AvantiB and its crew waiting for the VNF as yet another lock is broken. Usually the VNF (Voies Navigable the France) employee just comes and has to press a button to reset a circuit breaker.
One employee tells us that they try to tell their superiors that the system doesn't work and has many technical problems, but he says 'nobody listens'. So he asks us to send a letter as the management might listen to the users.
We wonder what happens in summer when traffic is heavy! Will the VNF just assign a person to each lock (so not saving anything over the previous system where each lock had a lock-keeper?).
But why are we here? No - not because of bad planning, but because we lost more time following our favorite past-time..... waiting for the VNF!
Did you read the previous sentence? MAY 1 in France! Everything is closed! Except the automatic locks. The note says 'the locks work, but if something breaks nobody will come and fix it'.
Since we just want to reach L'Isle sur Doubs we hope that we are lucky and that none of the three locks leading to L'Isle sur Doubs will be broken!
Just opposite our mooring in L'Isle sur Doubs is a Super U Gas station. So we rent a shopping cart and after three trips with our 100 liter containers our tank is full again.
We also take the opportunity to change the oil, filters as we are just over 100 hours since we left Beaucaire.
When we left Beaucaire the spring bloom was nearly over and here trees are still in full bloom. Even some of Betty's plants on the deck get confused and one plant starts blooming for a second time this year.
We make it, the measurement was correct. It turns out that our flag-pole is just about 3.47m high so barley scrapes by.
