We set off again with Angelique with the chap on the holiday boat taking time out to gather his thoughts as “ I can now see and understand all the risks, and don’t want any of my family to get injured” and he decided to stay put for today and ensure his family were absolutely sure of their tasks in the locks.

Barry and Kath decided to stop when we reached Hompes, so we waved our goodbyes and carried on.

En route we ended up going into the locks with a big steel barge and another large holiday boat, who were also struggling a bit in the locks. The skipper on the steel barge was single handed and would only put a stern line on and was using his bow thrusters to keep the bow tucked into the wall – with less than ideal results. This was all a bit to close and tight for my liking, as steel on one side and granite wall on the other our fibreglass hull was very vulnerable. At the next lock I parked up to let them through themselves and managed to get alongside some tree roots at a bit of the canal that had enough depth.

It was baking hot and thankfully where we parked (under a tree) we had some shade. Then along came a complete half wit gunning his boat out of the lock and creating a huge wash – despite my attempts to get him to slow down he was oblivious to the possible damage to our boat by this wash. To say I was not a happy bunny would be an understatement and my international language was easy for all to understand – there is simply no need for this behaviour – his, and I have to say mine!

We stayed parked up for lunch on instruction from Sara and she calmed me down somewhat until I became quite philosophical in that we had chosen to come through the canal system knowing we would no doubt have issues with some holiday boats at some point. After lunch we were lucky to be going through the locks ourselves much to my relief.

Now the “rules of the road” in the canals are, that traffic going downstream have right of way at narrow passages and under bridges, but this is only applicable if people read the rules and understand them.

Approaching a curve in the canal closely followed by a low bridge I was lined up to go through the bridge when I almost passed out at the speed of a holiday boat charging towards the bridge at high speed. In the act of self preservation I was trying to reverse Sun Dog back around the bend but this hire boat (believe it or not) actually increased its speed. I was left with no option other than to gun Sun Dog hard to avoid being rammed. This action also carried a risk of hitting the prop on the bottom of the canal as we were by now close to the canal bank (the stern of the boat dips under such a quick burst of power)……boy it was so close to a catastrophe!

At the helm was a young boy on his own with no adult supervision, so it was hard to apportion blame to him as all the adults had abrogated responsibility and were all inside the boat having a libation or two – but this situation did succeeed in my blood pressure being incredibly high!!

The busier the canal is becoming it is, in my opinon becoming not only frustrating at times, but the risk of our boat being damaged is now increasing by the day. One reason for the cavalier attitude adopted by many (not all)might be due to the fact that apparently holiday boaters pay Indemnity insurance which covers all and every eventuality, therefore, with nothing to lose who really cares??

On the way into Capestang we finally reached the lowest bridge on the canal network which was going to be a go/no go bridge for us when we were reviewing our options back in Royan. In truth it was wee bit tight, but because I had removed the navigation light boxes from the wheelhouse roof we were fine on height, and also somewhat relieved that Sun Dog was now clear of the last physical barrier.

This was a really long day in many many ways, and I was so glad to get safely tied up alongside in Capestang.