Cruising French Canals On A Sailboat!!

What are you studying, Dini? I'm studying the the waterways of France. To know what's up tomorrow, what's up after tomorrow, what's up after after after tomorrow. Well we got, yeah, it is really hard to make an estimate about how many logs, how many kilometers you can go in a day because, yeah, as I said there are so many logs in the way and they you cannot predict where you can get but I'm trying to remember how we did last time two years ago and yeah more or less on how we went the last three days if it is possible to reach certain destinations or not. Yes. Welcome to episode five of Sailing Magic Carpet. In this episode we hit ground, sail under a mountain, avoid getting hit by dangerous rental boats, cruise through a storm, miss the world cup final, get woken up by hot air balloons, and watch an amazing six-year-old break dancer dance to Irish fiddle music. It's quite a lot for only five days. Falling to you tonight. In the last episode we traveled from Basel, Switzerland to the small town of Montpelliard in France. In this episode we traveled from Montpelliard to Masson, going through sections of the river Doubs. That's where we had a few problems. What just happened Dini? We just touched the bottom. We could hear the rocks scraping along. That's one of the dangers in the river because the river can move things along the bottom and you're never quite sure. Early morning on Magic Carpet. The boys got up at seven to start motoring away and the idea was that we could sleep in but then they kind of stove on and the whole cabin filled up with a smell of petrol and then Aladino went and went to the bathroom right next to my head so I'm up at 7 30 but it's a beautiful morning. Look at that shiza smile. And we bumped into a log. Oh yeah. To make everything. Oh yeah just to make everything a little bit more awake we bumped into something. Was it a log or a rock on the bottom? Something on the bottom. Bottom-y. My whole bed up in the front just went bad. Really bad. Not really bad. It was pretty bad. Yes okay. That's how it is in these river sections. Yeah it happened last time too all the time because there's always canal man-made canals those are reliable but the river sections where you go in I don't know if they check that frequently and you can feel it on the tiller that you're scratching here and there. Yeah. There's nothing you can do really. Last time I got really mad and I was like oh you said 170 that you well you can take this path if you have 170 draft still but not really trying to following the signals like here we gotta stay off 20 meters. Luckily we never actually got stuck we sometimes just heard stones brushing the keel. Magic carpet escaped without any serious damage just no more antifouling on the bottom. Always loving's right. Leila what are you making for dinner? So now we make some Sommerrollen. What was that? Spring roll. So and I am very happily sitting here playing the violin Malte and Leila are making a wonderful dinner we just went and sat underneath a waterfall it's a good day. In some sections of the river there are small waterfalls that you have to go around by using a lock the dangerous part is that usually the waterfalls are very shallow and wide so you can't actually see them as you approach. There's actually a waterfall in this section of the river but it's really hard to see just by looking at the river you just have to be very careful to watch for locks and arrows pointing you to steer to the side otherwise you and your boat could go for a tumble. Besançon is a town on the river dube and when visited by boat it can be quite an experience there's a large castle on a hill overlooking the town and the canal actually goes beneath the castle there was a tunnel cut into the rock and we floated peacefully through it was a totally bizarre feeling to be on a sailboat in a tunnel under a castle. Aladino, how are you feeling right now? Tell me your innermost thoughts. I feel like being on camera right now. Aladino's hungry! How's your olive pizza? The next day we literally passed through a love tunnel it had waterfalls at the entrance and exit which turned off when it sensed a boat was coming then inside there were lights on the ceiling which danced as we motored through. Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin. Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in. Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove. Dance me to the end of love. Dance me to the end of love. Let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone. Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon. Show me slowly what I only know the limits of. Dance me to the end of love. Dance me to the end of love. That night we arrived at Dole. Entering the city we passed through a lush green tunnel of trees and grass with the sunlight gently filtering through. Dance me very long we're both of us beneath our love we're both of us above. Dance me to the end of love. Dance me to the end of love. The next morning we woke up at 6 30 a.m in Dole and thus began the most exciting day of the trip so far. We're not especially early risers but at 6 30 I thought I heard something weird like really loud really heavy but irregular breathing. I sleepily awoke and stuck my head out the hatch. There directly above the boat were two hot air balloons peacefully floating through the morning air. After that I couldn't sleep anymore so I went for a run to explore some of the city. So this morning I was woken up by a hot air balloon going really low over the top of the boat. So that was kind of a surreal start to the day so then I figured I'm up I'm gonna go for a run and check out this town. This is so beautiful. This is Dole somewhere in France and it's just gorgeous. Who are asking to be born? Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn. Raise a tent of shelter now though every thread is torn. Dance me to the end. I was amazed at all of the little hidden passageways and terraces which I found like something from a fairy tale. Dance me to your beauty with the burning fire. But the peace didn't last all morning. What are your thoughts? What did you see? What are you thinking? How are you this morning? Well we had an adventure in the lock just now. We're in Dole and there's all of these rental boats. These really big rental boats. You can see one of them behind us. We're about to go into land again. You don't need any kind of permit to rent them or any kind of experience driving them. They have a 50 horsepower engine. Oh my god. Yeah so we were just in the lock and we were sandwiched between two of them. Well one went in the lock before us. Literally. And as they went out of the lock we were watching and they were literally just ping ponging off the walls like smack one side of the lock and then smack the other and then smack the other like four to six times before actually getting out. And then we had another one of them come into the lock with us behind us and that was also pretty funny. I mean I think they kind of think it's sort of like a car like it's either in forward or it's in reverse. You don't really put a car in neutral that often and so that's what they were doing. They were like all ahead all back. It was pretty scary. They were just revving into the lock and bounced off a wall and then Aladino pulled them in reverse. One of the boats which we were following was especially uncertain and after seeing it swerve along the canal Aladino actually offered to jump on board and give a few driving lessons which the people on board agreed to happily. I think the whole system is a bit unfair since inexperienced unlicensed captains can cause danger to everyone on the very narrow canals but it's also kind of unfair for the people renting the boat. They're just normal people who want a nice holiday with their family and allowing them to rent such a large boat with absolutely no training just causes them to make fools of themselves ruining their holiday as well. The scariest experience we had with a rental boat was in a large lock in the river sound. How do you feel? I'm scared. Why? Because that boat makes two 360s in a lock. Two 360s? How can that happen? That should not happen. That's what happens if you have a boat with horsepower without a license. A little bit of adrenaline? Just a little. Now we need to find out. The people on board only attached their boat to the side of the lock with one line coming from the bow. You need at least two lines to hold a boat in position one from the bow and one from the stern so of course the stern swung around. After that they figured why not let the bow go also so then they were totally unattached to anything and managed to do two completely uncontrolled 360 degree spins inside the lock as the water level was dropping. They came very close to us and we were ready with fenders and boat hooks but fortunately the lock was big enough that they stayed away. As it happens during that lock disaster bad weather was also rolling in. Rain soon started pounding down lightning flashed and thunder rolled. It was about then that Malte checked his phone and we realized we were missing the world cup final between France and Croatia something we had really wanted to watch. There were no towns near enough for us to stop and watch it so we motored through the storm and missed the final but when the storm broke and we came upon the next little town the shouts from the shore let us know who won. Everyone there was in full spirits, horns honking and beers flowing. One guy had a guitar so I old but was an amazing break dancer. He danced along to every song that we played from old French and the Mediterranean Sea. Au revoir!