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Published: October 24th 2016
Once We Left the Marina & Busy Rouen
we were reminded of our calm Erie canal trip After getting our refrigeration working we left Rouen at 11:37AM on a beautiful sunny day with the current helping us along at a speed of 6.6 knots. We took that as a good omen. Fortunately our goal for the first day was the town of Poses; only about 40 km. away so leaving late in the day wasn’t going to be a problem. Once you get out of the city of Rouen you are on a beautiful stretch of the river with lots of trees, white chalk cliffs and of course a few freighters thrown into the mix. We did have to go through one lock today, but that turned out to be quite an easy one. We locked through by ourselves and the lockmaster even came over to talk to us as he was curious as to if we sailed all the way from New York! We are fortunate in doing this trip after our friends, Sally and Al, have done this same trip a couple of times. They gave us wonderful information of where to stop overnight and tips on what the various locks that we will have to go through are like. We got to the dock in
Poses at 5PM - it was on an offshoot from the Seine so it was well protected from the river traffic. Pleasure boats must stop traveling after dark, but the commercial ships continue as the locks are open 24 hours a day. We took a little time to walk around the area after dinner, but didn’t get to see much as everything was closed – just good to stretch our legs. Quite a relaxing journey.
We had rain on the deck the next morning, but fortunately soon after we left Poses it cleared off, but was windy and cold most of the day. With standing in one place at the helm, the cold goes through you so changing on and off regularly helps with being able to get out of the wind. Today we had to lock through one lock that wasn’t “fun” in that the spacing between the ladders and bollards are designed for larger ships, not pleasure boats like ours. After getting through the lock we decided we needed to modify our approach as they aren’t like the ones we did in the Erie Canal where there was plenty of places to tie up to the wall
Numerous White Chalk Cliffs
many buildings built right into the cliffs for the lock through process. On this 2nd day we spotted a few new things – on one of the white chalk cliffs we spotted a rock climber scaling the wall and when rounding the bend into Les Andelys we spotted a castle high up on the hill. This one was built in one years’ time by Richard the Lionhearted – quite an accomplishment in 1196 especially when you see its size and location. As King of England he built his stronghold here to attempt to recapture the town of Rouen from the King of France.
The plan is to stop in the town of Vernon, stay overnight, bicycle the next morning to visit the Claude Monet Garden and home which is nearby, another recommendation from Sally and Al. We can then be back to the boat in the afternoon that same day and move further on. The place to stop in Vernon was actually used by the river cruise ships that ply these waters but there is enough room just in front of where they dock for 1 pleasure boat to stop. There was a river cruise boat there at the time, but we easily fit in front
of them. Shortly after getting there that evening the cruise boat left and we were alone on the dock. In the middle of the night we all of a sudden felt the boat move a little and thought it was due to river traffic going by. Then we felt that someone was walking on the boat so needless to say that got us up in a hurry. We found out that our boat had been moved by crew from a new river boat that had just arrived – they needed just “a little more room” in order to get their lines properly tied to the dock. They actually did a great job of re-tying our dock lines and were quite quiet indeed. This river boat was much longer than the one that had been there the evening before. Fortunately we both fit and will not cause any problems for us when leaving in the morning. We were just glad this one hadn’t been at the dock when we arrived as we would not have attempted to stop as it sure would not have looked like there was any room for us. Looks definitely are deceiving!
We took a wander
The Dock in Poses In A More Relaxed Setting
at the end of the 1st day rather than the marina we left around the town of Vernon soon after we arrived. There were a few historic markers which gave us some insight into some of the places we saw. The town hall and the church were located across the street from each other. On the historic panels we read that when the town hall was being built the mayor at the time (1895) was a strong republican and wanted the town hall to be taller than the church. He felt that this would show the citizens that political power had predominance over religious power. It also helped that the town hall was located on higher ground than the church. Interesting to hear how the visual impact meant quite a bit. During WWII three German tanks came through this area as they were looking for a way across the Seine, but they met up with French resistance fighters. Some of the damage remains to be seen to this day on the front of the town hall. We are constantly reminded as we travel through Europe of the impact of the war; these were some of the physical reminders.
The next morning we got our bicycles off the deck and had a pleasant
morning ride. Our goal was to cycle over to the village of Giverny where the Claude Monet garden and home is located. On our way there we saw that there were a couple of historic places to visit so stopped to see the Old Mill on the bridge as well as the Chateau des Tourelles. The Chateau had been built as a fortress to protect the entrance and medieval bridge which crossed into Vernon. In the 18
th century it was purchased by a trader who created a flour mill here. The wheat was milled by the millers at the nearby water powered mill and then the flour was packaged and stored at the Chateau. A later use in 1793 was as a prison. Damage was done to one of the turrets during WWII but has been restored. It is quite an impressive structure which you can still view both from the water and by land. The flour mill had been built on the columns of a medieval bridge built in 1654. It was constantly being destroyed by flooding and rebuilt, until finally the waterwheel itself was lost. It is one of the rare waterwheel powered mills remaining in this area
so the village of Vernon has restored it for its historical significance. It is quite picturesque and many artists have used it as subject for their paintings. After taking in these couple of historic structures, we continued our bike ride to Giverny. It turned out to be quite a pleasant ride on bike trails keeping us off the main highways.
We arrived early at the gardens, but shortly after arriving it appeared that quite a few tour buses decided it was the day to visit as well. Fortunately the gardens are quite large so we headed directly to the water garden which was farther along on the path. We were surprised for this time of year to see so many people at the gardens, but we understand that no matter what the season there is something to see. Monet lived in the home here from 1883 until his death in 1926 with his wife and 8 children. He felt that his water garden and flower garden were works of art themselves. He made sure there were splashes of color throughout the garden and it became the subject of many of his paintings.
The tour through the home was
quite interesting to see the colors that he used on the walls, the variety of artwork on the walls (these were reproductions) that either influenced him or he admired and the views that he had of the gardens from his windows.
We returned to Tsamaya and left Vernon about 12:30pm still giving us the afternoon to get to our next stopping point, Port de L’ilon. We had to get through one more lock before our destination, but by now we are getting our system worked out so even though the spacing is wide between holding spots, we now aim for the ladder and use that to hold ourselves in place with two lines. The marina is tucked back off the mainstream of the Seine in a very well protected “pond”. You have to enter this area by going through a low bridge – we are now getting used to the idea that we don’t have the normal headroom of a sailboat and can get into these areas now. There was an outer area that looked like it would have been a wonderful place to anchor, but we continued into the port and were able to stay overnight on very
new docks that they are still in the middle of finishing. They didn’t have utilities located here yet, but it didn’t matter as we have been motoring all day so the batteries were definitely fully charged.
Our plan was to have a long day of traveling the next day, but the weather changed our mind. We woke up early to unbelievably thick “pea soup fog”. We figured it would burn off shortly, but it actually took until after 11AM before we were able to actually see the trees lining the shore. We got the engine started and left at 11:30AM. This late a start meant we would not make it to our next planned stop unfortunately. We had found while reviewing the waterway guide that we use that there are not that many places along the way that are open for pleasure boats to stop with our depth. This could be a problem, but we figured we would push as much as we could to get as far as possible so the next day we could make it to the marina in Paris. Traveling the Seine continues to provide us with some heavily wooded areas, small villages to view,
industrial businesses, lots of twist and turns, signs to watch for telling us where to cross the river and a few swans thrown in for good measure. It always seemed that when we were coming up to a bend in the river that was when we would meet a commercial freighter coming the other way - thankfully with our AIS we could tell what was coming around the corner. We kept our eyes on the time and checked our waterway guide for possible stopping places. Now it is starting to get dark by 7:30pm so we figured that by 6PM we will have to determine how far we could get comfortably for the night. There was one stop mentioned in the book that sounded like a possibility but when we got there it was a little early to stop. Just as we were coming up to it, we saw a Canadian boat coming from the other direction heading for this stop (which has room for 1 boat). Looking closer we saw that it was Nigel and Ann from Chanticleer whom we had met when we stayed the winter in London. They had just left the marina in Paris and are
This Barge is Permanently Here
another liveaboard similar to the Netherlands heading to Belgium for the winter. We passed by and talked them for a few minutes before deciding to continue on to get closer to Paris. We knew that they were in the area so it was nice to say hi, even if only for a few minutes.
In the guide it states at Le Pecq “mooring possible”. It is 52 km from Paris with two more locks to go through so that would work out for a good next day’s journey. Decision made. When we arrived about 7:15pm it didn’t look that inviting as it was a very high quay that appeared to be for a commercial boat. There was a yacht club across the river so we thought that may be safer and headed over there. That would have worked out well if we didn’t run aground first! After getting ourselves off the mud bottom we knew with darkness closing in fast we had to tie up to the high quay. It was quite a job to tie up as we had to crawl around under the pilings to get our lines secured, but we accomplished that. We weren’t comfortable with this location, but it was what
we had to deal with. We left our AIS on at night so any commercial traffic could see we were there. Fortunately Bob was restless in the night and got up about 4AM to read. At 4:30AM there was a horn blast announcing that a boat had arrived and wanted this spot. Oh dear, now what to do at 4:30AM? Fortunately we got the lines untied quickly and better yet when asked they stated we could raft up to them! We circled around until they were settled into place and then we tied up to them mid-ship. It was another one of those very large river cruise ships that ply this river constantly. With all of their patio windows we had to be careful with the anchor over our bow that we didn’t hit the window, but with a little help from their staff we got into position and stayed for the next few hours until daybreak. We definitely gave a few of the early risers on the ship a surprise when they came out on their balcony that morning and saw us there. It is definitely not a stop we would recommend to any pleasure boat in the future
– we were just pleased that the captain of the ship was very congenial in accommodating us by allowing us to raft to him. He even came down to thank us for moving – we didn’t really feel that we had a choice, but it was nice of him to stop by.
Our last day into Paris was a spectacularly clear day. We were treated to a beautiful sunrise shortly after leaving our place in Le Pecq giving us a peaceful start to the trip. Today we had two more locks on the Seine to get through and then the last one into the marina itself. The first one we arrived at had two red lights so we knew we had to wait. Not a problem. We tried calling on the radio to get an idea of how long a wait it would be, but the lights changed to 1 red and 1 green. OK, getting ready to open so we start moving ahead. Suddenly it goes to two red lights again. Definitely not sure what is happening now and we can’t get anyone on the radio. We keep a distance from the lock and finally about 20 minutes
Look Closely on the Right WAY Up front
and you will see Tsamaya tucked in safely later the lock opens up to let out a very small pleasure power boat. Not sure what happened, but now it was time for us to lock through. We were ready to get to Paris and settled in.
As we got closer to Paris we started to see numerous barges along the riverbanks that people were using as homes. It looked in many ways similar to those we had seen in the Netherlands. Some barges were being used as restaurants and even office spaces for a variety of businesses. There was an increase in boat traffic and then the city skyline came in to view. Very modern with businesses such as Microsoft, numerous insurance and banking companies and plenty of others that we did not recognize. Finally the Eiffel Tower came into view in the distance. We had arrived!
Started taking photos of the Eiffel Tower and then took more, and then more again until we realized we were going to be going right past the base on the Eiffel Tower – quite a trip indeed! At one point we got to see the replica of the Statute of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower at the same time
–quite a picture to see. You travel through numerous bridges with very detailed sculptures, past monumental buildings such as the Musee d’Orsay which is in the old railroad station and of course the easily identifiable Notre Dame. You are busy traveling through plenty of bridges, trying to see all that you can while at the same time avoiding all the tour boats “buzzing” all around.
Hard to believe but by 3PM on the 5
th day after leaving Rouen we were in Port Arsenal in the middle of Paris. The trip could have been made in less time but we are glad we took the extra day to stop at the Monet Gardens. Shortly after getting settled in we had a visit from Sally and Al to welcome us to Paris.
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