After paying for the extra night's mooring, and checking the set-up of the street market again, we were on our way again around 1330h. This time we were going "up the Doubs to Deluz", or as the French would pronounce it "up de Doo to Deloo". This was going to leave the mooring very empty, as this morning we were the only boat moored there (apart from the small boat school boat at the far end of the pontoon). It has indeed been a very quiet year so far. As an aside, you can see how far the River Doubs rises when it is in full flood by the height of the dolphins (poles) on the pontoon. The deck, and the moored boats, rise on these dolphins when the river rises, but I would not like to be moored here when the river is in flood!

As we were leaving Besançon, we noticed a gap in the houses and on getting level with it, we realised that was where the canal tunnel goes under the Citadelle. You can also see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Soon we had gone through the first lock and were cruising on calm water. All very relaxing.

We decided not to stop for burgers at the Truck Stop Cafe, and continued on towards Deluz, until we reached the double lock at the entrance to the canal heading to Deluz. Each of these locks had a rise of about 3m, very similar to the previous double lock that we had encountered. So we entered the first lock and tied up. However, as I raised the blue tirette to start the locking process, the lights started flashing as if the red tirette had been pulled. I knew I hadn't done this, so i tried the blue tirette again, with no luck. So Rita climbed the ladder to phone the VNF, who said they had already dispatched a van (in response to the red light flashing)! Within 10 minutes the van arrived, and the VNF guy had re-set the lock, which then proceeded to operate OK. But this was another of those locks with a slider that had a lower than desirable cross-bar, and before we reached the top, the rope had jammed. I was just about to cut the rope (again) when the force of the rising boat against the cross-bar cut the rope for me! This caused the boat to rock violently sideways, and it was just as well that we were both holding a railing at the time. It soon calmed down, I switched the rope from the other side of the boat, and we proceeded through the second of the locks.

Fifteen minutes later, we were arriving in Deluz. There were many boats in the main port, but most of them looked empty. Because of our length, we could not moor in these right-angle berths, so we headed through town to the parallel parking moorings near the old paperworks and tied up opposite the iconic chimney.

There was a lot of weed near these moorings, so I refrained from using the bowthrusters to manoeuvre into place, but with the help of a guy who was moored ahead of us, we made some temporary connections, while we searched for the rings hidden in the grass that we remembered from our last stay here in 2019.

There was limited internet reception here, but we didn't mind too much, as we relaxed and watched the swooping swallows, as the afternoon turned into night.