The restaurant specialises in fish, is quite pricey but the servings are huge. We shared a plate of the biggest oysters I have ever seen followed by a giant plate each of cabillaud (cod). cauliflower, carrots, zucchini and potatoes. Everything here seemed to be super sized - including, I was a bit horrified to discover on my plate, whelks. Hot this time. Against my better judgment, I was persuaded to give them another try. Never again.
Despite the port being large and fairly full there were only a couple of boats 'en voyage.' We were joined, on the second day, by Boschplaat, a barge owned by an English couple who live aboard year round and late in the day, a kayaker gave us a wave as he paddled his fully laden boat upstream.
The next morning we three boats met up at the lock. The kayaker asked if he could travel through the lock with us as he wasn't allowed to traverse them on his own and there were no facilities for him to retrieve and relaunch his boat to bypass the huge Rhone locks. We weren't sure if this was permitted so I called up the lock keepers on the VHF to make sure. However, the only response (the standard response) was that we were to wait at the pontoon until we got the green light to enter. He probably had no idea what I was talking about.
The kayaker, Zsolt, assured us he had permission from the Rhone authorities, so he came aboard l'Avenir and secured his kayak to our port side. Whilst we waited in the sunshine for the lock he told us a little of his impressive story.
Zsolt Bihari is a Hungarian who had been travelling solo and living on his kayak for 4 years. He began his journey in Budapest, paddling along the Danube, through the Black Sea, the Bosphorous and the Mediterranean and was now on his way upstream on the Rhone on his way home.
The lock gates began to open, the green light came on, I went forward to my usual rope handling position at the bow, Rob started up the engine and Zsolt's amazing expedition almost came to an ignominious end. There was a lot of shouting and the engine was quickly turned off. The cooling water outlet from our engine is located on the port side and the little kayak had been tied up directly beneath it. Engine on, water spurting straight into the kayak. The men quickly moved the kayak further forward out of harm's way and we started up once again.
We passed through the lock without further incident and once we had cleared the approaches Zsolt clambered back into his (slightly soggy) kayak seat and waved us goodbye. We were to meet up with him a few times again. He seemed to make as much distance as we did each day, clearly with a lot more effort. I wondered how he could make headway when the current often was very strong and he told us that he if kept close to the bank he avoided the worst of it.
Zsolt has a website if you wish to have a look at his travels.
