Back to tidal saltwater in Bordeaux
Le Bateau is back where she belongs in tidal saltwater, almost the Atlantic, at Bordeaux. A seriously big ecluse at 23 metres It is seven weeks since I arrived back at the winter mooring at Pont a Bar. Since then Le Bateau has motored just over 1600 KMs and gone through 330 ecluses (locks) with happily just a couple of small scratches on the hull paintwork and still looking fairly tidy. I used about 200 litres of diesel and put just over 200 hours on the engine. The water strainer didn't need to be cleaned at all and I swam to clean the propeller only about 10 times. There was a kilometre of weed near the Canal Bourgogne junction and the last 10 KMs were a bit weedy but really no trouble. The excitement could have been the very last lock which had a hydraulic problem but 3 vehicles and 5 VNF workers managed to get me down to the Garonne River. Surprising to me that I was the only boat moving the whole 50 KMs to Bordeaux on a beautiful mid summer, ho...