Day's Progress: 29 kms : 6 locks (Total 490 kms : 214 locks)
Had excellent weather all day – sun and a bit of cloud. The locks we went through today were for the large commercial barges – each lock could probably take 6 barges – 3 rows side by side. They are huge and I still find them scary but am feeling a lot easier with them now and I don’t
always have to leap out the boat to tie it up. At the lock site the rive is split in 2 with a weir taking up 2/3 of the river and the remainder has the lock structure.
The commercial barges are 39.5 metres long and 5.05 metres wide. That will give you an idea of how big they are and they also have quite a bit of boat under the water. The gates in these large locks are electronically operated – in days gone by am not sure how they operated them. These are old locks and gates – the only new things are the motors and they way they open them. We travelled part of the way on the river with a “hotel barge”. These are commercial barges that have been converted to accommodate guests and are operated as hotels. They have a crew, the guests don’t do a thing. They have quite luxurious bedrooms with the living area, lounges, dinning area and deck on the top deck with bedrooms under this. The window line of the bedrooms is just at water level. I think these hotels can take about 12 guests – or at least that is most I have counted. They have little swimming pools, astro turf and some have small gyms with stationary bikes and treadmills.
Had excellent weather all day – sun and a bit of cloud. The locks we went through today were for the large commercial barges – each lock could probably take 6 barges – 3 rows side by side. They are huge and I still find them scary but am feeling a lot easier with them now and I don’t
always have to leap out the boat to tie it up. At the lock site the rive is split in 2 with a weir taking up 2/3 of the river and the remainder has the lock structure.The commercial barges are 39.5 metres long and 5.05 metres wide. That will give you an idea of how big they are and they also have quite a bit of boat under the water. The gates in these large locks are electronically operated – in days gone by am not sure how they operated them. These are old locks and gates – the only new things are the motors and they way they open them. We travelled part of the way on the river with a “hotel barge”. These are commercial barges that have been converted to accommodate guests and are operated as hotels. They have a crew, the guests don’t do a thing. They have quite luxurious bedrooms with the living area, lounges, dinning area and deck on the top deck with bedrooms under this. The window line of the bedrooms is just at water level. I think these hotels can take about 12 guests – or at least that is most I have counted. They have little swimming pools, astro turf and some have small gyms with stationary bikes and treadmills.
At lunch time we moored up alongside a restaurant that is built right on th
e side of the waters edge. This was at Misy-Sur-Yonne and the restaurant is called La Gaulle. We sat on the terrace and could look down to the river. No sooner had we sat down then large fish came swimming around – they must know it is lunch time and were there to get some bread – what fun – feeding these large fish in remarkably clear water – could see down to the bottom. I am constantly amazed at how much enjoyment I get (and others) from feeding fish, ducks, swans, otters!!!! For lunch I had really nice fish swimming in herbed olive oil on thinly sliced baby marrows and potato – very yummy. 
We have made good time and can relax a bit now – we know we will make it in time. The river is lovely and we passed a lot of small towns – each with the inevitable large church. This is the first day that we haven’t seen any other small pleasure craft and this section was long – we only saw commercial barges and the hotel barges.
The small town we have moored in for the night has a lot of old buildings and lots of restaurants and lots of swans. And we are having an early night and dinner on board of cheese and bread and wine.
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