Anja home for Winter

Hello everyone,
This will likely be our last Blog of the cruising year.

Second last sunset on the Yonne
We have been busy cleaning and tidying Anja for her winter sojourn in Laroche-Migennes, France.
Tomorrow morning, we will be off to the Channel Islands for a week before coming back to Paris and departing for Australia.
It is very peaceful on the Yonne River at the moment. Nothing like the raging and unseasonal floods of June. These resulted in the worst annual French grain harvest for 40 years and repairs are continuing on damaged infrastructure. Most of the sunken boats have now been recovered.
We had pleasant stays at Pont-sur-Yonne, Sens, Villeneuve, Joigny and Laroche St Cydroin. The weather has been very agreeable. They were harvesting the grapes at Cotes St Jacques in Joigny. This winery is over 400 years old and the grapes are hand-picked. We had some of the wine (a somewhat earlier vintage) for David's birthday.

Joigny with the calm river and vines on the hill
Our trip down from Dunkirk was relaxed, although there was a very large amount of commercial barge traffic as the harvest was in full swing (Northern crops were much less affected than elsewhere) and the usual Parisien thirst for sand, gravel and concrete continues unabated. Despite the heavy commercial barges, we have hardly had to wait for any lock the whole distance. A lot of the annual 40 million tonnes of grain comes from the North and the silos hold huge quantities. At one of them, there were four barges loading grain (total 10,000 tonnes) but they looked tiny next to the silo. At another location, there were four smaller barges (total 1,500 tonnes) unloading grain to a cereal factory. Farmers have been rolling up to the silos (which operate long hours) in their tractors pulling trailers laden with grain.
There was an interesting sight on the Seine. What looked like a full-immersion baptism in the river with a large crowd looking on and applauding from the land.

The washing machine has been going strongly and this is much easier than having to find a laundromat. There is a Frenchman on a boat behind us- he is also packing up and just left dragging a trolley of laundry to the laundromat which is about 2Km away.
This year, we stopped at fewer places with electricity than ever before. Thus we were fully self-sufficient nearly the whole time. This also meant that we used the generator-welder more than in any previous year. Pleasing to say, an inspection has revealed that the earlier modifications have been totally successful and the operating temperatures have been way below previously with absolutely no sign of any issues.

We will welcome you to our final episode of Anja's Blog in 2017 which will be our final year of owning Anja and cruising on her.

Best Regards,
Dave and Penny