A beautiful sunny morning follows last night’s Carmen-Skipbo-Powerfest in the dark. Someone should have suggested tealights… A few more bottles of red Buzet (which once again were not up to snuff for our resident wine snob) and we hit the sack after an evening filled with pretzel innuendo.

This morning Leslie enjoys the last few bowls of her chocolate covered chocolate cereal; they sure like chocolate here. Then it’s off for the boulangerie to fufill her French morning duties.

After breakfast we grunted at sleeping Zak and unshipped the bikes to go to the vigneron (the local wine cooperative). When we got their we tagged on to a French tour that explained little but was interesting nonetheless. We saw their oaking facilities, storage and bottling areas. Afterwards we sampled many many wines. They had a great machine which would keep the reds sealed and at 16 degrees and dispense a small portion for tasting. Carmen, under Leslie’s good influence managed to restrain herself (that and the bikeride laden with booze that lay ahead). In the end we picked up a few 37.5cl for tasting tonight and three bottles destined for Edmonton–we will see if they make it.

We pedaled back by a different route, passing ripe wine grapes everywhere. We stopped to pick up a few more supplies at the small store and Leslie mailed her letter. I went on ahead to check my mail one more time to ensure the next couple of days were arranged and then met up with the others.

Back at the boat Zak crawled out of the sack and headed off to check his mail. As he failed to be expeditious about it, I cast off and left him to his ingenuity. As we swung around the base, he popped his head up and we gratiously bumped the dock to allow him to reboard. Since we were in the port with a posted speed of 3, I naturally wasn’t using any throttle. One of the hire boats came barrrelling up on my ass and decide he needed to blow by. This elicited one of my many ‘stupid tourist’ comments, but even better he created so much wake as to piss off one of the local boats. Their skipper was much more frank and louder about his opinion. Seriously, how hard is it to realize that slowing down is to everyone’s benefit. And don’t get me started on the idiots ignoring the 6kph limit on the river where evidence of eroded banks is everywhere, especially in the huge trees now half blocking the navigable route… selfish morons are everywhere from alpine switchbacks to ancient French waterways.

Soon we were on our way down the canal on our final leg. I had booked the boat cleaners and a late arrival so we were pretty care-free, excepting I’m rarely carefree about schedules. After the first lock we pulled over for lunch. Baguette dogs again: I think C is addicted!

We started up again and at one of the listed stops, someone had gone to great lengths to create an inviting place to pull in with signs advetising some sort of musee. At the last minute Leslie and I decided to stop and called the crew to attention. After Zak had the bow rope ashore and as Leslie made her way forward, the was suddenly a big splash. She had lost her footing and all I could see was her hair floAting underneath the canal water and the stern of the boat moving in to squeeze her.

Luckily the boat was almost at a stop and she popped right up. I jumped a shore, grabbed her upstretched arms and hauled. The banks right ther are a sort of corrigated iron and she had no purchase to get out. So a thouroughly soaked and mucky Leslie emerged from the murky depths, sputtering, laughing and apologizing: quite the combination. For some reason she decided a shower was in order so we paused for a minute or two to let her primp.

Anyway, at the top of the bank there was a French gentleman waiting to show us his museum. He and his wife were rockhounds and had thousands of samples they had collected from around the world. His English was pretty good although he kept apologizing. He insisted on giving us a tour of his samples; and he ended his 20 minute exposition and an apology stating (in his broken English) that otherwise we would have spent the time looking at the pretty yellow rock and ooooh the pretty green rock. He was right.

Anyway, it was a fascinting tour and I learned more from him about geology than I did in from my formal education. He took us through all the major mineral groups, identifiying their chemical and molecular composition and the metals that granted them colour. In the end, I recommend the Musée de La Falotte run by Colette and Jean-Pierre as an amazing place to stop. I picked up a Chalcopyrite that originated in France as a souvenier.

Back on the water we pulled into ? For an icecream and some Internet and moved on to ? to stop for the night. While we enjoyed a beer (a couple of small heinys for me and a Leffe for C). After Zak returned from his recon, Carmen decided that our present location at the side of the bank was too far from a boulangerie. So we moved the last 2 kilometres to Le Mas d’Agenais and pulled into the harbour.

We explored some of the other boats including the Asteria we had originally booked and decided for the sake of late night crunk manuevers, we had got the right boat. Dinner ensued (French toast and tomatoes) and a bottle of the Buzet white took me to my armagnac. Mmmmmm. The boat was parked beside a leaky faucet so I singlehandedly moved it to a new mooring to mild applause.

Tonight shall be cards again I suppose and the 37.5cl samplers of red