Domestic Bliss

It’s been a short run, seven posts in ten days, and yet I expect this post will be my last. We’ve been over the various bits and pieces of my life on Wild Goose: whom I live with, how we live, what the whole moving process entails. It occurs to me though that while I’ve talked at length about where I go when I leave the boat, I haven’t much talked about what I do at ‘home,’ as it were.

The boat has certainly become a home of sorts, if not one in which I am particularly keen to stay. I have a routine here, places for all my things, and stuff to do to pass the idle time. But there’s a lot of idle time, and it’s surprisingly difficult to un-idlefy it.

In complement to Maurice’s slower way of life, a sort of lethargy encompasses all that is the boat. Though he woke me up daily at seven-thirty for the first few weeks, we would sit around doing nothing until at lelast nine on days that we were moving. On days we were staying at port, that nothingness sometimes stretched until ten or eleven. If it got to be lunch time that was when I would flee the boat regardless of weather or a plan. It was also this state of affairs that led me to ask him to stop waking me up. I appreciated the coffee and biscuits each morning, but I would much rather have an extra hour of sleep and make them myself. In fact, I would rather make them myself period, and leave the biscuits. Thankfully, I didn’t have to tell him that.

By no means did the boat lack a wealth of things to do. As anyone who knows me is probably aware, I need very little to keep myself occupied. There’s the reading and writing of course, with which to start. I have been devouring Ken Follett’s epic 12th century historical novel The Pillars of the Earth, and enjoying it immensely. These blog posts needed drafting, and I have a million and one ideas for stories running around my head as a result of my months of wandering. I’ve also been learning French on the side from a book I found on board: Learn French in Three Months. I’ve revised it an ambitious three weeks that I probably won’t finish, but I’m still proud of the progress I’ve been making.

The problem is I can’t do any of these things with Maurice around, and he’s almost always around. He does odd jobs throughout the day, reads off and on during breaks, but more often than not he sits, in the only sitting area on the boat, and stares off in to space. That’s all very well and good for him, but it throughly creeps me out and puts a definite damper on my ability to get anything of any sort even remotely done. The staring is almost catching, and then I just feel lazy, lethargic, and useless.

On the upside it gives me that much more impetus to try to get the manual labor done. I’m relieved when he accepts my offer to make him a cup of coffee, I am eager by the time to start making dinner rolls around. After dinner, more often than not, I make excuses to go to bed early so I can at least read in my cabin in peace. Or…. private peace anyway.

On nights I don’t retire early, assuming there’s electricity, we usually watch something on the television. At first it was quiz shows, which we both seem to enjoy, but since leaving Saint Satur Maurice hasn’t wanted to reset the satellite dish. That leaves DVDs, of which I was surprised to find he has a collection.

We started with the travelogues of Michael Palin, an old member of the Monty Python crew, across various parts of the world. While I like travel, I’m not such a travelogue fan, and by the third episode Maurice had started using the series as a way to unsubtlely boast about places he had been. I lost interest altogether.

After that, we moved on to musicals and episodes of a BBC show from the 80's entitled Yes, Minister. Yes, Minister, a program chronicling the British Civil Service, was the favorite show of Margaret Thatcher for its humorous similarity to real government work. After my time interning for the State Department, which isn’t all that different from the British Civil Service when push comes to shove, I could see what she meant, and quickly grew to love it just as much.

The musicals, of course, are also right up my alley. After days of referencing his “boring concert version of Les Mis,” that I took to be the spectacular 25th Anniversary Edition at Royal Albert Hall that I also own, I found out that it was in fact the 10th Anniversary edition and insisted we watch it his opinion be damned. That’s become rather characteristic of our relationship on both sides, as it were.

As you might have guessed, Maurice isn’t always the most compassionate when it comes to choosing his words. I highly doubt he means to be cruel, but much of what he says comes out as unwelcome criticism and judgement regardless. He looks skeptically over my shoulder when I’m cooking as if he doesn’t trust me to do it right, calls me a dormouse if a sleep past eight, martyrs himself over not being able to eat any of the new peaches because I ate the last ones too quickly, despite my carefully rationing them to only one a day. It never occurs to him that such comments make me terribly self-conscious and put me on edge. It’s just his personality, and with so little time aboard it wasn’t worth a confrontation to try to change him.

So instead I bit back with sarcasm and wit, subconsciously defending myself by giving as good as I got, and thus a friendly sort of bickering was born. Except it wasn’t really friendly on my side, it was just psychological survival, and it was exhausting.

But it’s done now, and I’m glad to say that ups and downs, trials and triumphs, I have certainly learned a lot. Perhaps my time aboard Wild Goose wasn’t as relaxing as I had hoped it would be, but I got out of it all the practical benefits one really could. It’s another check in the experience column precipitating confidence in a variety of different situations. French language, rural living, canals, boats. Maybe I’ll never use any of these skills again, but if I need to I’ll be able, and in the end having the ability is what it’s all about.

Quarter Master's Galley

When I first arrived on the boat, discussions were had over my duties aboard. There was, of course, the business of the locks, but we would not be moving every day. Considering my vegetariansim, Maurice asked if I might also consider taking on the job of quarter master, planning menus and preparing the food. With some trepidation I accepted the task, and while I have not yet performed with what I would call distinction, I have learned quite a bit about the adventure of cooking on board.

Being in charge of food can be difficult in the most advantageous of circumstances, on a boat where you only have electricity every other day, dishes are only ever mostly clean, and your primary audience eats like a picky four year old, it is a harrowing trial. I’ve explained about the electricity issues already, and you’ve probably got some sense of Maurice’s cleaning habits. When he does the dishes it’s usually no more than a rinse, and I have yet to see him use soap or replace the filthy sponges. I’ve chalked it up to strengthening my immune system though. The real trouble is the list of things he won’t eat.

To start with he told me on the very first day he refuses to touch anything with tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, garlic, olives or vinegar. He doesn’t like nuts, is not a fan of salad, and turns up his nose at any vegetables that aren’t thoroughly cooked. I have since learned that this predilection of his for the states of foods is more troublesome even than the foods themselves. Accepting that peppers and tomatoes are a staple of my stationary diet, even foods we agree on turn into problems. “These carrots are too bendy, those pears are hard as wood.” You’d think for someone living on a decrepit old boat he’d have developed an ability to give and take, and yet he has to be one of the pickiest eaters I have ever met.

He’s not mean about it at least. I have served several meals over which he was less than enthused, and while he wasn’t necessarily grateful for the trouble, he did at least attempt to eat. The quiche was finished, but had a “strange texture.” The pesto sauce on rigatoni, to circumvent his tomato aversion, was unceremoniously scraped aside and the remaining pasta drenched in cheese to overcome the lingering traces of sauce. The falafel wasn’t received too badly. It reminded him of the fish cakes he sometimes makes. Whenever he decides he’s having fruit and toast for dinner though, he does tend to sneer at the plate of raw spinach and string beans I bring out for myself. And he's very proud of the fact that he doesn't eat lentils, not because he doesn't like them, but because they're a hippy food.

I wouldn’t have minded so much if this behavior didn’t make it all seem like more trouble than it was worth. The quiche was done without electricity or a recipe, and the pesto was a three day ordeal to collect all the ingredients and find enough electricity to work the blender. The falafel, also without electricity, had to be mashed and pureed by hand, and boy did my arms hurt the next morning. All of this pickiness, and from an Englishman no less, makes me sometimes think it’s no wonder the country never developed an exportable cuisine. The last time he made a full meal it was a abominable vegetable soup that had to be soaked up with a baguette to be palatable. From his insistence that I have the leftovers, he must have known it as well, not that he would ever admit that tiny shortcoming.

Regardless of all the struggle to feed him, however, it’s nice to have a kitchen, no matter how ill outfitted. I can eat more or less what I like (as long as I've done the shopping), and for the first week or so I was eating quite well. Plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, yogurt and eggs and beans for protein, spinach for iron, coffee at leisure; it’s instant sometimes, but some things can’t be helped. And then there is the deliciousness that is the bakeries found in every town. That was where my good eating habits started to go down hill.

In rural French villages, you can be sure of finding two things: a church and a bakery. If you’re lucky, there may be a post office. Anything else and it’s a coiffure. But there is always a bakery. When I wander around exploring then it’s all to tempting to stop and buy a baguette, or a croissant, or escargot au raisan, or pain au chocolate. I tried not to eat so much bread, I promise. But it’s France, and the bread is delicious, and eventually I gave up.

As for the other things I’m eating, I’ve included a few vague recipes with some edits alongside so you can see the substitutions I’ve had to make.

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STIR FRIED RICE
Ingredients:
Long Grain White Rice
Carrots
Runner Beans
Potatoes
Soy Sauce
Salt & Pepper

Directions: Cook rice, stir fry vegetables in soy sauce until soft, mix together with more soy sauce to taste and serve.

Maurice’s Response: “Is that all?”



CRUSTLESS QUICHE
Ingredients:
4 Eggs
Onion
Carrots
Runner Beans
Cantal Cheese, Shredded from Block
Salt & Pepper
Splash of Milk

Directions: Chop vegetables, grate cheese, beat together with eggs, bake in a greased pie pan for 45 minutes.

Maurice’s Reaction: “I don’t know what this is, but it’s not quiche.”



SOUTHWEST FALAFEL
Ingredients:
15 oz. Pinto Brown Beans
½ cup Shredded Monterey Jack Cantal Cheese
¼ cup Crushed Tortilla Chips Bread Crumbs
2 Tbsp. Chopped Scallions
1 Tbsp. Chopped Cilantro
⅛ tsp. Ground Cumin
1 Large Egg White
Canola Sunflower Oil

Directions: Blend Mash first seven ingredients in a food processor bowl for one minute half an hour, form into balls, fry in oil.

Maurice’s Reaction: “This reminds me of the tuna fish cakes I sometimes make. Now where’s the main course?”



MACADAMIA NUT PESTO FETTUCCINE
Ingredients:
9 oz. Fresh Fettuccine Bag of Pasta
3 cups Fresh Basil
¼ cup Half and Half Milk
3 Tbsp. Toasted Macadamia Nuts Peanuts
2 Tbsp. Fresh Lemon Juice
¾ tsp. Salt
¼ tsp. Black Pepper
Grated Parmesan Cheese

Directions: Cook pasta, blend next six ingredients in a food processor, serve with sauce and Parmesan on top.

Maurice’s Reaction: *tastes one fork tine of sauce, silently scrapes off the rest and drenches pasta in three types of cheese*



BLACK BEAN CAKES
Ingredients:
15 oz. can Black Beans Lentils
3 Eggs
¼ cup Chopped Green Onions
2 Tbsp. Chopped Cilantro
¾ tsp. Ground Cumin
¼ tsp. Salt
¼ tsp. Ground Red Black Pepper
1 clove Minced Garlic
Bread Crumbs
Canola Sunflower Oil

Directions: Blend lentils and 1 egg in a food processor, mix in a bowl with next five ingredients and enough bread crumbs to thicken the mixture enough to form cakes, divide mixture into three or four cakes, bread in remaining bread crumbs, fry in oil. Serve with a fried egg on the side.

Maurice’s Reaction: “I taste something I don’t recognize. And it’s too dry. Needs sauce.”



FALAFEL WITH CUCUMBER YOGURT SAUCE
Ingredients - Falafel:
15.5 oz. Chickpeas
¼ cup Minced Red Onion
1 Tbsp. Dijon Mustard
1 tsp. Ground Cumin
½ tsp. Paprika
¼ tsp. Black Pepper
⅛ tsp. Salt
1 Slice Bread Bread Crumbs
2 Eggs

Directions: Blend all ingredients in a food processor, fry into cakes or, if you can manage it, balls. Serve with cucumber yogurt sauce.

Ingredients - Cucumber Yogurt Sauce:
1 cup Plain Fat-Free Yogurt
½ cup Diced Cucumber
¼ cup Minced Onion
1 tsp. Fresh Lemon Juice

Directions: Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, chill in the refrigerator.
(Note: This is one of the most simple and surprisingly delicious sauces I have tasted in a while. I highly recommend it.)

Maurice’s Reaction: *refuses to touch sauce* “It’s still too dry. I suppose that’s what the sauce is for?” *still refuses to touch sauce*



SUMMER FRIED RICE
Ingredients:
Summer Squash Matchsticks Diced Zucchini
Long Grain White Rice
One Egg
Sliced Scallions
Chopped Basil

Directions: Cook rice. Fry zucchini in a pan with scallions and basil until soft, add rice and egg, fry the mixture together until the egg is fully cooked. Serve hot or cold.

Maurice’s Reaction: "You're not a salt person, are you?"



QUESADILLAS
Ingredients:
Tortillas
Monterrey Jack Mozzarella, Emmental, and Comte Cheeses
Turkey (for him)
Minced Red Peppers (for me)
Red Onions
Yellow Onions
Spinach
Chopped Cilantro

Tomato Salsa
Paprika

Directions: Fry onions until soft, combine all ingredients between two tortillas and fry, flipping when the cheese is sufficiently melted to hold the contents together.

Maurice’s Reaction: “I always thought Mexican food was supposed to have more spice.”



CROQUE MONSIEUR MACARONI & CHEESE
1/2 lb. Ziti Leftover Spiral Pasta
2 cups Milk
2 cups Coarsely Grated Gruyere Cheese
1 cup Leftover Finely Grated Parmesan Cheese
Leftover Emmental Cheese
2 Large Eggs
3 slices White Sandwich Bread Bread Crumbs
2 Tbsp Unsalted Butter + more for greasing
1 Medium Onion, diced
1 clove Garlic, minced
3 Tbsp. All Purpose Flour
Pinch of Cayenne Pepper Paprika
1/8 tsp. Freshly Grated Nutmeg
Spoonful Dijon Mustard
Salt
8 oz. Thinly Sliced Boiled Ham

Directions: Cook pasta and toss with 1/4 cup milk. Combine 1/4 cup milk, eggs, bread crumbs, and half of all cheese. Cook onion and garlic in saucepan with butter 2 minutes, add flour and all spices and cook another two minutes, then add 3/4 cup water, mustard, and remaining milk. Bring sauce to boil and whisk until thick before removing from heat, cooling slightly, and whisking in remaining cheese. Toss sauce with pasta and spread in casserole dish, layering in ham. Top casserole with bread crumb mixture and bake until golden and bubbly, about twenty minutes.

Maurice's Reaction: "This is good..." But he thought the leftovers were disgusting.



That tiny triumph led into me making two separate versions of rice pudding for Maurice's half birthday, which he insisted we celebrate. (Believe it or not, he had no idea there was anything like stevia or sucralose out there, despite being diabetic!) There was a traditional English pudding that was super simple and bland, but it ended up burning after thirty minutes of the two and a half hours it said it needed in the oven anyway. The stove top version made with raisins and an egg, however, was spectacular, and definitely worth exporting back home. And so we end with a triumph! But I don't have the rice pudding recipe in front of me, so you'll just have to ask if you want to try that one yourselves. If you decide to test out any of the others though, I hope you enjoy!

Maurice

Maurice (pronounced Morris in American) is a character. That’s all I can say in short. In long, of course, there is much more to say, and I will try to preserve some of that saying here.

In case you have forgotten, Maurice is captain of Wild Goose and my only companion on board. As such, he is a major part of my experience here, and by far the most important component of my enjoyment of the trip.

On the one hand, he is your stereotypical old man. (I am not certain how old, but my educated guess would be late sixties early seventies.) His great passions in life are gardening, bird watching, and snooping on the neighbors. He hasn’t heard a single song or seen a single movie released since before I was born. He is so set in his ways that he is proud of the fact; refuses to deal with anything more technologically advanced than a television, refuses to eat the foods he’s not accustomed to liking, and absolutely refuses to accept that which he does not understand, including many cultures, religions, and languages.

On the other hand, he’s been around the world and understands quite a lot. He has lived in Greece, Italy, and Singapore, traveled extensively in China and Borneo, and driven a camper van across Europe. He is, by and large, amiable and generous, and though he complains a great deal, it is usually in jest. If I had to describe it, I’d say he has a martyr complex without wanting to actually suffer. Whatever happens, he must be getting the short end of the stick, and boy will he tell you about it.

He loves to talk, to tell stories, often beyond the point of one’s willingness to listen, or indeed when no one is listening at all. He talks to things as much as people; the boat, the television, the birds across the canal. When I call his voice mail for him, he responds out loud to the messages on the other end. But after so long traveling alone it was nice for a bit to have company always good for a chat.

He used to be a teacher, which means he loves to teach as well. During the day I am often inundated with random information, though it’s more often than not the same facts over and over again. I’ve learned not to mention it, because the most tender point with Maurice is the fact that he is getting old. To be fair, he has a lot of tender points. (Our only major fight so far happened, of all things, over a game of checkers gone wrong, which I won’t be repeating.) But his misgivings and insecurities appear most often when I help him with technology, or when his health starts to act up, and are plain as day on his face. One of those things to which he talk so often is his own deteriorating body; “Stop it!” out loud when his foot hurts, and when a cough racks his chest an angry enjoinder to “Die quietly!”

I was startled by these exclamations at first. Now they just make me sad. But much of Maurice’s behavior does that, because for all that he tries to make sure I’m provided for, he is at the core a very negative person. Though he loves to laugh and joke, it is almost exclusively at someone else’s expense. He will disparage people on the telly, strangers from the windows, friends from his storied past, without a second thought. At first it mostly surprised me, but now it has worn on me enough that I resent the bitter tune to which he marches. I’m no stranger to complaining. This post proves as much. And yet I’d like to see the good in people while that’s the chief bit he seems set to ignore.

I wonder sometimes if a bit of that negativity has to do with my next point. In many ways, Maurice is also quintessentially English. At least that is how I excuse other behaviors that have also started to wear on my nerves. I should mention here that I differentiate between two types of stereotypically English. Maurice is by no means your stuffy, tweed wearing professor with wire rimmed spectacles and a cup of tea. He doesn’t even drink tea. He is, however, what one cannot help but describe as a dirty old man.

Now, I put off mentioning this to my parents before I could explain it in better detail. They would worry, I know, and while Maurice is certainly strange, awkward, and at times a bit discomfiting, I am equally certain that he is not in the least bit dangerous. Well… maybe to himself, if he were to employ someone prone to filing sexual harassment law suits.

There is a certain opennes among sections of British culture that can at times offend puritanical American sensibilities. This is exacerbated by a generational divide that I often see in American society as well. What mainfests in the states as an elderly man telling a “sweetheart” that she should “smile” because it’s “prettier,” here transmutes into Maurice suggesting I take off my top and pose on the bow of the ship as an ornament.

He’s not serious, and I know he’s not serious, but it’s still uncomfortable. For me anyway. In the United States such behavior would be completely unacceptable, but in the United States the body is also much more taboo than it is in Europe, England included. So while I have no concerns that Maurice will in any way overstep the physical boundaries of decency, it is still very clear that he has women on the brain, uncouthly and often. Then again, this makes his relationship with women all the more interesting to observe.

First and foremost is his adamant refusal to host men to move the boat. He doesn’t get along with them the way he does with women, he insists, and yet none of his friends in port were of the fairer sex. He makes markedly more side comments about women out of ear shot than to those that can hear. In fact, it seems his only regular interaction with women was checking out at the supermarket and the corner store, where he spoke to female cashiers in English only and insisted they greet him with “good morning” rather than “bon jour.” He still maintains it was for their benefit, that it made them smile and brightened their day. As far as I could tell, they were smiles of resignation, or at best mockery, and it only gets worse from there.

Before we’d left the first mooring, Maurice’s friend David, who picked me up from the train station, invited us over to his boat for drinks where I also met his wife and sister. The way Maurice treated that wife was horrendous. To be fair, David didn’t treat her much better, but throughout the whole visit my heart ached.

Part of it, I think, has to do with the fact that she doesn’t speak great English. She is ethnically Chinese, and how she met David I’ll never know. While David was clearly more annoyed than affectionate, Maurice barely treated her like a human being. He routinely cut her off, called her names, and brushed off her inquiries about the meanings of certain words. When I purported I would eat wild mushrooms if they’d been cleared by a pharmacist, it was upsetting how much her countenance changed. You could tell the men had been verbally abusing her about it for weeks, and I was the first person to come along and take her side. I kind of wanted to give her a hug, but there wasn’t any occasion.

Anyway, that’s what it comes down to in short. Maurice is a nosy, racist, misogynistic flirt who thinks women enjoy his attentions. To be fair, some might, especially when it’s only a few moments in passing, but the off hand comments about how he likes my hair a certain way or I should show my legs more often got on my nerves quickly. As my mother has happily concluded from previous posts, however, I have quite learned how to deal with such attentions. Rather than making a scene, I made sure to express my distaste for the behavior more gradually, either by glaring or contradicting him every time I disapproved. It led to a bit more bickering than usual, though to be fair we bicker quite a lot. He seems to like to argue, and we all know I have trouble keeping my mouth shut. There’s no malice behind it on either side though, and at least it keeps
life interesting.

In the end, it seems he got the hint. The objectionable behaviors at any rate became much fewer and far between. Now the worst thing I have to deal with is him wearing far less clothing than I would really like, and even that hasn't been an issue since the weather's gotten chilly. Besides, even in the heat of summer I could usually go for a walk and he’d be dressed by the time I returned.

If I had to guess, I'd think the perversion goes back to loneliness after a life of womanizing more than anything. Though I understand from Janet that the two of them are in a relationship, it seems from his end a relationship of convenience more than anything. She only visits a couple times a year, and then only shortly. In the meantime, however, it sounds like she handles all of the French speaking and covers most of the bills. Make of that what you will.

Maurice was married once, and has two sons, and though I don’t know what happened as far as that is concerned, I know it ended eventually. The obvious love of his life, Linda, came afterwards I think. Unless it was before in college? They were together for only eight years, but he talks about her constantly. I think I know more about her than I do him sometimes, and get a bit uncomfortable when he makes comparisons between us. It doesn’t help that I cook often, because apparently that was her passion. I imagine he finds it comforting though.

Linda aside, he seems to enjoy what he calls bachelor life. He first mentioned it to me in those terms when I questioned his cleaning of the dishes, which is abysmal. He does it, which I appreciate, but there are always bits of food leftover, and I’m not entirely sure he uses soap. Having seen how he lives, however, I shouldn’t be surprised.

Things aren’t very messy. There’s hardly enough room for things to be messy, unless you count the odds and ends drawers, which are all of them. But he’s clearly not the cleanest chap of the bunch. He doesn’t bathe as regularly as I would like in our close quarters, and he has a conspiratorial aversion to deodorant. The body odor is often unbearable. The countertops are usually sticky. The dishes are rarely more than rinsed. The bathroom smells of sewage, though I’m inclined to think that has more to do with the canal then him. The biggest hygienic issue that gets to me, however, is the bugs.

You would expect bugs, living on a canal. I understand this. And you don’t want to get eaten alive by mosquitoes. I understand this as well. Maurice’s solution, however, is a memorandum on killing spiders. And thus, the boat is full of them. It’s a good thing I’m not arachnophobic, but you’d think they would have warned a person beforehand. Spiders on the ceiling, in the windows, in the doors. The first person outside in the morning always has to knock down a web to get there. Walking around the edges of the boat is sure to entangle you as well.

The worst spot, probably because of the damp, is the water closet. I usually perform my daily ablutions with no fewer than a dozen spiders hovering about in all shapes, sizes and dispositions. I saw a pair attacking each other the other night, or else just playing roughly, and there are a pair of gigantic ones in residence beneath a small outcropping in the shower too; big enough to actually be frightening.

I haven’t quite progressed to naming the spiders yet, but I sometimes think we might as well. Maurice talks to them like pets, a habit probably born of years of ardent gardening and familiarity with insects. We can discuss the more obvious ones based on their size and territory; the large ones in the bathroom that I mentioned, the tiny ones that fill the garden on the bow, the daddy long legs’ in the corner of the shed, the monster that lives by the steering column. It would certainly give a lot of people a fright. It kind of just makes me sigh and feel like everything is always dirty, though I suppose it’s good for my grit. The only time it ever really bothered me was the night we started to move down south. Apparently my spider tolerance has a size threshold, and when the wind blew the curtain in the bathroom back to reveal one the size of my palm,
well… I wasn’t happy. They don’t even catch the flies! Of which there are many.

Coming off of three months straight traveling, however, it’s not quite as bad as some of the hostels I’ve stayed in. And it’s free, which is important. Though prone to criticize my “gerbil and rabbit food” as much as anything else, Maurice is always careful to make sure we have things I want to eat. Though he always asks me what’s for dinner, he cooks for me almost as much as I do for him. Though diabetic, he tries to talk me into selecting tarts and things for myself from the store. There’s always wine for dinner, and he brought me coffee and biscuits every morning in bed before I begged him to start letting me sleep in. I suspected there was a bit of ulterior motive to that, but I was fully covered, and perversion aside I am enjoying myself. I don’t doubt his sincerity in wanting me to be happy and healthy aboard. Nonetheless, regardless of future plans, I don’t think I’ll be taking him up on that offer to come back exploring next summer as well.

Fish Out of Water

Our third day at the boatyard in Baye, Wild Goose came out of the water, and living on a boat out of the water is so different from living on one in it that I felt the experience deserved its own post.

Coming out of the water was an operation in and of itself. Michel, the owner of the boatyard, fired up his monster sized crane and rolled it over to the key where Wild Goose was waiting. On the arm of the crane was a one ton steal frame from which two long straps were hung in a U-shape and then lowered into the water. The tricky part from there was maneuvering the boat into the sling, a feat managed by no fewer than three men: Maurice driving and two of the boatyard employees doing astonishing things with ropes. The positioning of the sling had to be tested and adjusted multiple times to make sure the boat wouldn’t slip out before it could finally be brought back out of the water, Wild Goose in tow.

With the boat suspended in mid-air I realized I hadn’t a clue where it was going to go. As it turned out, the crane just rolled back a few feet before the dock workers rushed forward to start setting up the supports. One man propped the rudder of the keel on stacks of wooden blocks as a second circled the hull, washing six distinct spots at even intervals, three on each side. These spots were where the supports wound up, three steal contraptions that reminded me of nothing so much as music stands. Everyone worked together like a well oiled machine though, you could tell they’d done this before, and just a few minutes later there was the boat, nice and sturdy and six feet off the ground.

From that height we needed a ladder to get in and out, but we also had a lovely view of the lake across the canal. It was amazing to think I was standing inside seven tons of solid vessel supported by what amounts to merely six metal polls, but also hard to forget, because suspended on shore like that everything in the boat became slightly different.

The first noticeable difference was the angles. In the water, for whatever reason, the bow always floated higher than the stern. Without water, the boat was level, and all of a sudden hinges started working like they were supposed to. I started running into the narrow living room door because it swung instead of standing perpetually open. Spaces appeared between the drawers and cupboards of the cabinetry. Most pleasantly, I could finally close my cabin door without forcing it, and the latch didn’t even make that loud obnoxious click.

Then there was the issue of the plumbing. I’d been warned about this, of course, but the warning is never quite as authentic as the real thing. Since all water and refuse on the boat usually drains out through the hull and into the canal, out of water those drains end on public concrete. Toilet usage is out of the question; all the other drains are frowned upon.

Maurice put bowls in all the sinks and left a large bucket on the engine compartment to be filled and dumped accordingly. Michel gave us free access to the boatyard toilets, but those are only open from eight-thirty in the morning until seven o’clock at night. We can shower in the boatyard too, but it costs two euros and we only get seven minutes of hot water. Both of us being cheap, we usually showered on the boat anyway and then just drained the shower after dark when no one's around. It's always dry by morning, so I really doubt there's any harm.

Toilet usage, on the other hand, was not so harmless. I tried to stop drinking water around four or five o'clock so that I wouldn't have to use the facilities until they opened the next morning. My strategy sort of worked? I still ended up peeing into buckets and bowls a couple times in the middle of the night though, my apologies if that's more information than you wanted, but over all it wasn't so bad.

The last major change was the view. From up in the air we had a lovely view over the lake, one that got even lovelier at sunset. I had more than one occasion to look up from my evening reading in bed only to glance out the window and be entirely captivated. Maurice, I think, enjoyed the view more so because it gave him the perfect opportunity to get into everyone else's business. He spent half the week stationed at the windows with his binoculars reporting back to me about who was coming and going on what bikes or boats or cars. He's really too nosy for his own good, and it got old quickly, but I spent as much time as I could well away from the boat.

Even with me gone so often, plenty of work ended up getting done. The undercarriage was power-washed and repainted black. The bilge pump was repaired. The anodes were replaced. On our final morning Ian, the boat surveyor, showed his face bright and early; early enough to wake me up with his tapping on the hull even. He was a very kind, old Englishman and I made him coffee while he worked, though I'm not entirely sure what his report said in the end. Once Ian was finished, we were all clear for Michel and his crew to reattach the straps to the crane and lower Wild Goose back into the water, a fact Maurice made sure any and everyone knew until the deed was actually done. My first order of business was washing the dishes.

In only a month long trip it's strange to think there can be enough monotony for a week out of water to break that up, but break that up it did. All in all it was a learning experience, and one I'm glad I had.

Provincial Life

Despite the considerable amount of my time spent on Wild Goose, traveling the French canals has given me an invaluable chance to explore swathes of the French countryside. Many of the villages were too tiny, and thus my explorations of them too short, to be worth a detailed description. I feel, however, that a few broad explanations and comparisons might not go amiss.

My first encounter with French villages occurred while we were still in port at Saint Satur. Not only did I have the opportunity to explore Saint Satur itself, but visiting the nearby villages of Sancerre on the hill and Minetreol where our first lock was located took up most of my first few days. Of the three, Sancerre was easily the biggest, housing multiple churches, two supermarkets at the base of the hill, and even a Chateau du Vin. The main square there was bustling for a small town. Saint Satur and Minetreol, however, were much more par for the course.

Most French villages, you see, strike me almost as ghost towns. Wandering the streets one gets a lovely tour of quaint village architecture; whitewashed houses covered in vines and accented by regular wooden shutters. Most of these houses appear empty though, and the ones that aren’t are marked only by the flourishing gardens growing in their yards. They must have gardens, you see, because I’m not sure how else they might feed themselves.

In every town we’ve been to so far, there are more shops and businesses closed and empty than there are open or even operational. Store front windows look in on blank, deserted rooms, usually dirty and suffering neglect. The vast majority of businesses that remain seem to be family run and are open a few hours a day. In each new town it is hit or miss whether there will be a place to buy food or even bread, and if there is you haven’t a clue as to their hours before you arrive.

In larger towns there may be a supermarket, but we’ve only encountered a handful of those so far. When we found one we usually stayed a few days, won over by the guarantee of readily available food. In part that’s why we didn’t set out from Saint Satur for a few days, but I only internalized that fact once we started stopping in villages having gotten underway.

Out first two stops, Cours les Barres and Fleury, were very similar in their miniature proportions. Both had a church, a bakery, and a post office, Cours les Barres had a hair dresser and a corner store that looked to have gone under, and of course both had ports. Standing at the churches you could see the entirety of both towns, end to end, along the single main street that took about three minutes to walk. In Fleury there was a large pasture at one end.

That’s another thing I’ve noticed about the French countryside, there are ten times as many cattle as people and they’re much more visible. I can go whole days without seeing anyone who doesn’t live on a boat, and yet there is always a cow not far from sight. Even in the towns many houses have paddocks out back, and if it’s not cows or horses they keep chickens and sheep and on rare occasions pigs. Its a farming culture, hands down, and it makes the entire landscape breathtaking.

I didn’t fully appreciate how vast and ubiquitous these landscapes were at first. From the top of the hill in Sancerre I could see vast fields of grapes and sunflowers, the Loire Valley being wine country. I became intimately acquainted with said fields when Maurice got us lost on the way back to the boat. It would have been a much more pleasant walk if he hadn’t spent the whole time complaining, but it was impossible not to appreciate the view regardless.

Our next long stop over in Decize and Saint Leger put us in what equates to a metropolitan area this far out. I had fun searching the town for shops and cafes, figuring out what was open and what was closed, who went where when and why and how the town in general functioned. In three days I managed to see most of both towns, my favorite part of which was hands down the ancien chateau at the peak of Decize.

Decize used to be a fortress town, you see. A few stone battlements remain in the town center, and at the top of the hill is a castle turret with a statute of the Virgin Mary sitting on top. In the shadow of the turret, however, is the ancien chateau, and old palace that has not well withstood the test of time. The walls are crumbling, the roof has collapsed, and the nature has long since begun to reclaim its dominion; but it is still open and accessible for anyone to walk in.

For those of you who don’t know, I adore old buildings - especially those in disrepair. Walking through the ruins beside trees broken through holes in the richly tiled floors, climbing the fractured steps of the debris strewn stone staircase, treading lightly on the thick bed of moss coating the upper stories, listening as the wind rustles an old metal window shutter hanging from an opening just beneath the rotting beams of a ceiling long gone. It was like stepping into another world, and I loved every minute of it.

While the ancien chateau was easily the highlight of the stop, it was my grand struggle with the WiFi that overshadowed most of my time in Decize and Saint Leger. You see, in order to publish some of these posts and observations, I had been keeping a keen eye out for WiFi everywhere we went. As you might expect from the size of the towns I have described, it was nowhere to be seen. WiFi exists, of course, but its purchased by citizens for their private residences. The cafes I’ve visited tend to be populated by the elderly. In fact, I think the elderly might be the primary demographic of most of the towns. The few cafe patrons who might use the internet, young or gadget savvy old, surely have it at home. There’s just no market for public WiFi, because I, sadly enough, do not constitute a market.

When I stumbled upon the Decize Library then, closed because it was a Sunday, I made a note to come back. All libraries have WiFi, don’t they? It was at least worth checking out. So I noted the opening hours and came back the next day, except it seems I had not noted the hours well enough. The first day on the list, you see, was not Monday as I had assumed, but Tuesday. Those short opening hours in rural France include many things being closed on Mondays. Why that is I’m not entirely sure, but I expect it has something to do with France’s exorbitant labor laws.

It was no problem though. We were planning to stay across the river in Saint Leger for at least another day, and it was only a couple kilometers. I would just walk back out again the next day, when I triple checked the sign said it would indeed be open. I was quite looking forward to getting something posted you see.

Well, trip number three found a new sign on the door, one I am certain was not there on Sunday or Monday. I don’t remember the exact French wording, but the meaning was clear. “Closed until August 25. Bonne vacance!”

It was not a bonne vacance as far as I was concerned, but clearly I wasn’t meant to be posting blogs. Still, I refused to give up, wandering from cafe to cafe in both towns, all of which I had since discovered, and asking if they had WiFi, just to make sure. Of course they didn’t. And thus my blogging ambitions were thwarted.

I made peace with my lack of internet access and we made our way to the next long port, Cercy La Tour. Cercy was smaller than the combined towns of Decize and Saint Leger, but still clearly a town more than a village. It had a supermarket and a train station and a grand statute of the patron saint of the Canal du Nivernais. What it also had was a cafe, and an open one at that, with a most welcome sign out front. “Wi-Fi Gratuit - Free Wi-Fi.”

I saw it on my first evening exploring and made a rush return to the boat. Dinner was just going to have to be late that night because I had found what I was looking for and I wasn’t about to let unforeseen circumstances get in the way. It was August 14th after all, and the 15th was the Assumption. With my luck the cafe owner would be the staunchest of Catholics and refuse to open the following day. No, it was best to grab my chromebook and do my business then and there.

So that’s what I did, wandering in to the cafe and using what little French I have I learned to ask first if they were open the next day (they were), and second if I could use the WiFi. They didn’t understand me at first. Learning a language from a book does one’s accent no favors, but I did make myself understood eventually. “Mais oui!” insisted the large, jovial man behind the counter, explaining that it was an open network and I should help myself. So I ordered a coffee (read espresso) and did just that. Except there was a problem.

Despite being able to see the router from my seat, the signal was so week it kept disappearing altogether. I pointed this out to the friendly man who had served me - I assume he was the owner - and he proceeded to spend the next hour trying to fix it. Again, and again, and again.

It was very sweet of him, but I was fairly certain by the third attempt that there was not going to be a resolution. “Un problem,” he kept explaining, pointing at the router as if I couldn’t see for myself. I tried to tell him it was okay, that it just wasn’t meant to be, but my French hadn’t progressed quite that far you see. Trying not to be rude I sat and wrote while he continued trying to fix it, sipping my coffee as slowly as possible but finishing it too quickly anyway. Eventually I decided I really needed to start cooking dinner, so I made a firm effort to pay and leave. I considered going back the next day, but there didn’t really seem to be a point.

I explored a different part of Cercy La Tour the following day instead, and wouldn’t you know it, they had a library too! My heart lept when I saw the sign and I diverted my course immediately, hurrying up the hill to the town hall building that held the library on one side. It was a Friday morning, it should be open, and yet as I approached the doors everything looked dark. And that was when I saw the sign.

The Cercy La Tour Library was open on Friday mornings, every Friday morning of the month in fact, except the only Friday morning on which I was in town. And it was closed weekends. And we were leaving on Sunday.

This was getting ridiculous. I went back to the boat, tried in vain for a bit to get what little international data I have on my phone to work on my chromebook, and decided I should just take this all as a sign. I wasn’t going to have WiFi until I got to London and that was just the way things were going to be.

Well, it was two days of travelling from Cercy La Tour until we got to the smallest town I think we’ve stayed in yet. Baye doesn’t have a post office, doesn’t have a church; it doesn’t even have a bakery. There are maybe a dozen houses, one lock, and one enterprising resident who has started selling a few groceries at 100% mark-up out of his front room. Oh yes, and there is the boat yard, which is why we are here in the first place.

Aqua Fluvial is a rental boat company, but the manager, Michel, also hires out his services and equipment to boat owners needing some things done. So we scheduled a week at port, three days in water four days out. It was that second night in water when I made a thrilling discovery.

I don’t know what possessed me to turn on the WiFi on my phone, but turn it on I did to find, of all things, and open network. “It must be one of those expensive subscription services,” I thought, as most open networks in France were. And yet for some other unexplained reason, I tried to connect anyway. And it wasn’t a subscription service. In fact, once I registered, it was really and truly free!

And so you find what you’re looking for when you least expect it, right? I don’t know where the WiFi is coming from, and its certainly not strong enough to handle anything larger than text, but there it is and now you have posts. Go figure.

As if having WiFi didn’t spoil me enough, the boat yard is fitted out with all manner of long missed luxuries. There are flush toilets, though they close at seven o’clock. You can purchase a shower for two euros, though there’s only seven minutes of hot water. The rental office sells ice cream at extortionate prices. There is drinking water and dumpsters and unlimited electricity - things I haven’t seen all in once place in ages. When we come out of the water tomorrow we won’t be able to use the water on the boat because the drains will empty onto the pavement instead of into the canal, but I’m still excited about being able to read late into the night without my flashlight, which has recently died. The only thing I am worried about is not being able to use the toilet in the middle of the night. Alas, I’ll manage somehow I expect.

In the meantime, there’s plenty of things to see in the area if you’re willing to make a fair length trip. My first full day in Baye I took a several hours long walk through the nearby towns of La Collancelle and Bazolles. Most of the walk was along a main road - main because it was one of the rare ones with two lanes. I had to keep stepping off every few minutes to let a speeding car pass, but the weather was perfect and the sights were unparalleled. Rolling hills of cows and sheep, trees and flowers and crops and hay, a family of rabbits in a woodland thicket, even a grand farm chateau at one point with a family of groundhogs running around out front. I started sampling any and all wild fruit I found. The apples weren’t quite ripe, but the blackberries were delicious and the pears as well. At one point I saw some distant bushes that looked like black currants, but with the way everything was overgrown it wasn’t quite feasible to get to them.

I had been hoping to buy some bread in Bazolles, but the bakery was only open from nine to noon and five to seven. I arrived at two. Nevertheless, the long walk without much nourishment gave me an excuse to buy an ice cream when I finally got back.

The next afternoon took me around the lake by which we were tied up. My father, who is building a lake house, had expressed some interest in it when he saw where I was on the map. It’s mostly surrounded by camp grounds with a water sports center here and there. As one might expect it was lovely, but without enough bandwidth for pictures I'm sorry to say I couldn't really share until now.

Day three saw the first of my epic bike trips. Having been too tired to go exploring the evening we spent in Chatillon en Bazois, I decided I would take a day trip over from Baye. It was only fifteen kilometers, and Michel, the owner of the boat yard, said we were welcome to borrow any of the bikes that hadn't been rented out to boats. Well, as it turns out, the only bikes left after we'd taken the boat out of the water that morning were a handful of children's bicycles and a large, neon orange men's bike with a nice big cross bar.

"What difference does a cross bar make?" I asked Maurice. His best guess was that ladies wearing skirts couldn't get their skirts over so they lowered the bar. That sounded fishy to me, but I was wearing pants and it was the only viable option anyway, so I borrowed and set off cycling along the canal tow path in the direction of Chatillon. It took about five minutes for me to figure out the difference.

I don't think the cross bar does much, to be fair, but it does mark male from female, and boy are male bikes painful on a female rear end. I was saddle sore within the first fifteen minutes, and the ride took the better part of an hour. On the other hand, the ride was stunning.

The Canal du Nivernais is known as the most beautiful canal in France and I have no trouble believe it. Most of the trip down I was riding with the canal on my right and the lush banks of the River Aron on my left. It was primarily hillside, several herds of cattle but only the occasional farm house, with the nature interrupted here and there by a lock keeper's house and, of course, the accompanying lock.

I was just starting to think that I should have reached Chatillon already when I turned a corner and was smacked in the face by the city's grand chateau. I recognized it as just about the only landmark in the city I could see from my window on the boat, but it let me know where I was at least, so I wasted no time locking the bike to a chain in a nearby wall and setting out to explore the town on foot, by which I mean not a bicycle seat.

It was a livelier town than the others I'd been in, despite not being any bigger. More of the shops were open, there were people in the streets, and the supermarket didn't even close for lunch. The 'market' in the parking lot of a municipal building still comprised a mere four stalls, one fruit, two meat, and one homemade clothing, but it was refreshing to be in a town that felt lived in again. I bought a baguette form the local bakery to refuel and found a nice stone wall on which to sit and eat it. I'd left my book back on the boat though, which meant I ended up eating more quickly than I might have liked and eventually headed back.

The return trip was more uncomfortable than the initial excursion. I spent most of it shifting around trying to find a position in which I was physically capable of riding for more than thirty seconds. I didn't really succeed, but neither did I give in to the pain. I only got off to walk the bike once, and that has as much to do with stopping to watch the spectacle of the double and triple locks, one after the other, as it did with needing a break.

The bruising on my behind didn't stop me from setting out again the next day either. Sure, it might have been a good idea to take a day off, especially considering I woke up to a drear grey sky and was stung at breakfast by a wasp that had been hanging around for days, but the BBC had predicted rain for the day after and I figured I should take my chance while I could. Besides, it was market day, and the weather ended up improving nicely after all.

Maurice had biked to Corbigny on our second day for groceries and come back acting as if the trip was more harrowing than crossing the Sahara. I had no doubt he was exaggerating, but I was still a little apprehensive about making the journey myself. It was closer than Chatillon anyway, just a little bit uphill, so really if I stuck to the relatively flat tow path I shouldn't have any problems. But I like problems, in my way, so I took the same route he had.

It turns out it wasn't so bad. Sure, that hill at the end was a bit long, but then it was down hill all through town and straight to the supermarket. I parked there and wasted no time in my explorations. Not only did Corbigny have a stunning Abbey, but I was also, by design, there on market day. The streets were lined with stalls selling everything from fruits and vegetables to whole cooked chickens and children's toys. I didn't buy anything from the stalls, they were a bit overpriced for my taste, but I did stop in at the first honest to goodness ice cream parlor I'd seen in months.

You see, Corbigny, even after Chatillon, was a real and true bustling town. I'm not sure I saw any deserted store fronts, and there were sights and cars and people every which way. The cars weren't exactly a plus, but only once in Corbigny did I realize how civilization starved I'd become. Getting away from it all is nice, yes. Essential even. But I think I may have been away too long. I'd forgotten that other people exist, and for someone who has had problems with crowds for ages, that could be dangerous.

Regardless, when things started to close down after lunch, as they always do in rural France, I decided it was time to strike out for home. I had considered taking a route past some country chateaus, but hadn't brought a map and was a little nervous about taking my chance with getting lost in the French countryside. Even if I could find someone from whom to ask directions, there was no guarantee we'd understand each other, and I thought I might be getting tired as well. So I started cycling the canal tow path back towards Baye, and quickly discovered that perhaps I was more anxious to see those chateaus than I thought.

My first diversion came when I reached a split in the path with a bridge on either side. To my untrained eye  I hadn't the faintest which crossed the canal and which the river, but I knew the chateaus were on my left, and so that was the way I turned. Well, it didn't take long to figure out that was the wrong way, but I was already on the road, right? What was the harm in cycling a bit further?

Well, I found the harm when I reached the steepest hill I'd encountered all day, cycled halfway up, then walked the rest of the way, only to find at the top one of the angrier large guard dogs I'd met in my travels. Many French villagers have guard dogs. I got barked at a lot. But this one was particularly furious, and tired as I was after the hill I decided to take it as a sign. Turning around I coasted back to the canal, taking the proper bridge this time, but it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes before I easily got diverted again.

As I reached a lock near Saint Camille, just beside a gigantic quarry, I encountered a sign for Chateau de Lantilly, five or six kilometers away. Now, that was nearly a half hour ride, but I was brimming with energy all of a sudden, so off I turned to begin my ascent into the lovely, rural hills of France.

The first hill led up around what I instantly deemed my favorite chateau in France. Chateau de Marcilly, as opposed to the grand, sprawling mansions that are usually called chateaus, actually looks like a castle. It was difficult to see, surrounded by a high wall on the shoulder-free curve of a main road, but I managed, and even got a few photos.

The second hill led through a sun-speckled forest, though that one I ended up having to walk. By the time I emerged from the forest though, I was overlooking fields and farm land again, a lone tractor plowing off to my right. And so I followed the signs for the chateau farther and farther into the countryside, the roads getting smaller and smaller as I went, until finally I found what I assume was the chateau. It wasn't terribly impressive, tucked into a tiny glade across the path (for it was far too small to be called a road) from an equestrian center. I couldn't bring myself to be disappointed considering how much fun I'd had getting there, Instead I hopped back on the bike and continued my loop through a lovely copse of farm houses and back to the main-ish road.

The rest of the ride back to Baye, though long, was uneventful. I passed the group of fifteen locks, one right after the other in quick succession, that was doing a roaring trade. I might go back there for coffee in the next day or two, though it was far enough away that I would still need a bike. After the locks came the gorge and the tunnels, which meant I lost my view of the canal but gained plenty of sights of luscious rivers and dales.

I do love the French countryside, more now having ridden through it than I did seeing it from a boat. Everything is made of classic brick of mortar, most places you can see uncontaminated nature for miles, and the people are always unbelievably nice; nothing like Paris, as one might expect. Everyone you pass, no matter their age or occupation, says "bon jour." Everyone. No exceptions. On foot, on bike, on boat. And there's nearly always an accompanying smile; not even a polite one, but a true and sincere well wish. It's become a favorite pass time of mine to greet all the people I meet on the street. A few of them have tried to strike up conversations, which I've struggled through for thirty seconds before admitting I have no idea what's going on. It's good practice though, and they always take my foreignness and poor language skills with grace. More often than not they just keep talking, but having explained I don't know what they're saying I am happy to just listen and try to understand.

I believe Corbigny will have been my last visit to a new French town though, and so I will leave this post here. When we do eventually depart Baye we'll be heading south again, back through Chatillon, Cercy La Tour, and with any luck Saint Leger. If there is anything worth adding on a second run through I will of course throw it in somewhere, but otherwise you'll have content yourselves with the other descriptions to come. Wish us luck!

All Aboard

Living on a boat, you can never be entirely certain what the day will bring. When you’re docked, things move slowly. Especially this far out in the country. If it’s midday or the weekend, everything is closed. The streets are empty more often than not because there just aren’t enough people to fill them. I often enter the living room to find Maurice just sitting, staring into space, because that’s the kind of lethargy such an environment promotes. It’s the perfect environment for reading too, and after the death of my Kindle I was relieved to find that Wild Goose has no shortage of books.

I read inside for the first few days, but Maurice likes to talk too much for that to last long. Now, when I’m not exploring, I like to take the opportunity to escape the boat. If there are benches in the town, all the better, but I often find myself in a grass bank somewhere as well. Like I said though, that’s only when we’re docked. When we’re moving, it’s an entirely different story.

The boat moves at an average of six kilometers per hour with top speeds of about eight. Every little bit along the canal, when the elevation has changed enough to justify it, there is a lock. Every lock is run by a lock keeper. Most of these lock keepers have so far been students, which makes sense as it’s an uncomplicated summer only job. Boats enter the lock, hand ropes tied at the bow and stern to the lock keeper, those ropes are secured around bollards built into the ground, and then the crew holds the loose ends taught to keep the boat from moving as the lock keeper opens the sluices in the gates on either end and lets water in or out. When the boat is going down, it’s not so important. Letting water out of the lock doesn’t cause too many waves. When the boat is going up, however, the jostling can be quite extreme. That’s why I was needed, and indeed I’m glad I was. Some days it has been quite a wild ride.

My first three days in France we stayed at the port where Maurice had spent the winter: Port Saint Thibault in Saint Satur, a small town right next the larger (though not by much) Sancerre. On the fourth day, we set off on our grand adventure down the Canal Lateral a La Loire. That first day travelling we crossed 40 km and nine locks in almost eight hours. While there was nothing particularly noteworthy about the journey, we moored for the night in the beautiful little village of Cours les Barres; a village so busy for it’s size that evening that we had to tie up a spare three feet past the distance at which our extension cord would reach the power outlets. And thus we arrive at two of the biggest uncertainties of traveling by boat.

The French canals are scattered with moorings big and small. Some can hold about two boats, some ten or twelve, but it depends on the size of the boats, and there’s no way of knowing how many boats or what kind are there before you arrive. If you’re planning to stop at a certain port it may very well be full, especially in summer. If that is the case you may have to go on to the next or back to the last, which could be any number of kilometers away. If you’ve waited until evening to moor, the locks close at seven, and you might find yourself up the creek, literally.

We have been lucky enough thus far to always find a place, but a place does not always mean a place with all the comforts of home. That first night on the road was only the first without electricity. Though we were able to purchase a night’s electricity for four euros the next night in Fleury, after another 40 km and six locks in six and a half hours, the following two nights were electricity free. We’ll get to why that was later, but for now, allow me to enumerate the troubles of no electricity on a boat.

The first and most important trouble is the refrigerator. It is only a small one. There would never be enough room or power for a full size, and yet when we moor without shore power the fridge must be turned off. For one night it’s not usually a problem, but any more than that and we risk half our food going bad.

The second problem is the lights, which don’t work. You would think the fact that you have so little space you must be touching a wall at all times would help with maneuvering in the dark, but that’s forgetting the spiders. When you can’t see where you’re going, you certainly can’t see creepy crawlies or the webs they weave, and that is when your hands and feet and arms and face end up in them every which way. So no power nights mean going to bed before the sun is down and praying you don’t have to use the toilet before it’s light.

Then there’s the problem of the television. Now normally I would say not having television isn’t a problem at all. I prefer it that way in fact. But not having a television in these circumstances means Maurice also not having a television, which he doesn’t mind either, except then he wants to talk. And talk and talk and talk. Don’t get me wrong. I like talking to Maurice. But if I want to read, or write, or think, or do anything that involves the least concentration in the evenings, well… I can forget that.

Then there’s the final and most annoying problem, namely my phone. If my camera dies, or my chromebook or my Kindle (when it was working) that’s hardly the end of the world. My phone, however, is my only security and link to the outside world. I don’t like not having the ability to call for help should I need it, and I doubt my family and friends like not being able to get in touch. I understand the comforts of getting away from it all, escaping from work and life and technology, but this is neither the time nor the place. When I am out in the woods with nothing and no one to worry about, the last thing I would want to look at is my phone. When I need to know what time it is, and when the library is open, and how to make falafel without a food processor though, well, my phone is kind of necessary. It is unfortunate, then, that I have spent this trip without it more often than not because there is never anywhere to charge it.

Alas, we work with what we have, and if that doesn’t include electricity so be it. The batteries are large enough to run the water pump and start the engine, and that will have to be enough.

Day three of travelling brought us through eighteen kilometers and two locks in two hours, from Fleury to Decize, and that is where things got interesting. Decize is the largest town we’ve visited yet, connected as it were to the smaller municipality of Saint Leger on the other side of the River Loire. The port we stopped at did not have electricity, but it did have a large supermarket and a launderette. We planned to spend one night there, take care of our business, and then cross the Loire to the better outfitted port of Saint Leger on the Canal du Nivernais the next day. That one night, however, was all it took for things the unexpected to strike.

The first surprise came just as we were pulling into the port; an enthusiastic old couple jumping up and down and waving their hands as they chased the boat to its mooring. I might have been bemused, but Maurice it turns out knew them. They’d met up north last year and then parted ways at this very port, which might have meant more if he could have remembered their names. To help him save face I hopped off and introduced myself before he’d fully finished parking. Irene and David, as they were called, were just on their way out to do the laundry as well. So we waved goodbye, finished mooring, and collected our own laundry to let wash as we did the shopping.

As soon as we turned the corner to the supermarket, however, our attention was caught by the bright, flashing lights of both an ambulance and a police car. “Isn’t that Irene?” I asked, pointing at a woman hovering around the scene. “No,” denied Maurice. “If it is I’m sure she just stopped to watch.” I was doubtful, but followed him across the street regardless. As it turned out later, it was in fact Irene, hovering over David who had been hit by a car. He ended up with breaks in his hip, leg, and neck, was taken to the local hospital for the night, and then transferred to Dijon for surgery the next morning. We offered our help to Irene with anything she might need, but she was already headed up river to drop her boat with friends and then meet David in Dijon. She didn’t seem too upset about the whole thing, and it sounds like David will be alright at least. Still, perhaps it was an omen of things to come.

The next morning we cast off with an American couple from Fort Lauderdale so that our boats might share the locks. There were two to get down to the Loire and third to get back up to the Nivernais. We never made it to that third.

We had been following the American boat Encore along the Loire for perhaps ten minutes when I heard a long angry beep begin to eminante from the steering console. I glanced to Maurice with wide, concerned eyes, only to find that his eyes were wider than mine. The engine, it seemed, was overheating, despite Maurice’s refilling the fluids the night before. “It can’t be,” he insisted, even as he began steering for the shore, using the engine as little as possible, which was still much more than was really advisable.

I should digress for a moment here to explain a bit about rivers. I am sure you are all familiar with them, long bodies of water that flow downstream into larger bodies of water. What that flowing means for our purposes, however, is that there is a current. Canal boats, with their tiny little motors, aren’t really built for currents. In fact, if there’s too much water in the river they’re not even allowed to cross. So crossing is a feat attempted only with the utmost concentration and care. And when something goes wrong, well… it’s a big deal.

So there we were, little to no motor, drifting downstream at what I considered an alarming pace. Our one saving grace was a single stray mooring, built for much larger boats, coming up on our our. Maurice was able to steer the boat towards it, at which point I took up the rope from the bow and made a running leap for the mooring, landing, missing the first bollard, and getting the rope around the second only to realize that… I do not have the upper body strength to fight the weight of a canal boat being pulled by that much current. “I can’t hold it!”

I will admit, I was a little panicky, pictures of the boat dashed against the river bank flashing through my head. “Wrap it around a bunch!” Maurice called back, which I wasted no time in doing. Five or six rotations did it, but that hardly stopped the runaway vessel. I watched in slow motion as the boat, caught now by its bow, began to pivot with the current, swinging around to crash sidelong into the mooring.

Now, canal boats come with fenders for just such occasions, so the boat wasn’t damaged, but it was a harrowing moment nonetheless. Maurice took his turn to dash on to the mooring, tying up the side and stern though it was clear the bow rope was taking all the pressure. And then we retired to the engine compartment. What on earth could have gone wrong?

Well, it was too hot to be check at first, so we sat about worriedly until the engine had cooled enough to touch. With gloves still, but enough. Much of the water was gone, Maurice pointed out, even though it had been full last night. He filled it up again and then… was that a bubble? Was it leaking? We sat about biting our nails a bit as Maurice recalled the last time the engine had overheated it was because a rubber piece called an impeller had nearly disintegrated. That was only a year ago though, and it cost three-hundred euros to fix. If it had gone again…

With the water refilled he decided to try the engine again. We’d only been running it five minutes though when the temperature began to rise again, rapidly and to extreme degrees. So off again it went before Maurice got on his bicycle to go ask the rental company at the port about a mechanic. (The rental company, by the way, is called Le Boat. I’m not sure why, but their name always makes me smile.)

He came back with a phone number, but not much hope. It was Sunday, and many Frenchmen don’t work on Saturdays or Mondays, let alone the Catholic day of rest. Looking like we might have to camp there for the night then, he sent me off to explore, which I did gladly. By the time I got back, there was news. The mechanic was coming at four, which turned out actually to be 3:15. Two hours and 170 euros later, he was done and we were back on our feet. It was the impeller again, turns out. Go figure. Maurice was pleased to have self-diagnosed.

We got back on the river, with some maneuvering of the ropes, and continued on our way to Saint Leger. But our adventures were not over for that day.

A few minutes along, freshly repaired engine going strong, a bridge began to loom in the distance. “They must have built a new one since the last time I was here,” Maurice conjectured, “But where are the markers?” For on rivers, you see, every bridge has two markers to communicate to boats where the sand bars are. Drive between the two markers and you should pass through safely. Stray beyond them and you’re like as not to run aground. There was some debate over which course to take, these markers being absent, but it was eventually decided that right down the center was probably the best choice. And so we crept forward, further and further, closer to the bridge with every passing minute. There was something strange about the water beneath it though, I thought. My eyes strained as I tried to figure out what it was. There was almost a line across it, like a break in the river, but surely there couldn’t be a break in the river. That made no sense. This river was meant to be driven on. We had to get to the canal somehow. Otherwise… “Go back!!”

I’m not sure Maurice heard me though, because he’d seen it too, and anyone would be momentarily distracted by the river full of jagged rocks at the bottom of a barrage turned man-made waterfall that had just come into view. Especially when that anyone is driving a boat headed straight for those rocks.

He threw the boat into full reverse in less than a flash, but it took a few seconds for the motor to beat the current. A few seconds in which we floating there on the precipice, a stones throw from certain doom. Okay, I’m being a bit dramatic, but had we not caught up at the mooring when the engine went, or not seen the rocks before it was too late, we would not have been finishing this trip. The boat would certainly be gone, and quite possibly us along with it.

It was all very exciting, but I understand why Maurice doesn’t like crossing rivers.

Once we’d managed to turn the boat around, however, and put some distance between us and the bridge, we quickly realized just what had happened. Distracted by the engine trouble, we hadn’t realized how far down the river we’d come. Our turn into the canal, a nearly 300 degree about face, had been just around the corner and we’d missed it entirely. We saw it this time, however, and veered off towards our final lock and the safety of the relatively current free Nivernais.

We made it the rest of the way to Saint Leger without incident, though we arrived too late to buy electricity. Saint Leger has gone high tech, you see. You must visit town hall to purchase a swipe card with which you can access power and water for prices rated per consumption and not per night. It’s a far more logical setup than the pay and use as you like at other ports, but it does make one a bit too conscious of just what she can or can’t do.

So we spent another night without electricity, the food in the fridge may or may not have spoiled, and I passed most of the next morning hiking out to the much farther than expected town hall to buy a swipe card and some power. Usually that’s a job Maurice would do on his bike, but it seems he had injured his foot somewhere along the way. Said foot had started to get better at the time of writing, or so he said, but he was still walking with a heavy limp. Here’s hoping it’s only temporary!

We were in Saint Leger for three days before moving the first twelve kilometers and three locks up the Canal du Nivernais to Cercy La Tour. The journey shouldn’t have taken more than two hours. Three at most. Having left Saint Leger at nine o’clock on the dot, however, we did not arrive in Cercy La Tour until just past three. Why, you might ask? Well let me tell you.

At the first lock, a mere half kilometer from our mooring, there was no lock keeper to be found. The water was low, and the gate on our side open, so we sailed in and honked, but the gate house remained dark and still. “Shall I knock?” I asked Maurice, volunteering myself to climb the steep ladder in the side of the lock. Even knocking didn’t rouse anyone, and so we sat and thought.

“Could I operate the lock?” I asked. I had certainly seen it done often enough, and I usually helped with the gates once the boat was stable enough to release one of the ropes. Apparently it’s against the rules to touch the sluices without direction though, and the penalty for breaking those rules is a travel ban on the canals. Maurice didn’t want to risk that, and he seemed uncertain of my ability to operate the sluices anyway. Eventually he decided he might have a number for VNF, the organization responsible for operating the locks. While he made calls, I poked around the gate house and found, well… nothing. Until a car showed up.

“Je suis ici pour la electricite,” said the man who got out, looking at me with an air of authority. “Um… oui?” I wasn’t quite sure what eletricity had to do with opening the lock, but I was glad someone had shown up at last. “Oh! You speak English?” It turns out so did he, but being an employee of the electricity company who had come to check the meter, he was just as interested in finding the lock keeper as I was. In fact, there were a confusing two or three minutes where he thought I was the lock keeper. We worked it out though, and he shrugged and sped off in his car, meter unchecked.

In the meantime, Maurice had been in contact with a woman who had given him two different numbers. The first of those hung up on him, the second was an answer machine. Eventually he found a number for the VNF headquarters who called the regional headquarters and said who knows what. At a quarter after ten Maurice, who had turned his phone off because that’s what he does with it, turned it on again to find that he had two messages from someone. After fighting with the device for ten minutes, he finally handed me the phone so we could access them and found that someone should have been coming in fifteen minutes. Ten minutes ago.

So we waited another five minutes, and sure enough a man showed up. He wasn’t exactly gentle with the sluices, but we made it through the lock and continued on our way, delayed by roughly an hour and a half. It wasn’t so bad, I thought. We still might have made Cercy La Tour by lunch. And then we hit the second lock.

There was no one at this lock either, and it wasn’t even open for us. Maurice put me ashore a bit before the lock and I walked up to check it out. The process repeated itself: looking around, banging on the door, trying to find anyone that might be able to help. When it came time to call VNF though, Maurice decided he wanted a coffee. His nerves were fried, and he’s not the most patient man in the world to begin with. So I made him coffee and he put up his bum foot.

If I’m honest, I think he was just tired of not speaking French. Not that he seems at all interested in learning, but it’s difficult not being able to communicate with officials with whom you need to be able to communicate. I would know.

It turns out the idleness wasn’t so bad, because a lock keeper showed up a few minutes later, riding his motorcycle up the tow path. Already out of the boat, I volunteered my help with the gates, and he actually asked me to help with the sluices. So I ended up operating half the lock anyway, just within the legal limits of direction. Go figure.

The hold up at the second lock meant we didn’t make the third before it closed for lunch. It was the same lock keeper on the motorcycle though, and he had opened the lock for us so that we could wait inside. And so we waited, again, only getting back on our way at twenty after one. And thus the chain of events that led us to Cercy La Tour, where the days troubles were not yet over.

Tying up at a mooring is usually simple enough business. Someone (me) jumps ashore from the bow, loops a rope around a bollard or, if there is no bollard, a self erected stake. and runs it back to the boat. Then the same is done with the stern rope and the boat is more or less secure. The mooring at Cercy La Tour, however, was… dun dun dun… on a river.

The canal, you see, merges with the River Aron for the length of the Cercy La Tour mooring and then returns to its own private boundaries. What that means is that there is a current - that same current that tried to pull the boat away from me on the River Loire. The bigger problem, however, was that Maurice wasn’t expecting it, and there were no bollards to wrap with rope and perform and emergency stop.

I jumped ashore, as usual, taking the rope with me, and Maurice disappeared back into the boat to grab the stern rope. Having just put the boat in neutral though, that was when it started to drift. “Maurice!” He couldn’t hear me. And I couldn’t hold the boat against the current, and so we ran into the moored boat behind. It was just a tap that didn’t hurt either, but it was still quite embarrassing. Once he’d realized he couldn’t just cut the engine we managed to maneuver the boat, with much problem solving and hulabaloo, into a safe position. It was a little too far up if a decent sized boat wanted to moor beside us, but a small one would have done fine, so we were only parked a little rudely.

We stayed in Cercy La Tour for a relaxing three days before making our last two day run for Baye and the out of water survey, and boy is that a run I don’t want to repeat.

On the short phone call I had with my mother in Saint Leger, she asked me if the job was hard. At the time I laughed, because the answer was not at all. At the time however, I was missing one major lock experience - being in the front of a quickly filling lock.

Each lock, you see, is a different size, usually holding two or three boats depending on their individual sizes. When one is alone in the lock, one can tie up as far back as one likes, and when the water starts pouring through the sluices be far enough back that the boat is only lightly jostled. Even at the front, a lock keeper might be kind enough to open the sluices slowly. If the water only trickles in, the jostling is likewise manageable. On the other hand, if one must pull all the way forward in a lock to allow boat in behind, and then the lock keeper is not so gentle with the sluices, well… that’s when you’re in for a challenge.

And thus the thirty-five kilometers and fifteen locks we did in eight and a half hours from Cercy La Tour to Chatillon en Bazois were a challenge indeed. We somehow found ourselves at the beginning of a line, meaning we were at the very front of each and every lock, none of them gentle. The upside is I finally mastered a technique for managing my ropes, a fact about which I was quite pleased and proud. The downside is that the work was much harder physically than any I had yet encountered.

Holding a ten ton boat steady as it is buffeted forward and backward and side to side is no easy task. In this case it took not only upper body strength, but all over body strength to boot. It was up and down and over and back getting the right leverage and angles. By lunch time I knew I was going to be sore. By the time we reached port I was so wiped that I skipped dinner and crawled straight into bed. I’d been downing handfuls of peanuts and raisins all day, but nevertheless, it turned out that was a bad idea.

The next day was worse. We only did fifteen kilometers in seven hours, but that included fifteen locks, three of which were doubles and one a triple, meaning we didn’t have to load out or back in. The locks weren’t so terrible, we did a lot of them alone, and yet I felt like hell warmed over. I couldn’t concentrate, I was mildly light headed, and it wasn’t until I had a croissant for lunch that I realized I was just hungry. Or at least carb deprived. After lunch I still ached all over, but I had the energy to finish out the day with a smile. I even made quesadillas for dinner that night with the tortillas I’d found in the exotic food aisle of the grocery store.

Still, I have revised my opinion just as the job is coming to an end. It’s not always hard work, but neither is it easy; instead it merely depends. We’ll be spending a week in Baye, however, with no moving or locks of which to speak. After that it’s back the way we came, so literally all downhill from here. I don’t anticipate any noteworthy adventures, but I’ll let you know if they occur. Otherwise, that just about covers all of the boat moving drama, and yet there is plenty that happens when the boat is still that brings just as much to bear. Alas, you’ll have to wait another day for that, but I promise none of the other posts will be quite this long!

Bienvenue au Bateau

On 3 August, 2014, I arrived on a train from Paris at Tracy Sancerre, a small country station in France’s Loire Valley. I had never been to rural France before, but occasion had presented itself, and as I try always to do, I had seized the opportunity. For one month, nestled perfectly between my two month tour of Europe and my two week cruise back to North America, I would play skipper on a canal boat moving from Sancerre to Baye along the Canal Lateral a La Loire and the Canal du Nivernais.

It was by luck that I had come land such a position. Poking around on the internet always does turn up the most interesting opportunities. I found Janet and Maurice, the English owners of the ‘Wild Goose’ on which I would be employed, on a workaway website. Their listing was spare, compared to many, but the position perfect to a tee. I had purported for years that I would one day live on a boat, and I take great pride in differentiating between assertions of “I will” and “I would like.” This had occasioned me to considering learning to sail in my free month, but sailing lessons are expensive. This workaway, on the other hand, would include not only free lessons on the intricacies of running canal boat, but room and board to boot.

Only later did I learn that my inquiry about the position came only days after two German girls had cancelled, and hours after a young man had asked about the opening as well. Janet, it seems, thought me a better fit. I called her from Venice so that we might talk out the particulars, and all of a sudden I had a job.

Maurice met me at the station with David, a fellow boater and invaluable friend because David owned a car. We set off from the station for the canal, and thus my story began. It is not a story that can be told chronologically, or at least I am disinclined to try, and so it is that you will receive it bit by bit, topic by topic, until my narrative facilities have been exhausted. For now, however, let us be contented with a description of the boat.

Wild Goose is a 42 foot, single story canal boat, built in 1980 for the Norfolk Broads in England but moved to the canals of France sometime hence. Janet and Maurice haven’t much information beyond that. The gentleman they bought it off, it seems, was not what one might call forthcoming. They’ve owned the vessel for eight years now though, and whatever its provenance, it is now undoubtedly theirs.

The inside of the boat, about ten feet across and six feet high, is split into six distinct rooms. At the front behind the bow is what I would call the living room, though it also functions as the bridge. Taking up the whole ten feet across and about twelve feet in the front of the boat proper, it consists of all of the driving aparatae, the living area, the dining area, and a fair bit of storage. Facing the front of the boat from the doorway, the television sits on your left atop a series of shelves and cupboards. On the right is a folding table, hooked to the wall, with a cupboard and a clock on the wall above. Behind the table along the wall is a long bench, stretching the length of the room and meeting the front bench at a right angle. This front bench looks forward through the windshield, the front seat as it were when the boat is in motion. It is broken in the middle by a walkway that leads through a door to the bow. The ignition, throttle, and wheel sit in a column on the left. The right hand bench plays host to a box of English books for exchange with other sailors as well as a number of potted plants.

Directly behind the living room is a long corridor running the rest of the boat’s thirty feet. It contains along the port side what amounts to a kitchen; a long counter top over a length of cabinets with a sink at one end and a small gas stove at the other. There is a toaster and an electric kettle, as well as device labeled ‘Brazilian coffee press.’ By my account it would be French, but that’s hardly exotic enough to sell in its own country. I was also recently promised that there is a blender somewhere for sauce making, but I have yet to lay eyes on it. There is a generator on-board somewhere to run these devices, but as it takes petrol, which is expensive, we only use them when docked and plugged in to shore power.

Across from the far end of the kitchen counter stands a gigantic box, housing the engine, with shelves of spices and mugs mounted one the wall above. Beyond that, just before the hallway ends in a door that leads out to the stern, are two small rooms, one on either side. Once upon a time, both were restrooms. Today, the one on the port side has been converted to a garden shed with all manner of boxes and shelves and plants. The starboard room is still a restroom, with a shower on the left, a toilet on the right, and a wash basin just across. Allow me, for a moment, to digress from my description of the boat to explain how these contraptions might work.

The keel of the boat contains three large tanks, one for diesel fuel, one for washing water, and the bilge that collects run off. The water tank holds up to 500 liters and is connected to a pump that runs off a battery. There is only hot water when the engine his been running, but for small amounts the electric kettle may be used as well. The toilet, for its part, does not flush. It must be pumped by hand and then refilled with water. Though there is a mechanism for refilling it with canal water, that water is where the pumped waste is disposed. As such, we use a pitcher and refill from the sink. The shower drains only on demand, and then with a very loud pump. For both this reason and to conserve water, showers consist mostly of a few short rinses. As an alternative, I quickly took to sponge bathing and washing my hair with kettle water in the sink, not that either are strictly pleasant.

The two remaining starboard rooms currently function as cabins. As the guest, and a lady, I have been given the captain’s cabin at the front of the boat. It consists of two large pieces of foam set atop a drawer filled wall to wall box taking up two thirds of the room. When I sit or lay atop them, I sink right through, but considering the other cabin it is the lap of luxury. The rest of the room is just a small space for changing and opening the drawers. There is a miniature closet set in the opposite wall with hooks on the outside of the door. Between the far window and the standing space is a small bedside counter with a towel bar across it. There is a bookshelf mounted over the bed. They may not be the most comfortable quarters, but at least I wake up with a spectacular view most mornings.

Maurice’s cabin is much smaller than mine, with room taken out to make space for the engine, as well as one of the two batteries on board. Though it used to house a double bed, he converted half of the bed into a tool shed. He sometimes sleeps on the other half in a sleeping bag on a thin mattress, though I have since found spare linens, so the sleeping bag must be by choice. When it's particularly hot out, however, he sometimes moves said sleeping bag into the living room to sleep on the bench. The room smells more than usual the next morning, and I have to take care not to emerge until he's dressed, but having given me his bed I can hardly begrudge him the shift.

Up a ladder and on top of the boat is a small sun deck with Maurice’s garden and a couple plastic chairs. He has warned that the chairs may no longer be sturdy, so we haven’t used them yet, but the idea is still appealing. There are riggings past the sun deck for screens, so that one might sunbathe in private on top of the boat. On the front, there is a French ‘courtesy flag,’ flown because of the country in which we are sailing. On the back waves a red flag with the British Union Jack in the top left-hand corner, to show where the boat is registered. Just below this flag is a swimming platform. For reasons associated with my explanation of the toilet, it is not much used, and usually serves as storage for Maurice’s bike.

It is an interesting life on board. Cramped, but not unmanageable. It’s nice too to have a bit of a routine again. I’m sure the intricacies of that routine will be revealed over the course of this blog, but until then I will leave you with the two most important rules of boating, taught to me the very first day.

1. Do everything slowly.

2. No, slower than that.