Thursday 13 June

It has been a long and eventful day.  We had to get up early to meet the lorry transporting our mast to Agde.  We were a bit shocked to find that after the beautiful hot and sunny day we had yesterday, it was cold and very grey and threatening.  I was determined that we got the shippers to take the boom as well as the mast.  The boom has been on the side decks since Monday.  So we had to take it off the decks and walk it up the pontoon and across the marina to where the mast is stored.  Quite a little haul, with a bit of metal that is surprisingly heavy.  We got there just in time for the arrival of the lorry.

Watching the mast and boom being loaded on to the lorry was another new and nerve racking experience.  One of the more interesting aspects of it was that the lorry driver was a woman!  She drives this huge flat bed articulated lorry.  Not only does she drive it, but she positioned the mast and boom and secured them to the lorry.  Not the usual job for a woman!  Horray for feminism.  All went well and we waved goodbye to all the gear.  They will arrive on the Med either today or early tomorrow.  It will take us at least 3 weeks to get there!

Just as the lorry leaves, the rain starts to come down and heavily!  It stays like that all morning and afternoon.  We were going to clean the boat, but in this weather it is a no, no. We have to leave at teatime today to get the tide up river.  The timings are very inconvenient.  Because we have to start late we won't get in to the next port until 8 or 9pm.  It will only get worse tomorrow, so despite the weather we really have to leave this afternoon.  Therefore after a quick stock up on food (I have no idea what sort of facilities will be available over the next couple of days) we climb into full waterproof gear and start out in the pouring rain.

We are leaving at low tide to catch the flood tide up the river.  We realise this is a bit of a challenge as we leave our berth.  There was plenty of water there, but as we approach the entrance to the port, we just about touch bottom even with the keel completely up.  But worse was to come.  We have to turn sharp left out of the entrance and Richard cuts the turn a bit wide.  Our chart showed that there should have been plenty of water, but there wasn't and we went hard aground just outside the port!  So there we had to stay for about 50 minutes until the tide started to come it and we were able to motor off.

Despite this bad start, we made good progress up the river.  At times we had almost 3 knots of tide with us and were doing 9 knots over the ground.  So despite the delayed start we were more or less on schedule to arrive in Begles.  On the way we went through the centre of Bordeaux.  We saw one yacht tied to a pontoon in the middle of the town, which looked quite fun.  None of the books say that it is possible to stay there.  We also go under our first 4 low bridges.  Quite an experience.  In fact being on the boat with no mast is a very odd experience too.  Neither of us can get used to having no boom to duck under and walking along the decks with no shrouds to hang on to is also somewhat disconcerting.

So now we are tied up in Begles.  We have another 25 miles to do to get into the canals tomorrow, but we can't leave here until we see the harbourmaster to pay and get advice on tides (there are no tide tables in the book for the area) and until we fill up with fuel.