Nearly ready to go (29/05 – 2/06)

Auxonne

More Maintenance

Our major outstanding tasks were refurbishing our mast (damaged in a collision with a bridge last year), establishing our flower garden, giving the sides of the wheelhouse and the salon a new coat of paint and some engine maintenance. Sundry other tasks as well. The painting was pretty arduous as the weather turned warm but the result – shiny ivory paint along the whole length of Catharina Elisabeth’s wheelhouse and salon was worth it.

Meanwhile, Ian did some filling of the gaps left after the mast was repaired and I re-oiled all the wood and painted the new tulip that will sit atop the mast to replace the one lost in our argument with the bridge on the way to Briare.

This new tulip had been created by our good friend John in Sunbury who is a whizz at all things including turning wood. I also oiled the two flagpoles. Which proved to be an over reach as last night’s storm tore the stern one out of its mounting. Ian and a friend planned on a dive into the murky depths to see if it can be located and brought up. The shame is that this is our Dutch flag that reflects the registration of Catharina, and it is a quality, woven piece. Which may have contributed to its demise as it likely forced the pole to the depths of the water. The next day, Ian tried some magnet fishing seeking the cleat but lo and behold he could see the edge of the flagpole poking out from under the pontoon. He bent down and retrieved it and his glasses fell in. Good to have the flag and its pole, but that is the third pair of my spectacles that have been consigned to the depths. Perhaps I should learn to tie them on, as Lisette has often suggested.

Friends had taken me to a local garden place to choose my plants, but the pickings were slim. I bought several bags of soil and I did come back with a dozen portulaca which always provide a colourful display. But there was little else that would suit our deck pots.

John, the Aussie capitaine of the port drove me around to a market garden place that sells direct to the public and I bought the freshest veg I have yet seen. For a fraction of the price at any of the supermarkets. I hope to get one more visit in there to stock up before we cruise off.

One day, John loaned us his car and we visited to another local market garden that sells plants direct to the public. This time, the choice was vast. Heaps of colourful healthy variety and at a fraction of the cost at the garden centre. Local markets often have flowers and herbs for sale, but we kept missing the Auxonne one. Here I was able to stock up on the marigolds that Ian likes so much.

 The afternoon was a bit overcast, but that made it the perfect time to plant them all up. We also bought a few new pots as my red ones were looking a little faded. Several of the local boaties had taken all my pots before we left last year, and distributed them among all the pontoons, so they could be enjoyed as long as they lasted and then put all the empty pots back on Catharina before we returned. Fifteen pots in all. Twelve on the salon roof, two hanging from the railings of the stern deck and one for herbs. Last year I grew tomatoes that a Frenchwoman insisted I take. The year before Simon, from the shipyard gave me some cucumbers and lettuce to grow. But I will be happy with some chives and coriander. I donated all my surplus pots to the port.

I have oiled the four large wheelhouse windows and touched up various bits and pieces. Ian has buried himself in the depths of the engine room, changing oil and replacing filters. Not his favourite job I am sure, but a necessary one.

One of the essential but dirty chores is the routine engine maintenance. Theoretically, there is an oil change, fuel and oil filter change for two engines, an oil change for the engine fuel pump and an oil and filter change for the gearbox. Nine servicing items. As we’re not using the generator these days (nor did we all last season) and as it was serviced late last year, I decided to be lazy and not service that. Six items left. I started with the fuel filter for the engine.

This is my most hated job. What should be a simple task to just remove and replace a filter is an absolute torment because of the terrible design. I won’t go into details other than to say the job can’t be completed without a lot straining, fiddling and cursing. However, eventually it was done. (However, one could compare this to other vessels where the owners curse that they must crawl around on hands and knees to access their engine rooms.)

When we first cruised Catharina, I did the engine oil change in traditional fashion. A big plastic container, cut to shape by the previous owner was placed in the bilges and the drain plug in the sump opened up. Seven litres of oil later, the container was carefully lifted out (hard) and decanted into containers (messy). For the last couple of years, I used an oil transfer pump that Simon Evans had at the yard and this simply sucked the oil out of the dipstick tube and sent it to containers directly. Simple, clean and reasonably fast. This year I bought a cheap pump from Temu (thanks Craig Banbury of Liza), carried over in our luggage and it worked a treat.

Next job was the messy and tricky engine oil filter – but no new filter (oops!) so that will have to wait a bit. Down to five items to be done. Then change the oil in the fuel pump – easy, and only a little messy. OK engine done. Now the gearbox. Drain the oil with the transfer pump. Nice and easy then remove the filter container – oil everywhere. But the replacement was straightforward once the slippery oil had been removed. Check levels, start the engine, put the propellor into gear. Stop recheck levels and top up as the filters load and run again for leak checking. Fortunately all good and job (mostly) done.

All up, took about six hours. I reckon it is the same as having a baby (not actually having the baby!) – fair point, perhaps “caring for a baby”) and having to change nappies. Unpleasant, messy but necessary and in the end there is the mutual satisfaction of a happy baby or a refreshed old lady barge.

One sunny afternoon we cycled into town and Ian was able to climb the tower while I waited below. I use the term cycled loosely, as my first foray on the bike was dreadful. I feel I am walking perfectly normally post total knee replacement last October, and while I have to be careful going up and down steps to find the best way to bend my knee, I am not in any pain at all. But bringing my knee up high as the pedals rotate was excruciating. I am trying to stretch the knee more to loosen it up, but there is still considerable swelling so it might take a little longer. A real shame, as the cycling offers us so much more in terms of what we can see and do, and I was really good about doing all of the exercises I was given after the surgery, for months and months. At Ian’s instigation I resorted to using the throttle exclusively and tried to remember not to rotate the pedals at all. Not a sustainable practice, but it might have to suffice for now.

All the major jobs done, we spent the next day in tidying up loose ends ready for departure on Tuesday the 3rd of June, 12 days after we stepped on board.

Auxonne

Auxonne these days is a military town. There are some 8,000 inhabitants and about 1,500 military personnel stationed there at any one time. It is a transport unit. Training takes place in and around the barracks and one morning we watched as they were doing some sort of crowd control exercise. A small group of unarmed, shirt-sleeved soldiers grouped, argued and then engaged in shouting and fisticuffs. A small, uniformed and armed unit of soldiers approached and trained in how to intervene.

Like most places in Europe, Auxonne had to be fortified to defend its citizens from attack and remnants of this construction remain. The four gates into the city still exist in some form or other but the best preserved is the Port Royal.

However, from the local’s point of view, the main feature is that a young Corsican lieutenant, one Napoléon Bonaparte, had his military training in Auxerre in 1788 and 1791. He specialised in artillery and mathematics Good training it must have been because Napoleon’s use of artillery was probably the most outstanding feature of his military campaigns. The statue, next to the church, represents the 19 year-old in his army uniform.

At the foot are four bas-reliefs of events in his life. I can identify two, guess one and the other – I can’t say.

Once a year, on patrimony weekend (all Europe has a weekend in September set aside for public access to all historical resources – free museums and entry to restricted places) we took a tour of the rooms that Napoleon was quartered in and these have been preserved and filled with items from the period.

The town has made use of four of its ronds-points (roundabouts) to display features of the historical local culture during the 20th century.

Starting from the one closest to the port, there is a fisherman – on the Saône of course.

The next one, near the military barracks is a woodsman chopping wood. Then and now, wood is a very important source of heating in France.

In the middle of town, the rond-point features two women harvesting onions. One is pushing a barrow over a bridge with a bin , the other kneeling down, filling a bin with the onions she is digging out.

The most colourful is just near the local supermarket where a man is threshing onions and the woman is sifting the seeds for collection and use in next year’s planning. The deep-red onion of the Auxonne commune was an important agricultural crop in the 19th century and earlier but the variety is now extinct.

We haven’t covered all there is to see in Auxonne but these are perhaps the highlights we have managed to fit into our punishing work and social schedule this season. We intend to be back here sometime in the future – it’s a charming town. So, with as many farewell drinks as we could fit in, it was time to turn the engine on and take the ropes off.