The River Doubs/Canal Rhone-au-Rhin: Deluz - Baume-les-Dames - Grand Crucifix (PK116.2) – l’Isle-sur-le-Doubs.

20 August to 28 August 2019. 48 kilometers, 20 locks.

Tuesday 20 August. Deluz to Baume-les-Dames. 17 kilometers, 6 locks, 3 hours, 35 minutes.

Powa! Absolutely great to be back on two engines again, especially as the Doubs is quite narrow in places and is flowing very nicely but the starboard engine’s propulsion seems sluggish...

There are some stunning stretches of waterway and, in places, the channel through the cutting is very narrow – thankfully we did not meet any boats coming from the opposite direction.

This was a tricky lock coming in from the other side. Water comes
pouring through the tunnel under the building and swirls across the face of the lock
and water from the barrage on the left pushes across the lock in the opposite direction.

The guy on the left was hooked into something
quite big but dropped it.

Apples!

Arriving at Baume-les-Dames just after midday, the small port looks choc-a-block but as we slowly move past the moored boats - quite a few of which look like long-stayers – there, just before the restaurant, is a spot just for us. Bingo (once again)!

We are behind the barge which later moved forward to get away
from the restaurant noise. The barge referred to later moved into their place.

Bikes off and we are on our way to the nearby Super-U for provisions then back aboard for a late braai and a chat with the Azoreans – I mention the engine issue to Ian and his only comment is “Time for a swim” confirming one of my theories. The prop is fouled but inspection will have to wait until we are on the river again.

Wednesday is sightseeing day, and a ride over the Doubs reveals quite an ugly little town, quite modern, quite angular and somewhat Swiss

A super cremerie selling delicious cheeses at supermarket prices.w

but once one reaches the inner town its antiquity becomes evident.

The town’s name comes from the Celtic name for a cave (of which there are many in the surrounding hills) ‘balm’, joined with the French word for ‘ladies’ (les dames) after the noble canonesses of the abbey which was founded by St Germain, bishop of Besançon, in AD400. Starting as a small Roman village, Baume-les-Dames becomes a fortified town and a center of economic activity in the 14^th Century but, being a Burgundian town, its fortifications are eventually destroyed by Louis XI and to rub salt into the wound, the town was ravaged by fire and plague at the beginning of the 1500s. The eighteenth-century seems Baume-les-Dames thrive again, reaching a pinnacle at the end of the nineteenth century with the establishment of a large weaving industry.

The town did not weather the two World Wars too well and is now its fiscal focus is on tourism. So nice is the place that we decided to stay another two nights.

Thursday 22 August. Baume-les-Dames to Grand Crucifix (PK116.2). 7 kilometers, 3 locks, 1 hour, 45 minutes.

Thursday morning starts with wet sanding the port side coach-roof prior to painting, and the weather is just perfect for both tasks. Having washed off the residue paint dust and needing maintenance supplies and some new lettuces for farmer Lynn to plant, we ride to the Gamm Vert for the seedlings, and then to the huge Weldom hardware shop for waterpaper, paintbrushes, and a sanding block. Back aboard we start the messy job of ‘roll and tip’ painting, a process where one person rolls the paint on and the other person follows the ‘roller’ with a brush and paint – tricky but the result should be a good, smooth finish.

Halfway through the process, a large barge sidles up and a lady shouts at us to move our boat a meter so that they can fit in front of us. With hands covered in paint and clutching roller and paintbrush, we look at her like she must be crazy and Lynn says “Desolé, impossible” and we carry on. By the way, with ‘roll and tip’ painting, it is essential that the job is finished in one go and if it is interrupted for any length of time, the paint dries quickly and you are left with a blemish which will need re-sanding and re-painting. So no-ways are we stopping to move our boat!

Next thing she starts a stream of French at us, liberally sprinkled with the word ‘Merde’ so we just ignore her and carry on. She then addresses the patrons of the restaurant and, I imagine, tell them exactly what she thinks of us because there are a lot more ‘Merde’s’ thrown around but they fit into the available space albeit their stern is about half a meter from our bow. Painting job done and hands, arms, legs, elbows and feet are finally paint-free, so I wander on to the deck to see what the fuss had been all about and who should I come eyeball-to-eyeball with but Madame de Risico – I say “A good mooring place” and she lets fly, ending with “You English!” and a thumbs down, and to my reply that we are not English but South African, she says “South Africans!” and shows a thumbs down. She very nearly got a finger up. We have never come across such a rude French person anywhere (except maybe the pump operator at SJDL) but a bit of Google reveals that she may well be of non-French origin but rather from a more northern part of Europe. And, walking past their bow, they have at least three meters between themselves and the boat in front of them, so sticking their stern right in our faces was just being churlish and childish.

The atmosphere of the port now having been totally spoiled, we decide to move on and after passing through the Grand Crucifix lock we come upon a small pontoon, usually festooned with a big ‘No Parking’ sign with the wording ‘Reserved for boats waiting for lock service’ but in this case, there is nothing, so, in the way of the French waterways, if there isn’t a sign saying you may not moor, then you may, we tie up in a most beautiful spot on the river marred slightly by the noise from the busy road and railway line across the river.

"On the river" means goggles on, and an under-hull inspection reveals that the starboard prop is full of weed which is duly hacked off, followed by and inspection of the port prop and freeing it of fishing line.

Best of all, the diesel drip container which is positioned under the port engine and which I had cleaned and dried out in Baume-les-Dames, is bone dry!

Early morning.

Late afternoon.

Evening.

Friday was another workday taken up with sanding and painting the one side around our cabin windows and part of the stern – another messy job but we are getting there slowly.

Late in the afternoon, there is a knock on the window and we are greeted by a lady lockie who informs us that there is a ‘grande peniche’ (big barge) moored below the next lock and that it will be leaving there at nine so, if we don’t want to cross her in the narrow channel, we had better stay put until after it had passed or make sure that we leave early enough to pass while it was still moored up. As we had already decided to leave at eight the barge posed no problem and the lockie seemed quite relieved.

The road below the line of trees with the railway
line below the cliff above it.

Our solar farm.

Saturday 24 August. Grand Crucifix (PK116.2) to l’Isle-sur-le-Doubs. 24 kilometers, 10 locks, 4 hours, 30 minutes.

Using the port engine only so as to bring up its hours to make up for having only used the starboard engine from SJDL to Deluze, we set off in thick fog, past the ‘grande peniche’ (not that big anyway), through our first lock and, by the time we had exited the next lock, the sun was starting to burn its way through the grey shroud, a promise of a fine day ahead.

Clerval.

The abandoned, fully serviced pontoon at Cherval - it
is too shallow to moor there and a boat had to be towed off in 2013.

Lock with a difference.

Our initial destination was a supposed pontoon near the village of Pompierre-sur-Doubs but this seems to have been removed so we head on to l'Isle-sur-le-Doubs.

This is a lovely waterway with the only downside being that close attention has to be paid to the channel markers as the river is quite shallow outside the channel – and there is a lot of weed if one gets it wrong. As I found out just before arriving at the last lock of the day when our speed dropped dramatically and no amount of prop clearing could sort out the problem. So its starboard engine started and off we go again, off the river and into an opaque green but weed-free cutting leading up to the town of l’Isle-sur-le-Doubs.

l'Isle-sur-le-Doubs with our mooring on the left.

We tie up at the long wall directly opposite an Intermarche,

pop across the road to collect some goodies, Lynn presents a luncheon of beef kidney which was delicious, a quick nap and then it’s over the side again. Ugh, I really do not enjoy swimming in canals especially one in the middle of a town. A big chunk of weed is removed from the port prop and we can relax again!

New ports are often sleep-depriving, especially in larger towns; one never knows what to expect during the night – bumps against the hull could be a possible leak and subsequent grounding but are usually just fish feeding off the hull, wind-driven wavelets slapping against the hull in irregular patterns, early-houred youths with rasta boxes passing by and church bells. The latter are usually melodious and tend not to be sleep-breakers but here in I’Isle-sur-le-Doubs there is a set of three bells atop the local school which chime three notes, one discordant, on every quarter-hour, added to which every hour is marked with the appropriate number of gongs. And the church also chimes out the hour every hour but its bells are far more pleasing to the ear.

The school on the right.

Pretty but noisy!

The next morning Lynn does a load of laundry at the launderette, we trolley one hundred and twenty liters of diesel across the road and then up-lines and we move one lock upstream to where there are pay-on-demand electricity and water bournes. Some sanding, dremelling and filling accomplished, it’s off to Lidl for a look around – one never leaves this shop without buying something – and then over to the Intermarche for a big stock up.

Our evening meal: Homemade rolls and cheeses from the cremerie.

The history of this town (Originally three separate towns) is linked to the Neufchâtel family, Dukes of Burgundy, who established a fortified castle on an 800m x 100m island in the middle of the Doubs River in about 1210AD and whose influence essentially ended when the Burgundians lost their fiefdom to France in the 17^th Century. Of course, all the wonderful castellations and defenses were destroyed by French army.

The original town was established on the small island on the left.

During the Industrial Revolution the town became a textile center but has been in decline ever since, although, unlike many other small French towns, this one has a constant bustle about it.

The island with an old textile factory built on it.

The textile factory from the other side of the island.

The island - the church was built on the site of the original 13thC chapel.

Looking back to the section of town between the river and the canal.

The section of town on the mainland side of the canal.

Our time here is spent on maintenance, some sightseeing, a very pleasant meal at the small restaurant, L’Agape, which is situated on the outskirts of the town,

Montbelliard sausage, a warm cheese sauce (cancoillotte - delicious), frites and salad. Yummy!

and finally meeting Tony and Rita on Kanumbra, a barge we had first seen on our second hireboat trip in 2013 – Tony was the one who first publicized the fact that France allows long stay tourist visas, something for which we are very grateful.

Pleased to meet you Sir!

A pretty little thing.

Lynn rescueing a dragonfly.