Today was another hot one, so much so that Rita thought she should go up to the house to water the garden. Meanwhile, I caught up with some website work (amazing how you fall behind when you have guests staying with you).

When we saw Don on his float in the water beside Largo, we figured it was time to “launch the dinghy”. So we got it out of the box, and started inflating it.

Soon it was in the water, Rita had (almost) worked out how to row it in a straightish line, and she was over near Largo and the two Dons in the water. They had been paddling around near the stern of Largo for a while, when we heard a warning call from another boat “Gendrarme, Gendarme!”. Sure enough, a Municipal Police car had pulled up and two cops were walking down to the pontoons. Everyone got out of the water to see what was going on, but it turned out that they were the reason for the police, when they were advised that it was illegal to swim in the river! Demure Laura, who doesn’t speak much French, kept asking “pourquoi, pourquoi?” (why, why?). But we really didn’t get much of an answer except “because it is!”. The highlight of their explanation was when they said that we could swim in the canal, but not in the river!!! Interestingly, they told Rita (who was still in the dinghy) that she was OK because she was in a boat, but the others were illegal because they were in the water.

We started thinking about what else could be a boat - would Don’s inflatable mattress be classified as a boat? Could you build a boat from several noodles (floating foam tubes)? What would happen if you fell out of your boat and into the water - would you suddenly become illegal? The police obviously had nothing better to do that day, because soon after they left us with a stern warning, a second police car arrived and all four police stood around for another 15 minutes making sure no one went back in the water (in fact, one of us - no names, Jim - had never got out of the water, and was hiding under the pontoon on which the police had stood giving their little speech!)

So from what was a very sociable day relaxing in, and on top of, the water, everyone went back to sweltering in the heat. Rita rowed back across to Kanumbra (legally) and we parked the dinghy under the Stern of Kanumbra. We posted this photo on Facebook that evening and asked for possible names for the dinghy. We got lots of very creative suggestions, but the one we liked best was Murrindinghy (from Bob Mac) given that the town of Kanumbra is in the Shire of Murrindindi.

That evening as I was browsing emails, I saw one on the Can2Mers Yahoo Group Forum, asking about a lock on the Canal de Garonne near Damazan that was closed. Rumour had it that there was a breach in the canal wall on the eastern side of the lock near Berry and that the canal was closed until that was fixed, but no one knew for sure. Our original plans had been to be in that region at this time, so we were glad for the change in plans. A photo of the breach that I received later from Sue McBride, showed that a lot of water was being lost.

After dinner, Rita and I went for a bike ride to the west on the canal towpath, going just beyond the blue bridge to St Nicolas de la Grave. Having become aware of the confluence of Venus and Jupiter after my photos a few nights ago, I took another photo tonight to record how much closer they now appear. Apparently tomorrow night they will appear to be closest, so we’re hoping for clear skies again tomorrow night.