Spring and first part of the summer cruise.

Dear all.

We are now in Toulouse where NUSER II will stay for the next 4 or 5 week when the “crew” is back in Denmark.

When we left Carcassonne on the 2^nd of April heading for “our” little port Lauragais we had been looking forward to do a lot of small maintenances, painting etc. We should stay there for 3 weeks before leaving for Canal de Garonne so there should be time enough..but, but out of the 3 weeks it was raining 2½ week. Every time we have painted something it began to rain or hail – so the result was not good. Luckily the captain succeeded to grind and lacquer the mast the 3 days without rain J.

The first days of our good friends - Mona and Frits – visit, the weather was fine. But some of the time it was raining and a bit cold. They were prepared so they had brought their “survival kit” and their wellingtons. All together we had some wonderful cruising days from Port Lauragais to Moissac.

West of Toulouse you find Canal de Garonne and the first 15 km is a stretch just to pass as quickly as possible. The only things to see here are factories, slum and homeless people.

The rest of the Canal de Garonne is beautiful – it is much younger than Canal du Midi and not very curved. Like Canal du Midi there are many trees along the banks giving shadow and shelter for the many birds.

We passed many beautiful villages and towns. Moissac is a village on “The Camino de Santiago”; it is very special, situated around a church with a monastery build around the
5^th century. The cloister has a lot of columns carved with motifs from the old- and new testament.

In the port, which is situated in the middle of the village, we met a Swedish fellow (around 80 years old) he was cruising in a very, very small sailing boat. For the last 18 years he has been sailing on the 7 seas, now his health was getting bad so he was on his way back to Sweden. He was only staying in the port for a few hours.

By car we visited one the most beautiful mountain villages in France, Auvillar. It is also a resting place for the pilgrims but much more relaxed than Moissac.

In another village there are 3 old “washing houses” from the 17^th century the time people were getting aware of hygiene. At the tourist office Jytte asked for a laundry – they were not thinking on practical issues but only history and cultural J. Close to the village there is an atomic power plant – so you have some modern things as well.

We have seen several times that villages close to an atomic power plant have beautiful parks, new sports facilities etc. – one good turns deserves another.

Getting further down Canal de Garonne (direction Bordeaux) the fairway is very narrow. With high trees on both sides it was like cruising on the “Amazon” J just like Marne River and Canal de Nivernais where we were in 2006.

It was our plan to go all the way to the last lock on Canal de Garonne. In our last port on Canal de Garonne, Meilhan-sur-Garonne there was a lot of aquatic plants growing from the bottom and as we went on the plants grew in numbers. At last there was nearly no space to cruise. We have heard stories about these plants that they have got into the propeller and stopped several boats. So when a nice lock keeper said to us that it was just getting worse; we turned around. It shall be fun to cruise.

After Meilhan-sur-Garonne we went back to Toulouse visiting the same villages and towns.

This cruise has been different from the other years in the way that we have stayed more days in the ports and we have met many people several times also some from Carcassonne. We stayed one week together with our boating friends from Holland in the last port.

There are a lot of coypus in the canal they are building their nests in the banks and it is undermining them so the coypus are hunted animals.

We were back in Toulouse on the 19^th of June the exact day we left Denmark 4 years ago.

Toulouse is the 4^th biggest city in France and fastest growing economy in France. There is a lot to see, the old town with the red brick houses, museums, the building of the Airbus 380 plane etc.

It has been a wonderful spring/summer cruise of about 400 km. We have seen wonderful nature, seen many villages, met many people we know and many “new” people.

After some weeks in Denmark we will return to Toulouse in the middle of August starting the summer/autumn cruise on Canal du Midi to Narbonne.

We wish everybody and wonderful summer.

Love

Jytte and Rudy