We were up early for a 0915h departure, before any boats arrived wanting to use the lock and the pontoon. As we cruised along, I realised that I had forgotten to get a new VNF Vignette before I came up from the Tarn and started using the canal again. Luckily, the VNF staff at the Tarn double-locks had not looked at the out-of-date one on the wheelhouse window. So we stopped at a small mooring area in East Agen while I got online and bought a new vignette for the coming 30 days. Since our printer was not working, however, I transferred the PDF of the vignette across to my iPad so that I could show any VNF staff if we were queried about our out-of-date vignette on the windscreen.

Having seen only one boat all of yesterday, we saw lots today, but they were all rowing sculls. Four of them passed us as we approached Agen, and then after they turned around they all proceeded to overtake us as we got closer to Agen. Once again, Agen port was full of mostly permanently moored barges in the harbour. This is a shame as it means that no one can stop overnight in Agen anymore. The city would be losing considerable tourist income, as it is the overnight moorers who would be more likely to go use the many restaurants in the city rather than the long-term moorers who can’t go to restaurants every night. But since the moorings are under VNF control, not city control, I guess they don’t care too much about tourist income to the city. A shame.

As we went through Agen, we were lucky enough to get green lights all the way through, across the Agen Aqueduct and then down through the 4 locks.

After we got through the 4 locks at Agen, there was a long stretch of canal with no locks, so Cap’n Rita took over the wheel and gave me a rest. While it might look like easy work at the wheel, while the other person is doing a lot of the rope work in locks, it gets very tiring standing on your feet all day keeping an eye on where you’re going. So it gave me a welcome break, and enabled me to do a bit of filming as we cruised along through this stretch of canal which often looks more like a river than a canal.

After what I said about herons yesterday, I got to disprove my rule today about them being difficult to film. As I was idly filming a bit of cruising down the treed canal, a heron flew out from the bank and led us down the canal just as I described yesterday. This was a very lucky piece of photography.

A little way down the canal I resumed filming but was distracted when I felt something crawling on my arm. Since we have had a lot of European wasps around I thought it was one of them, but when I looked I found it was a much more friendly winged creature!

I was now getting to like filming as we cruised, so after I took over steering again I decided to try making a time-lapse movie of going through lock 38 at l’Auvignon, which has only about one metre drop. I was inspired to do this after watching Stuart making a time-lapse movie with his GoPro as we came up the Garonne with him last week. However, I was going to do it with my iPhone, which now has a time-lapse feature in its standard camera. I couldn’t hold the camera as I steered, so I attached it to the wheelhouse windscreen using double-side tape (making sure to not cover the camera lens). The results were quite good.

We cruised on a little further and decided to stop overnight at one of our favourite moorings (especially in hot weather) at Philippot Parc near au Canal. This is an interesting site, with a stage and several buildings, including one set up as an open-air bar, that look like they might be used for festivals and fetes. The park is named in honour of Robert Philippot who initiated the People’s Fete in Feugarolles in 1926 and was an official of the Popular Front in 1936. During WW2, he was deported to Auswitch and died in 1945. The memory of the resistance movement is still very strong in this region, as evidenced by the flowers laid under the memorial sign just 3 weeks ago (on July 14th).

Since there were still a few hours of sunlight left, Rita decided to cycle to Damazan to go swimming at the lake. I stayed on the barge to catch up with some websiting. And it was just as well that I did, since just before 7pm two hire boats came steaming past at excessive speed (probably trying to make it through the next lock and get back to port at Buzet). I tried to slow them down, to no avail. As the first one went past, our barge surged in and out from the bank, and the second one pulled us clean off our mooring pegs! Luckily, I saw all that was happening and quickly started the engine to give me some control over the barge. I was able to get us back to the bank and then re-peg the barge, and then added an extra peg and tied us to the sheet piling along the edge of the canal as an extra precaution. This is not the first time we have suffered from fast-moving hire boats, but it was certainly the most exciting!

Overnight, we had heavy rain which also cooled the temperature significantly.