LOCKS AND PONT-LEVÉS

There are locks and locks then there are the grands garçons of the world!! Welcome to Ecluse de Fontinette, not for the faint hearted.  Mark 1 which was a lift retired in 1967, which I think could have been even more scary than Mark 2 which is 14 metres deep!!

Mark 1

Mark 2

We went through it yesterday!!  Under the gate to get in, it was like a guillotine!! It was huge and dark and a bit foreboding, but with floating bollards, once the rope is on you can sit back with a cup of coffee for 20 mins until gradually it's daylight again. 

Then there are the locks where the lock-keeper is really busy. At another lock one late afternoon he asked me where we were going to moor, I said after the next bridge. Suddenly as the lock gates opened for us to leave, he raced off in his van at great speed with gravel flying everywhere. I thought he was desperate to get home and we were holding him up.  I hadn't realised the next bridge was a pont-levé and he had to raise it for us, stopping all the traffic.  There were 4 of these within 10km on our way to and from Calais.....huge traffic jams and drivers waiting in their cars while barriers were lowered, sirens sounded, bridges went up and we went by.  I gave them all a smile and wave, so hopefully they weren't going to get too cross with us!

Speaking about locks when leaving Dunkerque Port with the tail winds of a massive storm and the wind pushing Soraya into the lock Geoff nudged the lock side. Waiting for the automated lock to close and lower we had a request on the VHF to stay in the lock while port officials/inspectors came on board.  We thought they've got us trapped in the lock so it's documentation and boat inspection time. Eventually they arrived they inspected the lock gates and asked if we had anything 'cassé' we said no. After a lot of huffing they left. They were the lock police and thought we had damaged their lock. They had been watching us on CCTV. They drove away, the lock gates opened and we were off. Still no documents inspected.