Oops!

Thursday, 21 June - the front page of “L’Est Républicain”, the regional newspaper, reported a boat running aground at Ray-sur-Saône and that they had to be rescued by a team of emergency services divers.(In France, these services are provided by the fire brigade - the sapeurs pompiers - rather than by the police as would be the case in NZ.) The article went on to explain that the main reason that the boat ran aground was a lack of water and because one of the buoys, which shows where the navigation channel is, had been torn out by another boat the previous week and not yet been replaced.




We felt a particular empathy for the German couple at the centre of the story because just days earlier we had run aground at exactly the same spot. Unlike them, however, we neither had to spend a night on board our boat while stuck in the middle of the river, nor did we have to call in the emergency services.

We ran aground on a Sunday morning just as we were leaving Ray and we were travelling very slowly because J was aware that the water wasn’t very deep in places. Neither of us knew that a navigation buoy was missing, so we thought we were headed in the right direction when we heard the unmistakable sound of the boat scraping the bottom. J cut the motor instantly and there we were, stuck in the middle of the Saône with about 20 metres of water on either side but barely half a metre underneath. So, what next?

After a bit of discussion, we decided the best option was for one of us to get into the water and see how deep it was and if we could free the boat by pushing it. Long legs seem to be a pre-requisite for wading birds, so you can guess which of us got that job. It was on with my togs and into the water - via our wonderful, new, strong platform at the stern. The depth of the water on entry surprised me as it was well over my waist and we are only supposed to draw 60cm - at that depth there shouldn’t have been a problem. However, as I made my way around the side of the boat, the water level quickly dropped - or more accurately, a shoal of gravel on the river bed rose quite steeply - and it wasn’t long before the water barely reached mid-thigh. It was obvious, then, to see why we were stuck. After a bit of a struggle and some redistribution of the weight on board, I was able to swing the boat around into the channel and get myself back on board the boat. Whew!

At this point, a couple of Danish men in a hire boat, came past and kindly offered us assistance by way of a tow line. We accepted it willingly, even though the time of greatest need had past and held onto it until we obviously had a good line through the channel.

To begin with, we were a bit embarrassed at having run aground. We thought we must have done something wrong. We felt a bit better after we spoke to a boatie in Savoyeux a day or two later and he mentioned the missing buoy, and shamefully, we felt better still after we read the article in the newspaper.