Canal Cruising Made Easy

Reflecting on the canal trip in Burgundy (“Do-It-Yourself Skippers in Burgundy,” Feb. 3), I couldn’t help but think that author Alan Solomon purposely set up the trip to be humorous and disastrous. No one would consider such a trip after reading it.

Our fall 2000 trip down the Canal du Midi in the south of France was a little of that but not a failure, we thought. Some suggestions for a successful cruise:

* Have more than one couple (at least four people).

* Make sure you are compatible, and equally divide the duties.

* Plan the week around a major attraction. (We chose the Canal du Midi because of Carcassonne, one of the best-restored medieval walled cities in Europe.)

* Stock up on local canned specialties. (Castelnaudary, our starting point, is known for cassoulet.)

* Finally, go downstream, and then the locks are filled. The boat goes down in the lock, not up. The line tender gets picked up on the other side of the lock.

JIM JANSEN

Yorba Linda