This morning was cold and foggy, but we didn't have much choice about our departure time from our mooring. since the eclusier had told us last night that she would be here at 0900h. And at 0855h, we saw her preparing the lock for us, so Rita donned her puffer jacket, gloves and warm beanie, and we were away.

The rest of the scenery was nothing to write home about, so I just took some photos of everyday sights within a lock.

Because of the windy conditions, we experimented with a change in locking procedure. Up until now, when going downstream, we had always had Rita put a rope on the front bollard before coming back to do the rear ropes. However, this often meant extra manoeuvring after she put the bowline on to get the boat back to the rear bollard on the lock wall. During this time, the stern often moved away from the lock wall, and this was being exaccarbated in the windy conditions. So we tried putting the stern rope on first, and then moving forward slightly to line up the front bollards on the boat and the lock (using the bowthruster as necessary to keep the bow near the lock wall). This turned out to be a much quicker and more hassle-free method, which we will retain.

At the last lock before getting to St Jean de Losne, we were handed over to a new eclusier (who was based at SJDL). As we were leaving that lock, he said he would go ahead and prepare the lock at SJDL, so that we could get though that lock before his lunch break. But when we got there, the lock was still closed, and he was nowhere to be seen. I jumped off ship and knocked on the office door, but no reaction. So we tied up in front of the lock, next to another Piper, and had our own lunch. After lunch, a different eclusier arrived and got us though the lock.

Since this was to be our last time in SJDL for the year, we stopped at the fuel pontoon to top up the tank in preparation for the winter (in case we were still on-board). We then had a pleasant run up river on the Saone and arrived in Auxonne in mid-afternoon. Since we only planned to stay in port for one night before continuing north, we moored on Pontoon A near the entrance to the port.

That evening we went into town and had dinner at our favourite Vietnamese restaurant/takeaway. The owner recognised us "Aussies" and again treated us like long-lost family. He was doing a very busy trade on takeaways during the evening and we were the only "sit-in" customers. But we got to have a good catch-up with him between takeaway customers. As always the food was great. At the end of the evening after the kitchen closed, his wife appeared from the kitchen and Rita had a long conversation with them about food preparation and other things. Always a very pleasant evening with them.

As the morning progressed, the fog lifted but the wind arrived, again creating tricky conditions when approaching locks. At one of the locks, we saw another type of user of the towpaths when a group of riding school students ambled past.