This page features the boats and the locks. Several of the boats had dual steering stations. Most of the time we drove from upper station.  The view was better. There was a table, an umbrella, and eight plastic chairs. Plenty of room for a party. There was one cold and rainy day when we drove from below.

We all rented bikes and used them to get around the towns.
 

Don's Boat is going up in the second lock.   The lifts are not very high...  8 feet was perhaps the largest. Typical lifts were 4 to 6 feet.	This lock on the Yonne holds four boats easily. Note the turbulence buffeting the Doran's boat

 
 
 

The lockmaster's house is shown in this photo.	The Nivernais Canal is quite narrow in places.  Here we are being met by a downstream boat.

We had all eight boats together only once. It seems some were late coming, or early leaving, all the time.
 

Here are seven in Auxerre: Along the bank: BottomFeeders, Don's Lead Boat, Dave and Dave. Rafted middle: Doran's Ed and Ed Rafted outer: Ehni's Defee/Bagley Missing: Wallace's

 

Here are five of  the Fleet at the anchorage just below Vincelles. By this point we had adopted Ray and Georgianne from England. They tagged along with us much of the way. At Vincelles we biked back down the river to Bailly cave.  The crowd split for dinner that evening.

A dozen of us went to supper at Maison Marine, a small restaurant in the town. We were the only clients that evening so we had the dining room to ourselves. With no supervision the party got loud, but not rowdy.

A pretty young lady waited on all three tables. Philip Kropf shared a small table with Marion and me. The waitress looked and acted French but Marion was suspicious, and challenged her nationality. She fessed up that she was from Detroit, and swore us to secrecy.

She continued her ruse undetected with the other two tables. She put on a French accent when she helped the others with the menu... She even acted like she did not understand some English words. Ocassionally she would mangle an Engish pronunciation. It was a marvelous act to watch; we could hardly contain ourselves from laughing. It was not until the end of dinner that she owned up to the rest. All were flabergasted at the revelation.

The food was plentiful and delicious. Rating Definitely **** and amazingly only $$. The chef came out and we gave her a standing ovation.

We walked 1 km back to the boats in a drenching rainstorm.

An hour later the other party came back from dinner in the other direction. They missed the rain and reported a Very Fine dining experience. Rating *****$$$$$.  (Yes that's a 5 by 5.)