The Scirrocco... (no photos with this entry...)

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Mike and I prepared to head off on the sunday morning. A warm wind was blowing quite strongly into the harbour so we gave a big shove off the pontoon, assisted by Chris and Phil who told us they'd be following on soon.
After about half an hour on the river Saone, which was far bigger than I'd imagined, we had to put the roof back up because the wind was making it flap about too much and was threatening to blow me away. Another half an hour later and there were white horses on the surface of the river, I'd had to climb out and bring in all our boat hooks and Ozzy was getting thrown about. Surely this wasn't right? We got a text from Chris and Phil saying how wild it was and responded that it was like being at sea.
For the first time since we crossed the Channel, I had to go inside and safely store anything that might fall off the surfaces. We hadn't expected this! We pushed on, planning to get through the lock and find somewhere to moor. However, when we rounded the corner it got worse. There was no shelter here and the surface of the water was very confused with waves coming from all angles and white horses as far as we could see.
We sent a message to Chris and Phil, who were about an hour or so behind us, and said that tit was getting worse and we planned to get through the lock and into harbour. However, as we neared the lock with the boat getting blown sideways in strong gusts, we decided to try to get in to a small harbour in a disused lock insread of risking getting smashed against the lock walls going in. We slowed and approached the harbour, the wind now gusting at 55mph (Chris had text to say this was the reading they were getting on their instruments). We decided that it had to be the scirocco wing we'd read about. There were two winds of note to boaters on the Saone and Rhone; the famous mistral which blew up from the north for up to 60 mph and up to a week, causing trouble for people moving upstream and the less common scirrocco which blewn from the south at up to 60mph and a day or two and caused problems for those like us travelling downstream.
I donned my lifejacket coiled the rope and stepped onto the side, ready to jump off and secure the boat. But, as we tried to turn to go back into the harbour, it became apparent that entry was going to be too dangerous. The entrance was incredibly narrow and the boats inside were being lifted and bashed against the sides. A couple guys were there frantically trying to put out extra fenders and tighten or slacken ropes. At that point a wave caught us and pushed us right off course. I started to feel more than a little bit scared!
We decided to cut our losses and go back to Chalon. It seemed ridiculous to get Ozzy across the Channel and over half way through France then have her damaged in alock or harbour. With the wind behind us now we'd get back fairly quickly. We let Chris and Phil know our plans and they said they'd do the same.
We arrived back in Chalon a couple hours later, just behind Chris and Phil, and tied up next to one another. We chatted and realised we'd all gotten a bit blasé about checking weather – this 55mph wind from the south had been forecast but none of us had thought to check. It goes to show what too long on canals can do to you! Still, it was a good lesson learnt before we hit the Rhone and I went off to download the 5 day forecast for the region before we came back and had another lovely evening of booze, food and chat with Chris and Phil.

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