We awoke to a sunny, but misty, morning with not a hint of a breeze. The view over the canal was captivating.

As we made an early start before any other boats had appeared, the canal was like a millpond, and this was particularly evident as we arrived at "pencil pines corner”.

Our intention today was to get to Carcassonne nice and early and settle into our mooring, before Rita had to leave for Dijon early tomorrow morning.

We arrived at Lalande Ecluse without seeing any other boats, and the open lock awaiting our arrival looked like an infinity pool, with the following canal far below.

This lock had other attractions, particularly the direction signs to all points of the globe, which must have made many of the bargees feel right at home (strangely, Taggerty was not on any of the signs!).

Today was a short cruising day, and we arrived at Carcassonne before noon. We passed through the Marengo Lock with less drama than last year, and were soon moored in the same mooring as we had last year, just up from Amethyst, the little blue narrow boat.

Since we were going to be staying here for a while, we put the bimini back up so that the rear deck was more usable. We then went and collected the car from the parking lot and drove out to do some grocery shopping at the LeClerc supermarket, then some materials from BricoMart (timber and bungee cords) and finally some more from Weldoms (curtain rods for the cabin tarp cover and bungee hooks).

When we came back, we looked for and eventually found a parking spot near the barge so that we could easily unload everything (and so Rita could later load everything for her trip to Dijon tomorrow).

During the afternoon, I heard a knock on the door and found that Steph had delivered the siphon pump that I had ordered from Amazon. So I then proceeded to test it by siphoning the diesel from the engine room bilge. It didn’t get everything out, but it did a reasonable job and now I just have to soak up the remaining amount with baby nappies.

In the evening, we prepared the car for Rita’s trip, and then I followed the SGP Speedway Grand Prix from Slovenia, with Australian Jason Doyle returning to form with second place in the Final and top points scored overall.