Woke to grey skies, which all too soon turned to blue, promising another hot day. Went into Ste Sylvestre to the Intermarche and Brico and picked up another deckchair and a small Weber BBQ – in preparation for the hard summer ahead.

Then in late morning we took off to go as far up the Lot as we could go. A short cruise, with some views of Notre Dame from the other side, saw us soon in Lustrac. A very small village, but with a lovely old chateau and mill surrounding the lock.

We tied up at the small pontoon and Rita took a short "swim" in the Lot until there was a knock at the wheelhouse door. A canoeist explained that he was travelling down the Lot from Figeac, but didn’t have a key-tag to operate the locks. He asked if we could operate it with ours, so that he wouldn’t have to haul his canoe around the lock on his trolley, as he had to do at the one upsteam of Lustrac. We were happy to oblige and learn a little about his trip. Took a photo of him leaving the lock for the benefit of canoeists John and Caroline back home.

As we walked along the path back to the boat, we were passed by a car carrying tents and other gear on top. When we got back to the barge, the driver was standing at our pontoon looking inquisitively at the boat. Rita got into a conversation and found that they wanted to know if we were going to stay long at the pontoon, since it was their favourite fishing spot and they were thinking of setting up camp there for a weekend fishing expedition. We told them we were only stopping for lunch, so they started setting up camp, including outdoor portaloo tent! A good lesson that fishing is more important on French rivers than boats. As we were getting ready to leave, a group of novice canoeists launched from the bank near the lock. One of them then proceeded to capsize, requiring those who had passed us to turn around and come back to rescue him. They then went round and round in circles for a while. Lesson 2, canoes are more important than boats on French rivers. After they went ashore to dry out, I unmoored Kanumbra and moved off towards the lock, only to find that it had been taken over by a bunch of teenage boys jumping into the water in the lock. Lesson 3, teenage boy swimmers are more important than boats in locks on French rivers! As I approached the lock, I gave them a few blasts on the air horn, but that didn’t stop a few getting in one last swim.

We finally cleared the lock and headed upstream on the last leg. Just one lock to negotiate, which was made a bit slower by having to manoeuvre around some large logs that had decided to share the lock with us. As we approached Ste Vite, we entered the section of river that had been blasted out of a rock riverbed, and which was now guarded by red and green buoys. The Fluvial Guide advised to stay in the centre of the buoys because the edge of the channel had quite sharp rock edges.

This was no problem, except for the last few metres. As we got to within 100 metres of the new mooring at Ste Vite, we were surprised by raindrops. Turning around, we found we were being chased by a thunder cloud. Within seconds the raindrops turned to rain, and so I asked Rita to come back from the bow to help close the front window of the wheelhouse before the rain got any heavier. Having done this, she returned to bow ready for mooring, but now the rain was getting heavier, so she asked me to hurry up and get to the mooring. I tried to obliged but in the distraction of the rain and the closing of the window etc, I had drifted to the right of the channel nearer to the green buoys. This was no great worry until, 20 metres from the mooring I got hit by the cross-current from the upstream weir. This pushed me closer to the penultimate green buoy, which I sideswiped. This was not a worry, but the sound of the hull scraping against the underlying rock was more of a worry. But I couldn’t worry for long, since now I had to swing the barge around to get onto the rapidly approaching pontoon. In the end, it all worked out OK (except for the scraping on the rock edge of the channel). By the time we finished tying up, the rain was torrential. The climax however was a thunder clap as we both got back into the wheelhouse, where the sight of the lightning and the sound of the thunder was separated by only a micro-second. We didn’t see where it hit, but it was bloody close.

After two solid weeks of hot sunny weather, we were welcomed to the end of the navigable Lot by quite an exciting atmospheric display.  After we had settled down a bit, however, we welcomed the cooler temperatures and looked forward to getting a good sleep tonight for the first time this week in bearable conditions. We had a quite evening on board, punctuated by the locals who brought their kids and dogs down to the water, as well as the local fisherman who arrived late at night and, of course, the obligatory quad-bike. We also had an invasion of flying ants and other bugs, who must have hatched during the thunderstorm. I first noticed hundreds of them swarming around the lights in the kitchen, and then realised that the dogbox windows were open, and the flyscreen was not closed! So I turned all the downstairs lights off, put one light on in the wheelhouse and waited for them to migrate upstairs, which they did within a minute. Then a quick puff or two of flyspray upstairs, then close the door and hatch down to the salon, and the problem was solved.