Since we were on a relatively remote mooring, and the generator was working, we decided to Kartcher the deck again (in case we got the chance to paint the deck before we left for the year). While the deck now looked a bit cleaner and tidier, it was still fairly mottled because of the slightly different colours of all the paints used in the various layers that were now visible.

We made a 1300h departure and headed east towards Agen. Unusually, the moorings at Serignac were virtually empty, which I was surprised to see, but unfortunately this time we weren’t looking for a spot to moor!

We arrived at the four locks at Agen and passed through the first three very smoothly. But we must have been getting a bit cocky, because at the 4th lock I got caught in the crossflow before the lock and entered a bit sideways. As a result I gave the right entrance wall a good whack. It made a horrible sound, and scared the hell out of the assembled onlookers, who were on a bridge going over the lock and didn’t see me hit the wall. I felt that we had lost the zigzag fender for sure, and on looking over the edge when we came to a stop, no fender was to be seen. Until I looked up a bit and saw it lying on the deck. It must have flipped up when it got scraped against the wall, and landed on the deck. So I just picked it up, still attached by its ropes, and dropped it over the edge of the gunwhale.

We crossed the aqueduct without drama and went looking for a mooring space. The basin was fairly full, but we managed to get a mooring on the pontoon opposite the hire-boat base at about 1800h. It looked a bit short, but we knew from previous years that we could moor there OK.