Jaux to Cergy

Hello from civilisation ... yes, we have arrived at Port Cergy, a lovely PdP (catering for up to 50 boats) with - wait for it: mosaic tiled walk-in showers that work and are hot!  Also a nice washing machine and new tumble drier - that work!  We have power, water and free wifi so we've decided to stay for 5 nights to relax and get ourselves and the boat ready for the final push to Paris next week where we meet our friends David & Roche from Whistable.  Here's a little taster of the last couple of days.

Wednesday 29 June - Jaux to L'Isle Adam
We awoke at 0700 to thick mist and realised that's why there'd been no barge movement to wake us.  The sun soon burned off the mist which was great as we had quite a long run ahead of us.  We are now in the River Oise as opposed to the canals and the water levels are controlled by sluices so there was quite a current to help us along.  We had 5 descending locks today but they were much smaller than those in previous posts so not daunting at all.  Strangely we weren't followed by a barge or yacht all day which meant no waiting around at the locks and we had the locks to ourselves which was great. 

We are starting to see planes overhead taking off from nearby Paris Arsenal airport (we think) or, possibly Charles de Gaulle, so we know we're getting close to Paris - lots of trains whizzing by too en route to the capital.  Getting quite excited! 

After 7 hours cruising we arrived at L'Isle Adam, a small quayside mooring for an overnight stay.  There are lots of these moorings along the canals with varying degrees of facilities.  This one had power and water so we thought we'd tie up there for the night.  Sadly, the pontoon-side debit/credit card reader wasn't working so we didn't have power or water(!) but it was quite a warm evening and we already had a full tank of water.

L'Isle Adam is quite an upmarket riverside retreat with lovely shops, boutiques and a patisserie to die for!  We gave into tarte au citron - yum!  There is a fab outdoor swimming pool complex which reminded me of the 1950's Hollywood film sets, complete with man-made beach.  But the highlight of L'Isle Adam for us was a family of 4 beaver/coipu like creatures.  We couldn't work out why they were actively pursuing ducks and then we realised they wanted to steal their food!  It was really funny watching these little animals swimming with such gusto after a tidbit. 

On arrival, we heard a radio blaring out and figured it was a nearby builder's companion but, when we went ashore, we realised the same radio station was playing all around the town.  It reminded us of the TV series, 'The Prisoner' - in fact the architecture was quite similar.  Fortunately it stopped at about 7.30pm and, as we hadn't seen a big white balloon/bubble coming towards us we figured we were OK for a night!

Locks today: 5 (total 38)
Miles today: 40 (total 163)

Thursday 30 May (L'Isle Adam to Cergy)
Just a short hop today (19km) to Cergy.  We reserved a place here as we knew it was popular and moored alongside "Venture" and were invited onboard by Garth & Catherine for coffee which was nice and where we met a lovely Norwegian couple - Oewin and Oedny from 'Ny Likke' who had done a similar trip to us last year (in a power boat) and written a beautiful book which they showed us.  It was quite something and we asked if the planned to publish it in English as they'd have lots of readers.  Watch this space!

We invited Garth & Catherine onboard for vino as we'd not really spent time with them as our passage plans differed slightly.  They are leaving tomorrow for Paris to meet family so we hope to catch up with them there again. 

The weather looks like it's changing for the better tomorrow so that's great.  Hope you're all well and enjoying the blog.  I'll do a separate post for our stay in Cergy so check-in soon folks for some more looney tunes!

F&M
xx