When we woke at 0930h, we saw that all the boats that were in port last night had disappeared  - we had the entire quai to ourselves. So I took the opportunity of grabbing a photo of us and our beautiful private mooring (which later became my Facebook cover photo).

But we weren't entirely alone. Our one-legged duck friends had also taken the opportunity to sleep in and get some rest.

Since we had no shore power at Mantoche, and wouldn't be moving again until tomorrow, I decided to run the main engine for a while (the generator would not start) and take advantage of the near-empty port. I ran it for 40 minutes, and it increased the battery charge by about 10%.

Around lunchtime, Sarah and Alban and the boys arrived, on their way to a wedding in a nearby town. We went for a walk along the river and, as sometimes happens, my eye fell on a scene that just looked too photogenic to ignore.

After lunch, and Sarah and Alban had departed, we decided we'd go for another bike ride. So we headed down river again, crossed the Pont d'Apremont and turned left to the barrage. Unlike yesterday, however, we crossed the river at the barrage and then headed north on the other side of the river in the direction of Mantoche. As we cycled along, across the river from our mooring, we saw a family group ahead with one of them kneeling next to a wire fence. At first we thought he had had an accident and was just recovering, but as we got closer we saw the reason he had stopped, as he was rubbing the belly of a wild boar! They explained to us that the fence was the boundary of a private estate on the other side, and that they maintained a reserve where 'wild" animals were safe from other predators (mainly humans). This young boar was about a year old and had become very friendly with the local population who used the cycle/pedestrian path, and loved nothing more than a good patting and belly rub. After about 10 minutes, they moved away (because the guy was actually training to run in a Triathlon event, with his family on bicycles acting as pacemakers today), but we stayed there for a while and Rita started patting him as well. He was quite receptive! As we slowly started to cycle away, he trotted along on the other side of the fence, until he met a deep drain that he couldn't cross. So we said goodbye.

We continued on for another couple of kilometres up the river until we got to a mooring near the town of Velet. However, being Saturday, no boats were going to be using this mooring today because it was crowded with picnicers, swimmers and fishermen. Rita joined the swimmers for a little while, and then we rode into the town of Velet itself. Not much to see there, so we turned around to go back to the river and then retraced our path back to Mantoche. As we returned, we saw that the boar was still in place waiting for his next session of belly rubs, but we continued on.

When we got back to the barge in the late afternoon and were having a cool drink on the quai, I noticed that the setting sun was casting an interesting shadow on the side of the cabin.

Later on, the setting sun gave a different array of colours, compared to yesterday, behind the Chateau de Mantoche.

After dinner, we started to hear music from the direction of the epicerie/bar, and so we slowly wended our way up to the village to see what was going on with the Karaoke. We were surprised at the number of people there, but we later found out that it is quite a regional attraction. So we got a drink and listened to some of the performers, who were better singers and with a very different repertoire from what we were used to in Moissac. We were also surprised by the willingness of the French, of all ages, to get up and sing, and there was no delay between one act and the next for several hours as they read their lyrics which were projected onto the rear wall of the epicerie. We bumped into the couple from HyBoot, and she was waiting for her chance to sing. Rita asked what she would be singing, and since it was a Piaf number that she knew, they immediately became a duet. Half an hour later they were up and singing. We stayed till nearly midnight, and while the evening was starting to wind down, we drifted off to sleep on the barge to the accompaniment of ongoing Karaoke.

The first boat arrival of the day happened at 1030h, when HyBoot (a hybrid electric boat) glided into port. It was deceptively quiet, and had no conventional wheelhouse. Instead the skipper sat on the front deck (at left below) at a laptop, controlling manoeuvres with a joystick. We later learned that he was a retired electronics engineer, and had designed and built the boat himself. Quite an achievement! Not a very attractive boat, but a sign of things to come in boat propulsion.