By Boat Through The French Canals and Rivers
Information and assistance regarding travelling the French Inland Waterways.
Welcome to the web page of Brenda and John Davison, a retired couple from the Wirral, UK, who keep a boat on the French canals. We have designed this page to answer the questions so many people ask when contemplating using the French waterways. We hope you will find the answers to your questions here.
We are ‘second-time arounders’. John has been sailing all his adult life, Brenda joined him in his hobby 20 years ago and together we have sailed extensively in England and NW Scotland, eventually taking a 10m Prout Snowgoose catamaran to Greece via the French canals, Corsica and Italy. We were so beguiled by France and its inland waterway system that we returned 4 years later and bought a Dutch steel canal boat on which we now explore France.
This is not a commercial site and we have nothing to sell except a couple of books which Brenda has written about our sailing adventures - Floating Through France, and Floating Through Holland.
Please feel free to contact us with specific queries and we will help if we can. We are also glad of contributions from your own experience. Just bear in mind that during the summer months our contact is restricted by the fact that we have no Internet access on the boat and have to rely on Internet cafés.
Our plans for 2009 did not materialise as we had hoped because health problems (John) meant that we spent more time than usual at home. He is now on the way to a good recovery and we expect to be still in Central France, in the Yonne, Nivernais and Burgogne areas in 2010.
We have had our hull repainted over the winter and taken the opportunity to change the boat's name as there are too many boats called Liberty in France. The new name is La Vie en Rose
We are always delighted to meet up with those of you who have found this site helpful, but cannot remember all your names, or the names of your boats, so please make yourselves known to us.
