It had been 2 weeks since we left Valence and we were following spring northward, trees & flowers were in full bloom. We saw very few other boats on the canals in April since it was still early in the season and the weather was cool with occasional showers. But the spring blossoms were spectacular. At times the canal was covered in floating blossoms blown from the trees - really pretty but I did have to clean the raw water strainers at the end of most days but it was worth it. "Legrace" did have two mechanical problems in April. The first was the second evening on the canal when plugging into a shore power connection. The first dock outlet was dead & I tried a second one. Lynn yelled from inside the boat that we had power then she said "No we don't". I went in to look and the battery charger indicator lights were odd then went out completely. The battery charger failed. Sent an email that evening to Aquanaut and talked to them the next morning. They called MasterVolt then called back and had me do a couple more tests - no go. We were docked in a small town at a charter company base so we had an address for shipping the replacement. The new charger arrived two days later and took about an hour to install. A few weeks later we met another Aquanaut heading in the opposite direction. We had met Gavin & Allison in Sneek the previous spring, their new 15 meter Drifter was delivered a few weeks after "Legrace" - we had a mini Aquanaut re-union. It turned out their battery charger (the same 100A/24V model as ours) had failed a month or so after delivery and Gavin had heard that MasterVolt had received a bad batch of diodes. The second problem was with the John Deere. The last couple of days running on the Saone it seemed to take longer than normal for the engine to warm up. This really became evident on the canal where we have to run just above fast idle, the engine wouldn't warm up. Checked the temp gages at both helm stations and then used the Radio Shack infrared thermometer - the temp gages were correct. I had previously emailed some questions to the John Deere distributor in the Netherlands that supplied the engine to Aquanaut. So I sent Ed Hes another one describing the problem and that I thought the thermostats had failed. Ed talked with his technicians and they concurred that the thermostats were most likely the problem. The engine was under warrantee but obviously there weren't any Deere marine dealers close by. Ed said I could have a mechanic from a Deere Farm Implement dealer do the work but it look easy to replace so I said I would do it. Next, where to get the parts? My book of Deere dealers didn't show any close by but Ed looked on-line and there was a new dealer in Digoin just where we were heading for. Ed emailed us the phone number & address of the dealer and we called them. Problem, first Lynn did a great job in French giving the part numbers we wanted to order, etc. & he found them on his computer but for some reason that we could not understand, he said he could not order them. Called Ed in the Netherlands. Ed said he would find out what the problem was. Turned out the new farm implement dealer didn't know he could order all John Deere parts, even those for marine engines (the thermostat housing gasket was the marine part number). The gasket & thermostats arrived Saturday morning (2 days later). I picked them up plus 5 liters of John Deere anti-freeze. The thermostat housing proved to be very stubborn plus I hadn't fully drained it so the job turned out to be a bit messy. Also the old gasket was destroyed getting the housing off so I was glad I had the new one. The new thermostats solved the problem. It took us exactly a month to travel from Chalon-sur-Saone on the Saone River to St Mammes on the Seine, 144 locks and 83.3 engine hours. But this is life in the slow lane and we did spend a few days here and there sight seeing - plus one really memorable afternoon having lunch on Lynn's birthday at a little restaurant in a small village! This route also took us over several aqueducts. Twice the canal crossed over the flooding Loire River. Our friends heading for Strasbourg and Germany were delayed for 5 or 6 days on the Canal du Rhone au Rhine. That canal has one short section that travels on the Doubs River which was flooded and closed to navigation. Then after the water went down the channel was silted up and required dredging before it could be reopened. You sometimes hear stories about low water levels in French canals which can happen in July & August during very dry summers. But I think we may have had the opposite problem in the spring because the bridge clearances seemed much tighter than the previous summer. All the French canals we traveled on had an authorized draft of 1.8 meters and air draft of 3.5 meters. But the bridges seemed much lower than the previous summer and at least two were between 3.4 to 3.45 meters. There also was one long basin between two locks that was much shallower than normal, probably averaging 1.5 to 1.6 meters. I asked the next lock keeper about it and he said they had lowered the level because there is a leak somewhere and houses next to the canal were getting water in their basements. We later met a Dutch motorsailer heading the same direction. I asked them how they had gotten through that section since their draft was 1.8 meters. The VNF had raised the water level in that section just for them. We have heard numerous stories from other boaters of the VNF doing things to help boaters. Sometimes they are understaffed or sometimes the summer temps they hire to work manual locks may not be the most courteous but all the VNF staff we met were great & very helpful. At St Mammes on the Seine we put up the mast, canvas & bimini again and spent a day catching up on laundry & shopping. The last three days on Canal du Loing before reach St Mammes, we shared the canal with commercial barge traffic and on the Seine there is heavy commercial traffic, much more than on the Rhone. >From St Mammes to Port Arsenal in Paris we put 10 hrs on the engine and made it a two day run. We were surprised how full Port Arsenal was and were lucky to get a space. Previous years during the summer it wasn't a problem but evidently in mid-May most of the boats that wintered in Arsenal, were still there. For a couple of days we did tourist things in Paris seeing sights we had missed in previous trips and going to the Opera on Sunday afternoon. Then it was "back on a schedule" - our son was flying in to Paris and would cruise with us for the Channel crossing. And if things worked out then we could met our daughter & son-in-law in Dover or Ramsgate for a few days too. I'll continue the saga in a few days, we are saying goodbye to our new grandson & heading back to Sneek and "Legrace" tomorrow morning. Bob & Lynn Williamson MV Legrace Aquanaut Drifter 1250 AK Sneek, NL