Went for an early walk around Clairac looking for a place to leave recyclables and bottles. No public bins in sight, because everyone had their own wheelie bins (unlike many other French towns) so we used one of those bins to get rid of the recyclables and then went looking for a bottle bin. Stopped in front of a window displaying pan-flutes and while we were watching, the owner of the house/studio/shopfront came out and engaged us in conversation. He asked if we would like to go inside to see them in more detail, as well as some of his artwork. Turns out he is an English jazz musician who has lived in Clairac for eight years. Very interesting character – he even took our bottles and put them with his bottles which he was going to get rid of later that day!

Headed off from Clairac later in the morning, following Hilda May, not knowing quite how far we would progress. Very pleasant cruise up the river, punctuated by a series of marker buoys defining shallow waters. Must remember: going up-river, the right bank is on the left (port) side, and you keep the red buoys on the port side of the boat.

Along the way we passed the barge Kevin - an all-electric barge that seems to be one of the most active on the Lot. It's not very fast, but the lady captain takes disabled groups for cruises and we seemed to see Kevin more than any other barge during our two weeks on the Lot.

We passed by the Prune Museum without stopping, even though the mooring spaces in the shade looked inviting. Reached Castelmoron just before noon and decided to stop for lunch. A delightful mooring spot in front of the Mairie building and across from the river piscine. At the stroke of noon, the town siren sounded to announce our arrival!

Rita took the opportunity for a swim, across the river and then in the piscine, next to the sandy beach on the other side of the river.

It was such a nice spot we decided to stop here for the rest of the day and go to a local café for dinner that evening to a place that Stuart & Christine had seen on a walk. Rita and I took the opportunity to walk up to the hydroelectric plant to inspect the next lock we would be going through tomorrow, and on the way back we saw a nice little chateau which I was able to photograph through their iron gates.

We came back into town to the café to make a booking, only to find that they don’t open at nights. On the way back to the boats, we met up with Stuart who had just taken Christine to the doctors. Apparently she had been bitten by a tick a few days earlier and only just realised what it was. The doctor removed the tick and prescribed some antibiotics, with a warning to stay out of the sun because of a possible side-effect of the antibiotic. So they retreated to their boat, while we waited for another afternoon swim. However, while waiting, a bunch of the “local lads” decided to set up camp on the dock and stairs between our boats, and have some fun jumping into the water near the rear deck of Hilda May to see how much water they could get onto the deck. Unsurprisingly, Stuart & Christine didn’t think this was as much fun as the local lads did! So we made a snap decision to leave those moorings, because we figured it would only get rowdier as the day progressed, and head off up-river a bit further.

This meant that we would be going through the lock beside the hydroelectric power plant today, instead of tomorrow.

This was a new experience in many ways; firstly, it was the deepest lock we had experienced so far (10m), secondly it had floating bollards, and thirdly it had a guillotine gate instead of swinging gates. Ten metres does not sound a lot until you are on the boat at the bottom of the lock looking up at the sky. But apart from the slight sense of claustrophobia, the lock was easier than most. The floating bollards, which rise up the side of the lock as the boat rises, were easy to use and the water entered from the floor of the lock, eliminating a lot of the turbulence you often feel in rising locks. Despite our initial trepidations, it was no real problem.

After that we cruised upstream, negotiating a series of buoys, especially around the aquatic centre at Le Temple-sur-Lot, where a rowing course had been marked out down the centre of the river. Luckily we kept to the left of this course, which made it easier to continue onwards. We finally saw Hilda May moored at Fongrave, and pulled over to moor in front of her. The real mooring dock was occupied by two other boats, so Hilda May and Kanumbra occupied a low concrete dock (probably used by rowers) and tied up to an adjacent steel fence.

All went well until the rowing practice stopped and the water-skiers appeared. They then proceeded to roar up and down the river for the next few hours, causing all the moored boats to rock side to side (up the 3 degrees each way).

We realised that we couldn’t eat on-board under those conditions, but the only restaurant in town was closed on Tuesdays (as was La Source, just up-river). So we put table and chairs on the dock and had dinner there. During dinner, a vanload of 7 armed police turned up at the dock with a small inflatable boat. Initially, we thought they may tell us we were moored illegally and to move on. But they then proceeded to launch the boat, all climbed aboard and took off on the river. We wondered what they were up to.

After dinner, Stuart got out his squeeze-box and Rita got her recorder and pan, and they started a little jam session on the dock. We were amazed how many people started approaching from up the river and were feeling quite happy with the outcome. Until a girl appeared from above and asked us to stop playing, because she was part of a travelling troupe which was just about to start a performance in the square above the dock. Now we understood why all the people were appearing – they were coming for the other show! So we packed up and went up to see what was happening. An interesting performance, especially when one of them led all of the audience round the town as part of the show. At this stage, we decided to retreat back to the boats to finish dinner and enjoy a quiet night of conversation and laughter.

As we were finishing dessert, the boatload of police arrived back and marched a fisherman, who was on the dock fishing, up the road and into a house. Five minutes later, they re-emerged and the fisherman went back to the dock and all the police took off in the boat again. Rita asked the fisherman later what it was all about, and he said that they were just checking his fishing licence, which he had left at home. So, now we know the answer to that old question “How many armed French police does it take to check a fishing licence?”: 7.