Goodbye to the Howells as we head south once more

The Howell's arrive and the bunting adorns the boat again.

We took Listel back through the three tunnels just for the fun of it. 

Rob had to concentrate to keep Listel on course. 

Billie, Clara, Harvey and Freddie collected leaves as we skimmed past the trees. 

Scarey eyes inside the tunnel. 

After another go on the catamarans the girls relaxed  and admired a lovely sunset whilst the boys had a go at fishing. 

Friends have arrived. We are having a party.

Girls have been fishing. There got 2 fish. 

Lovely BBQ. Said Harvey. 

This is the best BBQ every. 

 

Kids party. With lots of music. 

This is the end of Billie's of her food. 

A groovy bike ride

We hired bikes and cycled the short 8 km to the start of the16 locks. 

We were on the bridge looking down at another boat going through the tunnels. 

The groovy, floating cafe with great coffee and student style music. 

Dixie swam from one side of the pond to the other, she must have been hot!!

Ice creams at the bottom. We left Dixie at the groovy cafe for a rest. 

Etange de Baye.

Today we had a day off the boat. We hired some bikes and cycled back the way we'd come over the tunnels and alongside the 16 locks. It seemed such a short distance by bike but took us 5 hours by boat! This afternoon we hired a hobie cat which was great fun. We are waiting for the "Howells" to arrive. They've driven from Toulouse and have been stuck in awful traffic. Sam

Through the 3 tunnels towards Baye

We finished our long day with three tunnels, two of which were 250m long and the last one was 750m and all unlit!  We are 3.7m wide and the canals at this point are not much more than 4m so there's not much room for error. It's a one way system and the lock keeper said we could go through at 5pm. At 4.45pm about 6 little boats came out, turned around and went back in again. The light was green and we followed them through. As you can see from the photos it was steep banked and felt like we were heading into a jungle as we trailed the vegetation with us at times. Such a truly remarkable experience. At the end we came out at the top and the lake at Baye where we hope to go sailing in a hobie cat tomorrow. Sam 

Just like the amazon and so little water i thought we might just grind to a halt!

Drainage channels in the walls. 

At Lake Baye, a beautiful spot and the top of our climb from Dunkirk, 880ft above sea level. After this we start to go back down.