With all the messing around with the mast, we had missed the 0700 tide. If you miss that, you don't get to Rouen. It's as simple as that and there's nowhere safe to moor!
I thought we might be able to catch up by going through the Canal de Tancarville. It has no significant current and is several kilometres shorter. Oh what a mistake! The 5 locks and opening bridges between the port and the canal proper take forever. We waited at one for over an hour.
Every time we got fed up and tied up though, everything burst into life – perhaps that’s the secret. We didn’t get out of the canal until nearly 1600 - not that it made much difference. We had missed the tide anyway and we weren’t going anywhere until the next day. Unfortunately, mooring in the canal is prohibited and there is nowhere comfortable and secure on the Siene until Rouen. So now we were faced with a trip all the way back to Honfleur with our tails between our legs.
And that’s where we struck lucky. Poring over our trusty Navicarte we spotted a tiny paragraph saying that anchoring is ‘possible’ in the mouth of the River Risle
which is just a few kilometres down-stream from the canal. The 4 knot current swept us down in no time and we pulled into a lovely wild deserted river mouth. The holding was great and our Spade anchor dug in hard. We had a quiet evening, a good night’s sleep and an early start next morning. I would recommend it to anyone except those with deep fixed keels as it saved a good two hours off the long slog up to Rouen.
And with that hindsight again – The Canal du Tancarville was really interesting, the Risle was lovely and the journey up worked so well that we were in Rouen by 1400 even though we had done no more than six Knots through the water all the way.
We had a friend with us who needed to get back after two weeks so with all the delays we were up against the clock getting to Paris. We decided to press on hard and do the journey in only 4 days. It was mostly beautiful and fascinating with only occasional doses of scary when huge ships rushed past
or great barges came past us into locks with only a small space left for us at the back.
All went well and on Saturday afternoon, just on the edge of Paris, we were relaxing in the knowledge that we would reach the Paris Arsenal Marina at about 1630 well before the 1900 lock closing time. That’s when we suddenly lost engine cooling. Two and a half hours later, I emerged, covered in sweat and dirt with the problem gone away if not exactly fixed.
We were very pressed for time and it soon became clear that we were going to arrive at about 1930 which was far too late. No problem! Our trusty Navicarte had another solution – the public marina on the edge of the Seine by the pont de la Concorde. Occasional choppiness was the only drawback if boats should pass.
When we got there it was very different! The only boats there were large steel barges, converted for pleasure use or as house boats. There was no sign of any officials, nobody answered the VHF and the phone number in the Navicarte didn’t work. The first barge we found with someone in sight wouldn’t let us tie alongside for reasons that my schoolboy French was unable to decode. Then we spotted a British registered motor boat with a space next to it. The woman on board was very apologetic but no, we couldn’t have the space. It was a private mooring and the bloke who owned it was coming back. Now all this time we were being buffeted by huge wakes of racing tourist and commercial traffic with the odd speedboat thrown in and I was beginning to panic. The last thing I wanted was a fruitless journey through the eye of the tourist boat storm around Notre Dame.
A wonderful gentleman on the barge behind then came to the rescue and suggested that we tie next to him. He saved the day and I shall be forever grateful. We were in a wonderful (although probably illegal) location right opposite the National Assembly with a good view of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame in the distance. We were thrown around until midnight when, as if a tap had been turned off, all the traffic disappeared and we had a tranquil night’s sleep. In the morning, I wandered around looking for the Marina Captain until I came upon another chap on a barge who explained that 5 years ago the public moorings had all been replaced by long term ones. The times of opening of the Arsenal had been extended to 2300 and we could easily have got in.
When I got back to the boat, I looked at the date on the Navicarte we had borrowed from a friend and it was 1999! Now with hindsight, I should have checked before we started, realised it was likely to be out of date, and got a new one.
So if only hindsight was foresight, we would have had a much smoother gentler and altogether better voyage. Or would we I wonder? We experienced things that were unforgettable, we learned a lot and we came to no harm. Isn’t that what sailing’s all about?
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