paris arsenal - premier league

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Today was the day we were to arrive in Paris! The river meanders its way towards the capital and the storm had cleared the air so we were lucky that there would be some blue sky for our photos, monumental pictures always look better with some blue sky don't they?

(Looking back I see that we didn't get as much blue sky as we had thought)

There was a busy yard close to our mooring where I had walked the previous night with Sprocket. A commercial barge had arrived and made a complicated turn from the river and entered the yard at a right angled bend, quite an achievement with such a huge ship. It seemed to be manned by a young couple, she walked nonchalantly along the very narrow river level deck to the bow and helped with the directions.

I watched from above , which gave an interesting view of the manoeuvring. It was also quite funny to see that, where normally there would be a family car parked on deck, this couple had a hot tub and fluffy umbrellas!

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There was another large lock before we reached the exciting suburbs of central Paris and once again we had to wait for a big barge to go in first and then we fit in behind. As the large lock filled and we approached the top, three tooled up police officers appeared, apparently wanting to talk to us. The usual introductory phrase 'parlez vous Francais?' At which point Mike says 'Oui' and directs them to myself!

Basically, they wanted to see all of our paperwork, boat papers, boat insurance, VNF license, skippers license, passports and visas. All this as we are also still trying to control the boat as it goes up in the lock, and they speak perfect English too by the way.

We're not sure if this is a standard procedure on entering the Parisian Seine, and presume it may be related to security for the upcoming Olympics, but it was very thorough and a teeny bit threatening.

(The opening ceremony is due to be taking place on the river and the rehearsal was scheduled for the next day, it has been rescheduled already as the river is flowing so high , and it didn't happen whilst we were in Pairs. There is a possibility that they may need to perform the opening ceremony on land if the weather doesn't improve.)

However, they finished with us a lot sooner than the barge in front, and Mike very bravely decided to cast off and overtake said barge in the lock , in front of the police people!

They repaid the gesture by speeding past us later and creating lots of waves.

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We could see the central business district by now and some of the taller buildings, of which there are very few in central tourist Paris.

And then we saw..... The Eiffel Tour in the distance... wow, how amazing to finally be sailing below and past this iconic monument.

I'll let Mike describe his experience of sailing into Paris.Sailing through central Paris on our own boat....

This has been a long-held dream of mine, to sail past some of the most famous landmarks in the world, The Eifel Tower, Notre Dame etc on our own little boat in the capital of France…

I had read numerous books and articles on people who had done this, and it sounded great.

On the day we set off early, our destination was the Paris Arsenal marina. This marina was originally a commercial dock but it has now been repurposed as a marina with around 130 boats in it. Some are Dutch Barges, some smaller ex-hire boats and some everyday motorboats. When we were there, ours was about the only sailing yacht.

We were approaching Paris from the west on the River Seine the river meanders in some big loops before getting to the city.

As we approached the city and passed under bridges we noticed they all had tents under them. These were obviously being used by rough sleepers and there were a lot of them!

As we rounded a bend the skyscrapers of the business district came into view, around the next view came the miniature Statue of Liberty and then looming into view one of the most recognisable structures in the world… Gustave Eiffel’s tower.

So how did it feel piloting our own boat through Paris? Some mixed feelings. There was the elation of ticking off one for the bucket list, and there was the practical side of keeping a good lookout for other river traffic. There were several river tourist boats traveling at high speed and coming close to us. The water was quite choppy as a result. I was also thinking about what I would do if the engine failed now, so I was scanning the riverside looking for places I could head for if the propeller got entangled or the engine failed.

We then came to a bizarre one-way system around the island that the Notre Dame is located on, this meant you went one way around the island or the other depending what time it was! We checked the pilot notes and made a decision and went north around the island, I’m not convinced we got it right, but no-one seemed to mind.

Shortly after that we were at the entrance to Paris Arsenal radioing them to ask for entry to the lock.

Through the lock and we had been given a berth halfway down the marina on the left, I reversed Ramukanji in, to make it easier to get on and off her. Engine off and big sigh of relief and a cold beer were in order. I looked around at our surroundings as these were to be our home for the next week.

Central Paris, with the Place de la Bastille at one end of the marina and the Seine at the other and all for 32 euros per night, now that appealed to my northern parsimony and made the beer taste even better.

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Ramukanji was finally going to spend a week at the Arsenal Marina in Paris. This is situated between the river and Place de la Bastille so very central.

It had good, clean facilities, a pretty little park and a Capitainaire with a small chandlery and a common room.

We were quite happy to be based here for the week and looked forward to Parisian life.