A tight fit!

Friday
Knowing that we are in for a change in our spell of beautiful weather this weekend, I got out to enjoy it this morning, going for a long walk along the Canal du Loing, starting from Ecuelles, near Moret sur Loing. I have been along this stretch a number of times now, sometimes on foot like today, but also by bike with Roger on several weekends, and whilst I have seen an occasional barge moored, I had never seen active traffic on the canal. Today, however, it was relatively busy. I saw two pleasure barges going through a higher lock, then when I was returning to Ecuelles, I saw this working barge going through the lock there. It was fascinating to watch, since as you can see it was an extremely tight fit, both width ways, where he was virtually touching either side, and lengthways, where there was literally no more than a few inches either end! He made it look so easy, just gliding it in, and bringing it to a stop inches from the gate - he's obviously done it many times before! I wonder how long it takes to master it?! A few miles downstream is the town of Saint Mammes, where the canal joins the River Seine. I was also trying to photograph dragonflies along the canal edge, but I wasn't having much luck - they were much too skittish, and the only shot I took wasn't totally in focus.