We left the little harbour at Compiegne after some close-quarters manoeuvring, but no damage to anyone. The Belgian boat we travelled some way with on the Canal du Nord left just after us. We had chatted with our pontoon neighbours, who turned out to come from Marseilles, which was a bit of a connection, though they keep their boat outside Paris. Perhaps they cruise in the north to avoid the summer heat. The lady had a rather glamorous Siamese cat, which was kept on a lead, and indeed taken for walks on a lead. Not something I've seen before.
They advised us to head for Isle-Adam today, so we did. The river is most attractive, especially in bright sunshine, but not particularly photogenic. The first feature that caught our undivided attention was this TGV viaduct. I hope they won't build one like that in our valley!
The Belgian boat, Aphrodite, soon overtook us, but had to wait for us at the locks. In the first, there was a double-pusher barge, but he was taking on water and waved us to pass. In fact most barges seemed to be tied up for the weekend. Some had obviously craned their cars ashore for an excursion. Others were just chilling out:
We found a small quay to tie up for lunch, and let the Belgian get ahead. It resulted, however, in the pusher overtaking us too. That was a mixed blessing: it meant that the locks were ready and waiting, and we could slip in behind him, but we did get intermittent gusts of diesel fumes too. Ironically, we soon passed the Belgian tied up to a quay. Among the barges that were running was this large, double rubbish carrier:
There were plenty of people out enjoying a sunny summer Sunday, including a party going on here:
The pleasure of cruising down the river is that unlike modern canals, it passes through villages from time to time:
As we neared Isle-Adam, there were some dinghy sailors catching the afternoon breeze – about the first we've seen since Holland:
Our Marseillais friends had told us there was a handy pontoon at Isle-Adam, supplied by the town, with free mooring, free electricity and free water. Room for three or four boats. Unfortunately when we arrived we found an enormous Dutch boat taking up two-thirds of the space, and a 40-footer on the rest. We tried mooring on the quayside, but it was too shallow, and then the friendly Belgians on the Linssen 40 invited us to raft up to them, which we did. Then it was a just question of crossing their deck to get our electric cable ashore. No problem.
We're only a couple of days from Paris now, and will be looking for somewhere to overnight on the Seine tomorrow.
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