In Lyon our host was Claire's cousin Jean-Christophe Tibault, seen here with his wife Cordula and their three daughters.
We were tied to the "Quai de la Pêcherie" in downtown Lyon. It was a very convenient and safe place to be. We even left the boat for a day and visited some friends in Grenoble but one night our American flag, that we failed to take down during the night, was stolen!
We left Lyon on the 28th of September, going down the Rhône river. We passed many pretty small towns, such as Andance seen here.
We passed also some nuclear power plants, such as those at Cruas, with the painting of a small child playing in the sand on one of the cooling towers.
On the Rhône the locks were comparable in size to those on the Tennessee river. The Bolène lock, with a 25 meter (82 feet) drop, is the biggest one in France. It has two chambers and here we exit from the first one.
Along the shores of the Rhône there are the ruins of many medieval castles, just as there was along the Seine, testifying to the fact that these rivers have been well travelled passage ways since Roman days. Here is l'Hers castle.
Here is THE pont! You guessed it it is "Le Pont d'Avignon" and behind it is the Palace of the Popes.
This picture of the Avignon marina, where E. Galois was tied up, was taken from Le Pont d'Avignon!
Claire's sister Hélène and her husband Jacky came to visit us while we were in Avignon, and we all danced together "sur le Pont D'avignon" after we took the above picture.
We also visited Villeneuve - les - Avignon with them. Here we are inspecting the fort St André in Villeneuve - les - Avignon. We spent a week in Avignon. A storm had dumped a lot of rain in the Alps and the Rhône river was flooding. At the end of a week the current was manageable and we headed downstream to Arles.
There were also a lot of Roman ruins to see in Arles. So we spent 5 days in Arles. Here we see the Roman Arena,
and here an alley bordered by Romans and early Christians sarcophagi.
In Arles we were alongside the boat of two New Zealanders: George and Barbara Nelson who were planing to winter in Arles. Here they wave to us as we are leaving Arles.
In Port St Louis du Rhône we have reached the Med and we can sail again! So we restep the mast. We again have to worry about the weather. We had to wait two days before we could leave due to a strong Mistral. We had barely left Port St. Louis when a storm warning came over the radio. We contacted the equivalent of the French Coast Guard: the CROSS, who told us to keep going since there were many harbors we could seek refuge in if the wind got too strong.
We made it without trouble to the harbor of Frioul in the Bay of Marseille, passing by the Château d'If of Monte Cristo fame.
The next day we made it to Porquerolle Island, just a little East of Toulon. We again had to delay our departure for 4 days due to a storm. This gave us the opportunity to hike the Island. We are here at a beach East of the harbor, facing the continent.
After a stop in St Tropez we finaly made it to the Municipal Marina of Cannes where, thanks to the neighbor of our cousin Jean-Christophe in Lyon we had succeeded in getting a berth for the winter.
E. Galois snug for the winter on the live aboard floating dock. There were about 15 boats with live aboard wintering in the Cannes Municipal Marina.
We had some very nice neighbors the Bizots, Michel and Brigitte with their daughter Maeva that I coached in Math and English. We met again the Bizots 4 years later in Martinique.
Cannes was an ideal place to Winter. It was extremely convenient. The city was always covered with flowers and there were many delightfull streets nearby such as the pedestrian Rue Meynadier, where cars are not allowed.
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