Part One - Part Two

Bilbao on the Bay of Biscay

DAY 35

I'm on the Garonne Lateral, a canal that bypasses the unnavigable section of the Garonne. Went through my first locks; they are "automatique" in this part of France; which means you pull ropes, climb ladders, and push buttons on your own. No problem, but they were not designed for one person to operate.

Weather is bright sunshine and bloody hot. My one complaint is no ice. The French don't buy ice. Puts a big dent in what I can eat as anything fresh has to be consumed immediately. The architecture in this part of France is all the same; red tile roofs, stucco over stone walls. Every one the color of butter and shuttered in black, white, or French blue which can be any one of many variations on cobalt. Every once in awhile you come across a grand chateau just visible through the trees lining the bank.

I'm just north of Toulouse, heading for the Med. No hurry, weather is cooperating.

DAY 46

Left the Garonne and entered the Canal du Midi yesterday at Toulouse. I am not making good time, I'm dawdling; moving at no more than a brisk walking pace, and in fact spend more time on land - hunting down Station Services (gas stations) and Boulangeries (grocery stores) - in the middle of, most likely, a French forest.

Although I see only 2 or 3 boats a day, I speak with many people, mostly shopkeepers. Not that any understand me. The thing is, with my French, a real conversation is out of the question.

DAY 53

I'm writing this at 5:30 of a cool evening over a glass or three of Bordeaux and a bagette and some decent cheese and prosciutto.

Tied off under a towering tree twice as tall and twice the age of anything on the US East coast. Rented a bike yesterday and rode over to the next town - Beriac - to see about adopting a cat for the boat at the local SPCA. Saw lots of nice kitties but chickened out on adopting one. My boat cats have always been foundlings, so if I run across a stray I might change my mind.

DAY 66

Yesterday the boat got broadsided by one of the Le Boat hire boats; one of the really big ones, being steered by two teenage boys from the flying deck.

They suddenly became aware the branches of trees overhanging the canal were about to smack them in the face unless they acted fast. They did - they ducked - losing control of the boat which immediately headed across the canal at a high rate of speed and speared me amidships pinning my boat against the bank.

Unfortunately, the guy took off before I could get his license. I repaired the damage myself over a layover in Capestang, which is my favorite port so far. Made friends with a fellow whose boat, a big power cruiser, has been here for three years. His name is Edward and his mate's name is Ita, and they are both Irish. Ed is 72, Ita quite a bit younger. We meet for a beer and sometimes dinner most evenings and Ed has loaned me tools so I could repair the boat.

My latest plan is to sail Southeast to a boat yard near Sete and have them haul the boat for the Winter in early November. This plan means I'll not have to run the Costa Brava down the rugged Spanish east coast again, yeah.

DAY 68

Had supper last night aboard a yacht of respectable dimensions in the port of Capestang. Lamb something or other, and potatoes flown in from Ireland. I dine this well maybe once a week, the other nights its me and my can of beans. Captured a rather feral kitten two days ago; all grey - that beautiful German Navy grey. She did fine on the boat, made herself right at home, but over night found a way out of the sealed cabin and off the boat, on to shore. Was a nice cat. We could have become friends, but she's headed far inland now.

DAY 73

Have just arrived at Sete on the Mediterranean. Amazing how you can be in Fourteenth Century France one minute, turn a corner, and get dropped back into the twentieth the next.

From 14th Century France to....

...Twentieth Century Southern Florida...in ten minutes

DAY 76

The canals in France are lined, for several hundred meters on either side of towns and cities that are adjacent to the canal, with many live-board peniches, houseboats, barges and motor yachts.

One in ten appear to be either abandoned, or severely neglected.

This is not one of them. Believe it or not, a family lives here.

DAY 79

Sete is a pretty city, quite old, I got invited to breakfast at a chateau overlooking the entire town, by a fellow who pulled up to my anchored boat in an Ultralight aircraft with floats. But, to tell the truth, I really don't care for these coastal tourist towns. (If its got a beach, you're in South Florida.)

So, although I've been running outside, I've turned about and will head back to Port La Nouvelle and the entrance to the Robine. There are some other rivers I will run that are only accessible from the Med, such as the one I'm on now. I can't find it's name but it terminates at Pointe Valras. My electronic chart says the whole river is a restricted area, entry prohibited, but there are no warning signs on the river itself. I've run it almost to Bezier and its a beautiful river. I think I can't go much further as the chart says there is a dam up ahead. I'm on my way down to Grau d'Agde to have the boat hauled for the Winter. Temperature is slowly dropping into the high sixties, but the Plane tree leaves are turning gold and bronze which is lovely but they are dropping into the canal, forming a carpet that clogs my prop every 5 minutes or so.

DAY 94

I was in the Montpellier region a few days ago. I'm in Agde now and plan on running down to Port La Nouvelle over the next couple days. Nouvelle is the terminus of theCanal Robine which connects with the Midi to the North. I have to make this passage on the outside (Gulf of Lyon ) which I don't look forward to. Aside from tricky seas and a rocky coast, I have to deal with marinas which I find dis-heartening. These marinas house hundreds upon hundreds of almost identical gleaming white million dollar power boats lined up in regimented rows like Chinese terra cota soldiers. They present a sight of such overwhelming excess it's obscene. The only people visible in these marinas are the occasional dock boy washing down, once again, the same boat he washed down yesterday and the day before. I want to return to the 16th century France I find inland on the canals.

DAY 134

This happened last night:

Young guy with 2 kids in tow out for an early evening walk along the towpath bordering the canal my AF4b is tied off to. I'm sitting in the cockpit with two fingers of Jack Daniels in a Bonne Maman jam jar. Guy stops at the boat, rests his hands on his hips and says "Bolger or Michalak?"

Now this wouldn't be deemed all that unlikely, given these two designers' reputation among small boat builders in the US, except that the canal is the du Midi in Southern France, and the guy is from Mongolia.

True story.

DAY 138

Came across a café in Paraza named Tongue of the Cat. Told the owner the name of my boat: Kiss of the Wolf, and that led to an entertaining conversation over a glass of wine, on the derivation of names, and how every third sailboat in America is named Windsong.

Weather is still warm enough by mid afternoon to discard the sweater, but it's been blowing 40-50 k here for several days, so not much movement on my part. The hire boats however, of which there are many all of a sudden, with their 60 year old Skippers who may never have stood behind a ships wheel before, come bombing down the canal in these behemoths like not a worry in the world mate. The problem arises when they get all crosswise trying to enter a lock which can take up to 30 minutes or so to straighten out. With upwards of 20 boats waiting to lock through two at a time, not all of them will make it today. Me. I'll wait till tomorrow morning when the winds will be much less threatening.

DAY 150

I'm, as I write this, at the top of a flight of 7 locks in a staircase arrangement, just outside the small city of Beziers. It's 12:30 and I'm waiting for the écluse master to come back from lunch, and open the locks one after the other dropping me several hundred feet.

However, I'm in no hurry, it's a lovely summer day in the middle of October and the sun is shining bright. I'm on my way to Agde where I will haul the boat for the Winter and fly back to the States on the 15 of November.

I was negotiating the Herault River down to where it dumps into the Med at Cap d'Agde, when my prop snagged the Line of a shoreside fisherman. Fishing poles in Europe are not like the US ones. They are impossibly long, reaching out to the center of the river, and they are black and of course their lines are filament and so are invisible. The fishermen expect passing boats to spot the poles and give them a wide birth resulting in many near misses and some snags like mine. Because the line did not break, I attempted to clear it from the prop rather than just cutting it as most do. Of course, in leaning over the engine to get at the prop I heard a soft plop and saw something small and dark sink into the river. I knew at once it was my iPod escaping the pocket of my jacket. It's turn cooler here in the past few days - cold in the mornings, warmer in the afternoon, which is why the jacket. Even were I able to retrieve it, the water has already killed it. So, I bought a new one at the HyperMarche in Agde. I've managed to retrieve my phone book from the Cloud and tomorrow will see what else I can retrieve. I sure hope I can reclaim my emails as some are pending and important.

DAY 155

You know how misfortunes always come in threes? Well I woke up this morning to a cold drizzling rain in the Agde canal. I needed to buy a gallon or so of fuel in Agde, so started the engine which wouldn't fire. Never has this engine failed to start on the first or at most, second attempt until today.

Checked everything - no luck. Figure maybe I flooded it and, 1 gallon tank in hand I head off towards the station service on foot. Station is only twenty minutes away but they have a sign on the door saying they are closed except Mondays. Today is Monday but they are not open.

That's two.

Ok, so I'll go to the library and check my email, but the library it turns out is open every day but Monday.

That's three.

I trudged back to the boat, tried the engine again. But not so much as a spark. Then I noticed that the "dead mans switch" was no longer connected properly. Reconnected it, pushed the starter button, and voila! And then the sun peeped out.

DAY 160

Parked K. O. T. W. on the hard at Alleman's boat yard in Agde, France on the Herault River a few kilometres from the Med. The winters are mild here, even though we are north of Maine in latitude, so I'm hoping my little boat will weather the 6 or so months until I return.

It will be nice to have hot & cold running water, a stove, a shower, a microwave, TV, internet on demand, and all the other pleasures of life on land after 5 months aboard a fifteen foot skiff, but truth be told, I'm already planning K. O. T. W.'s next adventure.

*The boat's name is stolen from the John Irving novel "Last Night In Twisted River".

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