Monday 20th April 2015 St Christ-Briost to Cappy. 24.1kms 4 locks

Above Peronne lock 13 C du Nord

4.0° C Sunny with a chilly breeze. Mike and Graham set off at 8.00 am to move cars, five minutes later a boat went past making lots of wash, causing stuff to fall off cupboards on our boat, the same on MR plus breaking a fender attachment. When the skippers returned we set off at 9.30 am, passing a loaded pusher pair with the wonderful names, Why Not and Why Me! At the concrete works an empty called Isis was moored while Amon’s cargo of aggregates was being unloaded. I phoned the lock booking service for the Somme and a pleasant young man said there would be an agent

Notice board at the start of the canal de la Somme

de service at the first lock when we arrived at 11.30 am. The next boat past was a loaded péniche called Bona Fide. Shortly afterwards a VNF survey boat went by, closely following the towpath, presumably checking the depth. We slowed down while lock 13 Pérronne filled, then we dropped down 3.60m in our last lock (for now, we’ll have to return either north or south on this canal later) on the canal du Nord. That was well timed as the next pushtow, Arizona and Gilbea, were not too far from

First sighting of a brood of ducklings

the lock. The port-de-plaisance moorings in the arm at Pérronne were full, a line of cruisers on both sides of the pontoon – all “dead” boats, ie left there permanently. A row of red painted metal bars sunk into the canal bed were placed around the entrance to the arm, indicating that it was shallow. Some more of the same bars had been planted by the entrance to the canal de la Somme so we continued to the end of them before turning left into the entrance of the canal. It was 11.25 am. The depth of water immediately halved from 4m to 2m. A kingfisher darted along the bank in front of us, then we saw the first ducklings of the year, a big brood of about a dozen little balls of

Liftbridge at Feuillieres

floating fluff. There was a big etang on our right out of sight beyond some trees and a smaller one on our left, close by the canal and bordered by small wooden holiday chalets. The banks closed in and become higher, sheltering us from the wind and it was much warmer. As the bare earth canal bank on our left became higher and higher we came to a section where there had been a bank slip. Around the next bend there were farm buildings close to the canal where a man and a boy stopped playing outdoor table tennis to wave as we went past. A cheery lock keeper with a bright

Noisy neighbours in Cappy

orange van (the Somme is not a VNF waterway) was there at the first lock, 7 Sormont (back to smaller Freycinet sized locks of 38.5m x 5.10m) with the lock full and gates open. He pressed the buttons in the lock cabin and we dropped down 1.10m while chatting. He seemed very pleased to have two boats to work the locks for on his canal. He said he would open the next liftbridge for us then he would have his lunch, returning to operate the next lock for us at 1.30 pm. We passed under the busy A1 autoroute and the TGV railway bridges and the liftbridge at Feuillères opened, we passed through and wished our roving lock keeper bon appetite. We motored on to the next lock, 8 Frise, and tied to an old square pan (higher than our roof and listing

Moored at Cappy

towards the bank) by the quay above the lock, leaving the low quay for MR so that Jill could easily get the dogs off for their walk. Mike was quite disappointed to be reminded that there was no lunch today. Our man in his orange van returned as promised at 1.30pm and we dropped down 4.20m then after a short distance another 1.7m in lock 9 also called Frise. Mike hopped off to give the keeper a couple of bottles of Kronenberg beer to say thanks. He worked the next liftbridge for us in the village of Eclusier-Vaux and we said we’d ring when we needed to book our passage after a few days in Cappy. 3kms to the moorings in Cappy. The low hills receded a little and we had open views across some fields on our left as we approached the town, famous for its P’tit Train, now restored as a tourist train, it was built to haul supplies and munitions to the front line during WW1. We winded so our side doors were on the wet side and moored next to the wooden piling before the Locaboat hirebase (we later found out that it had closed in October last year, a great blow to the local economy). The boat was grounding amidships so Mike set a quant pole out at the stern end to keep the boat off the bottom, then he and Graham went to collect our car from St Christ-Briost. I put the laptop on to do the log and discovered we had a lousy Internet connexion, just EDGE so practically unworkable.