from St Omer to Arleux via Canal du Nord

Guilotine Locks

Thursday 9th June 2005

Barge Waiting Quay

Left St Omer early to get a good run today. We went through some several deep locks (upwards) the deepest was around 13 metres, although with floating bollards you just tie up and go up with them - no problem! It is a bit earie until you get used to them, as you pass under the big guillotine doors the smelly water drips on you and when you look up the slimey walls seem to go on forever.

We have been trying to get into the locks infront of the barges rather than behind as their prop wash really throws the water around. Commercial traffic does get priority so it really is up to the lock keeper if he lets you in - luckily for us we've had no problem.

In total we did around 95km today, it was quite uneventful. At around 6pm we started to look for somewhere to moor for the night but there wasn't anywhere and with the big barges going past frequently drawing all the water away from the sides of the canal, we didn't fancy putting rhond anchors in and tying up to those. Eventually at nearly 9.00pm we found a spot on a lock waiting quay at Arleux where there was a lot of commercial traffic waiting to go through the lock the next morning.

We are using a Navicarte book, number 24 - 'Picardie' which is from a range of pilotage books for the canals. All along the banks of the canals are numbers which you can follow in the book so you know exactly where you are and also helps keep a track of when the next lock is coming up.

Something else also happened today, my sister has had her baby, a little girl named Ebony :)

Veurne to St Omer via Dunkerque

Veurne Market

French Boarder

Wednesday 8th June

We made an earlier start this morning as we are going to make for St Omer in France today. First though we had a trip to the local market which was held in the large central market place. The fresh strawberries really scented the air so we bought some of those for later. The market was a typical mix of fruit and vegetable, clothes, hardware and even some livestock and although last night the town was completely deserted, today it seemed like the everyone who lives there has turned out.

There were no locks on the first part of trip, just lifting bridges which were no problem at all. Karl pulled over to the bankside at Adinkerke for me to hop off, climb up the steep bank and nip to the chocolate factory to buy goodies - there wasn't any mooring places so he just stayed with the boat while I did my trolley dash!

The French border was a lifting bridge where we had to present the boats papers and our passports in the bridge office. We had to fill in some paperwork here which enabled us to collect a licence later at the VNF office further along the canal in Dunkerque, this was 224 euros for the remainder of the year. As we entered Dunkerque the first lock was automatic but this was broken so we had to wait for an operator who had to come from the seaport.

Immediately after we had collected our licence we went into a lock, the first of many! We then carried on along the canal via Watten to St Omer where we found a little marina for the night for the fee of 14 euros, water & electricity included - in total we have travelled 61.5 kilometres today.

In the marina Karl spotted a boat which still had a Broads licence number on it and recognised it from a marina at home where we had once moored. He wandered off to take a look while I prepared our meal, when he came back he told me that not only was it the same boat but the same owners, who happened to onboard for their holiday - they live just 3.5 miles away from us in the UK!! Small world.