence reins supreme on this topic as we deliberate.

What to do…reverse course and go up the locks we just came down?? In the end, the brain trust agrees that in fact we had always wanted to go downstream so in fact all was good……and we will visit Carcassonne in due course.

No further incidents, and, after a nice run of a few kilometers we moor (here they call it parking) in the “wild” >>> “a nature”. We are close to a village but decide to go it alone:

The sun was shining, boats were passing and wine, cheese, ham and baguettes were being consumed on the poop deck…..after all the drama, all was good with the world.

More wine with dinner in the cabin and our first day is done: