The wind picked up overnight, and in the early morning hours I was woken by the sound of the hull hitting the sloping quai wall underwater. I therefore got up and placed a tyre as a midpoint fender at water level. However, this did not do the trick, so I then dropped a balloon fender to lie horizontal on the water between the hull and the sloping wall, and this effectively killed the noise, and allowed me to get back to sleep. But I was wondering what the morning would bring!

In the morning, we went to the Capitainerie to pay the mooring fee and were astounded to see that it would be 50 euro for the night!!  I know that Marseillan is popular, but this was ridiculous.  I guess it’s a nice place to stay for just one night, so that you can cross it off the bucket list!

When I got back to the barge, I saw that the battery had only been charged up to 80% overnight. Every other mooring had got the batteries up to 100%, so this port must have very low ampage available from the bornes.  Doubly annoying, considering the price.

Given what we paid, I decided to at least take on some water, and got the special adaptor from the capitainerie - we need to buy our own double-male-ended water connector. The one from the capitainerie did not have an on/off valve like the one we got at Carcassonne, so we needed to have the hose in the tank when connecting to the borne, because there is an immediate flow of water when it is connected. I learned this the hard (wet) way!

We didn’t fill the tank, because we needed to cross the Etang today before the forecast Force 6-7 wind arrived, and then head for a safe haven at Frontignan.

So in mid-morning we set off to cross the Etang. This was relatively straight-forward, heading out from Marseillan to the edge of the oyster beds, then following the line between the red and green markers to Sete. Luckily we had two hire boats ahead in the distance, so we simply followed them (hoping they were going in the right direction), because the markers were harder to see without the constant use of binoculars.

The breeze was picking up, so there were many sailboats out having fun on a Sunday.

Eventually, after a couple of hours, we reached the marker bouy near Sete and rounded it to set direction to re-enter the canal on the other side of the harbour. It had been an enjoyable experience, but I’m glad we got away before the wind really picked up.

There were no moorings near Sete or beyond on the Canal de Rhone a Sete, so we just kept on moving on. But we were starting to see some of the bird-life for which the Etang area is famous. These gulls seemed to have very specific rules about personal space.

A little while later, we were to see the first of many flamingo communities.

Eventually we arrived in Frontignan at around 1400h, which we had decided would be our destination for the day. This was partly our decision, and partly imposed on us by the fact that the lifting bridge in Frontignan only opens twice a day, 0830h and 1600h. So we tied up to a temporary mooring (along with many others waiting for the bridge opening). But at around 1500h, someone departed from the other side of the canal, where the more permanent moorings with water and electricity are located. I waited to see whether anyone who was in port when we arrived moved into the space (for about 2 minutes) and then unmoored myself (Rita had gone walkabout to check out the port) and worked my way across the canal to claim the vacant space, right next to the jeton machine and close to the boulangeries and creperie. By the time I got there, Rita had returned and was able to help with the ropes.

Our new mooring gave us a prime position to watch the "15 minutes of mayhem" at 1600h, when the bridge opened. At 1559h, all was calm as the bridge was still closed.

At 1601h, after the bridge opened, the mayhem began, with boats coming upstream under the bridge and boats on the upstream side cutting across their bows to get into position to go under the bridge in the other direction.

Some boats were going slowly looking for a mooring (good luck, because many downstream boats had not yet cast off) while others just wanted to get through as fast as possible (after all, most were hire-boats).

As they headed for the first bend, it was on for young and old, with boats passing, overtaking and crossing other boats in all directions.

And then at about 1615h, calm returned to the sleepy port at Frontignan.

One of the reasons we decided to stay for the night was that we had looked at the weather forecasts, and strong (50-70kph) winds were forecast for the area tomorrow. We didn’t see any point in hurrying along for a couple of hours with lots of other boats, and then being caught on the Etang in strong winds tomorrow. So we relaxed for the afternoon, but secured ourselves and the barge for the windstorm, raised and secured the bimini so that we could again use the rear deck, and then walked around town and went to the Mairie Square for drinks.

We had dinner on-board, and the port looked very peaceful tonight, looking down towards the lifting bridge...

across to where we had made our temporary mooring earlier this afternoon...

or back to the east where we had arrived from Marseillan.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings!