Day 26: 09/07/17 Vernon to Port L'Ilon. An eventful night!

After a pleasant evening drinking Paul's Talisker we turned in. The cruising association guide had said not to moor here, but the police boat had been earlier and said it was fine so we weren't worried. A river cruise boat had been moored further up the quay when we arrived but there was plenty of room for us perched alongside Paul on the end, and I was feeling rather smug at the fact that Esmé and I had managed to get to Monet's garden. What I wasn't prepared for was waking up at about 2:30, looking up out of our hatch and seeing a riverboat almost alongside us! I was pretty terrified.




Patrick jumped up and we both quickly got decent enough to pop our heads out to take a look. The boat was in the process of docking and one of the crew was right next to us talking with the captain on his radio. He seemed pretty laid back so we relaxed a little, although my heart was still pounding. In the end Patrick helped throw their lines ashore as the crew member apologised for disturbing our night. It took me a long time to get back to sleep, partly because my heart was still thudding, and partly because of the noise of the generators.

We woke at about 7 and decided to get going, as we slipped our lines Carol popped her head up and saw the cruise ship for the first time... she was a little shocked as they didn't hear it come in.... they must sleep REALLY well. On the way out we realised there were actually 3 boats rafted up!

We very quickly made progress towards Port L'Ilon and soon we were approaching the lock just before it where again I had to practise my best French. The lock was very violent and we realised we had been rather lax about not deploying fender boards... we live and learn!

 

The route into Port L'Ilon was particularly quirky and we were given a nice welcome by the Captainaire who filled us up with Diesel and gave us a berth.

Esmé took great delight in tying up the bow line "Esmé style".

The marina is on a large lake which we wanted to explore a little. The plan was a quick tidy up, lunch, rest, then paddleboard/dinghy/swim. Unfortunately the kids played up and this all took way longer than expected, however we did get out for a play and we all had fun playing in the water round the back of the island, but came back early as we could hear thunder.

As always the planned early nights never happen, but we've only 50km tomorrow so might treat ourselves to a lie in.