Channel between two seas
A little more 300 miles of navigation but inland. Thus it is the fluvial passage of one of the most beautiful channels of the south of France. The channel of the Midi, along with the one of the Garona and the Gironde, unites the Mediterranean with the Atlantic Ocean crossing the important countryside, towns, cities like Toulouse or Bordeaux, and even crossing over rivers. Altogether 575 kilometers and a total of 114 sluices some of which can get to save near 6 meters of height.
Navigation is limited a speed of 8 kilometers per hour reason why we must count on 70 hours of day's work, or what is the same, near one week of calm route by surprising landscapes that some tunnels of 160 meters of the dark will even cross, and in that it is imperative to use the fog horn.
From the Mediterranean one it divides the channel of the Midi that we will take in Agde and arrives until the city of Toulouse, happening through Carcassone. Soon we joined with the lateral channel of the Garona that crosses Agen, Bordeaux and ends at the Atlantic near Royan in the city of Pauillac.
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Agde |
Carcassone |
Toulouse |
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Agen |
Bordeaux |
Pauillac |
We will cross truly magnificent towns but it anticipates the places where to victual, since they do not abound by all the route.
In Fontet, Buzet, Agen, Valence d' Agen, Moissac or in Montech will find true ports with all the facilities. Outside these places, it does not try to find a filter or simply to fill up the fuel tank.
 During the passage we will find impressive sluices double, triple, or even one in 6 stages that will make to raise or to go down about 14 meters to him of unevenness of a single blow. But also we will enjoy long level stages like the zone of the Grand Bief, in which the channel windingly winds during 54 kilometers following the contours of the land without raising nor lowering not one meter.
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Some data of interest
This civil engineer installation true artistic patrimony of France dates from century XVII, designed and executed by Pierre-Paul Riquet at the time of Luis XIV. If one cheers up to cross it, nº must buy French letters of the SHOM 7028S and 7029S indispensable for the calculation of tides in the proximity of the Atlantic where usually they form current of up to 4 knots. Also Vagnon guide of fluvial tourism is very recommendable nº7 that counts the tricks and what we must anticipate to sail in the channel of the Midi and by the Garona.
The price to cross it is than reasonable more and we must acquire a species of “forfait” of vacations that it authorizes to us to sail by his waters during 16 days consecutive and whose price oscillates between the 32 and the 48 €, following the length of our boat, and which it can be bought directly in Agde or Castets.
In the Web www.vnf.fr it will find much interesting information like schedules of the sluices, sites of interest, maps with zoom lens and engineering datas, that also cover the other navigation channels that allow to go until the north of Europe.
In all the route it will practically have cover with his movable telephone.
If the boat is a sailboat, considers that the maximum openwork is of 1.6 meters in theory and that actually he is not advisable for boats of more 1.4 meters. The wood obvious must be disassembled in Royan, Pauillac or Bordeaux in the side of the Atlantic, or in Sète, Port-la-Nouvelle or Agde in the Mediterranean side, and the 50 less than to him operation will cost € in anyone of the cases.
It remembers that it is important to take a good number of defenses that protect during the passage of the sluices and a pair of ends of about 20 meters to moor to us with low waters in the sluices. The fog horn will allow us to warn in the tunnels and binoculars will be useful to guess as are the sluices at which we are going to arrive. Naturally we must take all the necessary equipment of security like the VHF one, obligatory life-guards and other elements.
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