Free Wi-Fi!

Monday morning. Beutiful weather and a nice cup of coffee in the cockpit. The kids are at sleep. Really nice with the free Wi-Fi connections at the marinas along the river. Today we will complete the trip on Rhone. Just another 40 km to Lyon which total length is 320 km. /Johan

Life on board and on the river

After almost two weeks on board life is slowly getting nice and easy. I know where stuff are...almost at least. I also feel more and more comfortable with mooring and leaving. This morning it was very easy compared to when we left Viviers. There we got stuck in the mud and had to juggle the whole boat. We were all four standing on the side on a narrow pontoon trying to rock the boat loose. Finally I felt that the boat was loose and Johan jumped on, reversed it quickly, and the rest of us jumped on. Off we went!

I am the navigator and the chef, responsible for where we are and what we eat. In the very beginning of this blog I thought it should be possible to write about what we eat and put out some recepies, but, nono, that has not been posible so far. But, I have been able to keep my pescotarian diet. Today we made minced meat sauce with pasta and som ratatouille for me. Very nice!

Otherwise we talk a lot, play cards and read, event though I have just been able to read a few pages so far. To much of my thinking have been occupied with the boat and the navigation. 

Along the way today we saw a lot of activity. We were really surprised that so much sporting is going on on the river. Some examples:

And then us...

Sitting in a quiet, windless harbour called Les Roches-de-Condrieu :D

Today we went from Valance to Les Roches-de-Condrieu and it took 14 hours (although I slept for 3 of them :D). It was partly because we had to wait 2 hours at the second lock and 1½ hours at the third lock for them to let us in. In the second lock they had to let a big barge through first, which carried dangerous goods and that means that we can not use the lock at the same time as them. At the third lock I think he was just being lazy because they are allowed to wait for a commercial boat for 20 minutes but he waited for 1 hour. In the lock there was a big cargo ship and then except for us there were 2 other pleasure boats. So in total there were 3 other boats in the lock which is the highest number of boats that we have locked with. We arrived here at 8:45pm. Yesterday we bought a kind of trolley that you pull, that carries groceries and other stuff that you don't want to carry. After 5 minutes it was broken and we had only walked a couple of hundred meters. Not particularly durable...

Here are some photos:

A nuclear power station.

An old boat that probably was a military ship a long time ago.

The barge that carried dangerous goods. You can se that by the blue cone. It is by one of the locks.

Steering

The same nuclear power station.

A little city along the road- or river as we can say... :D

The trolley

The weels fell off :P

My dad and I carried the trolley after it broke.

 A small part of the harbour in Valance. You can see our boat. Far to the left.

A swan family

A city along the way. They had gardens on their roofs. :P

Steering again :D

Where we are now. Les Roches-de-Condrieu.

                                                                                                                                     /Hanna :D

Some random photos from the trip that I like :)

I like this one :P

What a coincidence that our car has the same name as our kind of boat :P hehe :)

My dad wanted me to post this :P

A little bit too rusty, in my opinion :P

                                                                                                                                                 /Hanna :)

A kind of diary...

During the days that we have been in Viviers, I have kept a kind of Diary of what has happened. Today we went from Viviers to Valance and they can take 420 boats in the harbour here. I've also chosen some photos from the last couple of days that I'm going to show you. Here is the "Diary":

2011-06-28

Mamma och pappa åkte iväg innan vi hade vaknat så de väckte oss vid den första slussen den dagen. Vi åkte genom några slussar den dagen med flytande pollare och den högsta slussen var 22m hög. Det är den högsta slussen som vi åker igenom på hela resan. Vi åkte i 10 timmar och kom till Viviers där vi stannade en natt. De har stora dockor som föreställer badande kvinnor runt om i hamnen. Viviers är en jättefin gammal stad med jättefina bostadshus. Det kommer hela tiden färjor med turister som ligger i hamnen och spyr ut avgaser så att de ska kunna få el.

 2011-06-29

The mistral has come (which is a powerful wind that comes to different places in the channels) so we are going to stay in Viviers until it’s gone. We have taken a few walks in the city and my mom and I have been out running. I have taken lots of photos and I’m going to show some of them in my next post. I’m going to try to write more in English because I usually forget to :P

2011-06-30

Today we’re still in Viviers and I’m going to go to bed soon. I can hear some frogs or some other animals outside that are really loud.  First we thought it was birds but now we think that it’s frogs. Everyone else is sleeping so I’m going to go to bed too. We’ve spoken to a person who works in the little harbour and to a guy who is in another boat and they say that when the mistral comes it stays for 3,6 or 9 days. But they also said that the weather forecast shows that this time it’s only going to stay for 3 days so we should be able to leave tomorrow or on Saturday :P 

Here are the photos:

This is the little harbour in Avignon.

This is where our boat was in Port Napoleon.

Hehe :P nice, huh?

This measures the water levels when there is a flood, I think.

Do you?

This was taken by Lina on our way from Port Napoleon to Port St Louis.

My mom, my sister, and my dad in Port St Louis.

This is the Beaucaire lock.

Waiting for the first lock in Port St Louis early in the morning...

Viviers

This is the vinjett that we bought in Arles, which is our ticket to travel in the channels. :)

                                                                                                                               /Hanna :P

On track again!

After three days of strong wind, the Mistral, we decided this morning to move on again. We left Viviers early around 07.00 AM. The wind was still quite strong but the engine had no problem to take us in a fairly good speed up to the marina in Valance, about 50 km upstream. We have now made 200 of the 2000 km to Travemunde :-). The photos are from Avignon to Viviers.

The old bridge in Avignon in sunset.

A tired fisherman try to catch some fish 

just before the Avignon lock.

Hanna is talking to the Bollene lock keeper. Bollene lock is the highest lock on Rhone - 22 meters!

Bollene lock. (The lock is to the right, to the left there is a power station.)

The small harbour in Viviers the evening before the mistral...stilla flyter Rhone...

Some one sticks out in Vivieres

Viviers by night,

Harbour art in Viviers.

The for ever swimming ladies in Viviers.

Tjabba!

saknar er där hemma, jag vte inte riktigt vad jag ska skriva..............
på en vecka har jag läst ut fyra böcker snart :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D tänk mig: dag läsa, kväll läsa, morgon läsa, dag läsa och så vidare :O:O:OO


snart ska jag läsa ut min bok som jag började läsa idag <3' 
alla som kan min andra blogg kolla den oxå jag ska nog börja skriva på den oxå <3
kram lina <3