Sans Permis

                                    Kruunch!  

Fiberglas has a distinctive sound when it takes a direct hit. The dried resin shatters like a saltine only snappier, crispier. Some boats are only Fiberglas which had been layered over a form kinda like the strips of newspaper strips we dipped in goo and put on balloons when we were kids. The form is then removed and you're left with a lightweight boat. For sturdier boats like these, the form is generally made of wood and remains (thankfully). The fiberglas waterproofs it while giving a nice, smooth surface for painting logos. The outside of the fiberglas is lined with long strips of wood which are covered with  dense rubber, perhaps not as dense as me, and inflated bumpers hang from ropes every 4 feet. What could go wrong? I'll tell ya.

I was getting cocky. The passages beneath these old bridges aren't much wider that the boat so you have to nail the middle, not be in mid swing from one side of the canal to the other as you struggle to keep it in a straight line. It's best to take it real slow. Top cruising speed is 8 knots which isn't fast - unless you hit something that isn't moving at all, like a stone bridge. I'd decided that my several hours at the helm meant I could take on the small gap ahead at full speed. 

If you're not perfectly straight the corner of the lowest stone gives the boat a gut punch and puts your passengers on their asses. It's hard to keep the boat straight when you're peering up at the underside of the bridge through the steering wheel. The bridges are so low you have to crouch and cower as you slip under.

Newsflash! I just got an email from a guest that had stayed in our home recently. To help finance this trip, Deb n I put our home on Airbnb for the 2 1/2 months were away. Well it seems one of the guests brought some tiny friends with them. Who stayed when they left and said hi to the next group with a love bite. Lots of love bites actually and they want their money back. I want the biters out so called a pest control company who said "Yup, you got bedbugs".              I had to stop typing there for a few moments to let that settle in and let out the animal growling within. I'm back. The next guest had to be cancelled ($1,000), arrange for the bug guys to do their thing ($1,000) and contemplate the refund ($1,000). Airbnb says they have an insurance policy for damage. Who wants to bet I'll be left holding an empty bag?

Now where was I...  Ah yes, 'Sans Permis'. It's a sticker on all the boats that essentially  means unlicensed and is a big selling point with the companies that rent out these floating mobile homes. It means anyone with a pulse is entitled to take one of these massive machines, stuff it with their family or friends and push off into the sunset. My brother Tony, a semi-professional boater, would be appalled. But the boats are sturdy and everyone else is as untrained as me. It's a lot like those bumper cars at the PNE where you try to give the other guy whiplash and not get trapped in a cluster. The locks cause clusters much as traffic lights do and if the guy that gets out of the lock first is in super chill mode, well, that can ruin your afternoon if you value the destination over the journey.

We left Narbonne - seriously, you gotta get a map out - which was down Canal Robine and an easy one day cruise. Getting back was a LOT harder. When you go downstream you enter the lock at the same height of the canal. It closes and lowers you to the next level. When you're going upstream, you enter the lock and get raised to the next level so how do you tie the boat off when the top of the lock is 20' over your head. Well I'll tell ya.  A crew member gets out before you enter the lock and climbs the stairs beside the lock. Someone on the boat climbs to the top of the boat and heaves the rope overhead. With some luck and practice the rope is caught secured to the forward bollard and repeated for the back end. Stern, sorry Tony. Some of the tallest locks have poles recessed into the walls so you just wrap a rope around one, fore and aft, and let them slide up as the water enters the lock.

It's a lot more work going up and the sun seemed that much hotter. That short stretch between du Midi and Narbonne took twice as long to return. With twice as much swearing and sweating. After the 4th or 5th lock Deb said "I'm Done". We'd managed to get back as far as Salelle and were happy to announce cocktail hour and a quiet dinner on board. 

We've been taking turns doing the dinner thing. Deb's a fabulous cook and I'm a pretty good sous chef (I chop and clean) and we made mousakka the other night, Pave and Arne treated us to curried turkey last night, and Luigi celebrated his heritage with his homemade sauce served over pasta with Anita's assistance. All these meals were interspersed with equally yummy meals on shore. Two days ago we enjoyed Algerian in Narbonne (so effing good) and there were a couple of hohum charcuteries but I think the best was in a town called Puicheric. 

We trudged the kilometre into town and found it deserted as are many of these small villages. The people are there but hidden behind tightly closed shutters like people refusing to open their eyes when you're talking to them. It felt like a zombie apocalypse (without the zombies) but did find the one restaurant noted on our map, Chez Modeste. It was 2:15 and their lunch hour ends at 2:00. I could write a whole piece on the unpredictable work hours here. The waitress informed us we were too late for lunch and the chef had retired upstairs.  With a flow of French here, and a little more there she retired to talk to him. He appeared a few moments later and I learned through Deb that he had a few leftovers from lunch he had intended to serve at dinner hour. If we were all willing to have the same thing we could have lunch. There were massive meatballs served with grilled veg and excellent wine in the warm French countryside. He was so disappointed when we initially declined his offer of dessert that we relented and agreed to accept one for each couple; two panacotta and one creme brulle. "Toute organique" he explained and I don't care if they used pesticides, they were the best I've ever tasted.

The food here has been a principal part of the journey. I hate to admit it but the Camembert is better, the chèvre vulnerable to time but exquisite, the bread - well you just have to breathe it in. Coupled with the camaraderie and excellent wine I couldn't afford to buy in Vancouver and you come to the perfect marriage of sights, sounds and smells. Contentment. It outshines the bedbugs and the visa bill. 

But creating those moments requires effort. Travel is busy and it's  happening again in a couple of hours. A taxi is picking us up at 6:15 am (it's now 11:15 pm) to take us on the next leg of our journey. Next stop Portugal, Porto to be precise, and a different way of living. I'll lose my crab walk, luxuriate in more spacious surroundings and write about living in a villa with my favourite peeps.

Hope you're enjoying the reading. Struggle through the cumbersome rigamorole of leaving a comment (needed to repel the robot advertisers) and let me know what you think.

Cheers,

John