Last Days Underway, August 24-27

About 2 pm on Monday afternoon we pulled into the village of Fragnes. It was the last good place to moor on the canal before we entered the Saone River for the last leg of the trip to St. Symphorean where Odysseus will spend the winter. Right at the tie up spot was a boulangerie, restaurant, hair salon and bicycle rental shop. We wandered into town to find other shops but there really weren't any, everything was clustered around the halte. By evening it had become very warm and humid again; the skies were looking threatening. By dinnertime it was raining hard again and was still coming down occasionally Tuesday morning. We weren't in any hurry so decided to say put for the day.
Wednesday morning we were off for the last 5 k of the Canal du Centre, but first we had to navigate the lock that empties into the Saone River, called Ecluse Crissey..
Back in Digoin we had met Jenny Fennell, an English woman who has spent the summer on the canals in her river cruiser, making the trip with friends as crew. As happens with limited places to stop, we had bumped into her at several places along the way and we met up again in Fragnes. She would be storing her boat in a marina near where Odysseus was going to be so we left together and shared the lock, with it's nearly 11 meter drop.

Jenny (on the left) with Joe and Ailish. Smile, or as they say in France, " wee-stee-tee!"

Our next stop was Verdun-sur-Doubs, where the Doubs River meets the Saone. Another picture-worthy town with a small marina on the river.

Verdun has it's market on Wednesday morning so we stuck around long enough to check it out. About 9:30 we were underway up the Saone to St. Jean de Losne where this whole barge thing originally started.