Tuesday 11 June

It is Richard's birthday.  However it is also the day the mast will come down, so that overshadows everything else.  We wake up early to a very grey sky and rain.  Not the best of starts.  The harbourmaster has told us not to move because he is moving pontoons.  Sure enough we see him doing this.  We keep watching out.  Eventually we see the boat due to have its mast put back on before us go to the crane.  So we will be next

We are both very nervous.  We are not sure why.  The harbourmaster tells us he has been doing this for twenty years, so it should all be ok.  Everything takes longer than we think it will.  We are now instructed to loosen all the shrouds.  A job that takes a while.  Then at about 10:00am when the tide has started running and the sea level is dropping quickly, we move on the the landing where the crane is.  Now everything happens very quickly.  Before we know it they have taken off all the shrouds, and tied the mast to the crane and then up it goes!  Just like that!

The tide is going out quickly and we will be stuck on the crane landing if we do not move fast.  One of the harbourmaster's crew comes with us and we tie up to the long visitor pontoon.  And there we are.  We have no mast!

At this stage I leave Richard to sort the rest out while I dash to the fishmongers to see if I can get some lobsters for the traditional birthday dinner.  The fishmonger is open, but alas, no lobsters.  I would have needed to order them in advance.  An impossibility as we were not here when they were last open!

So I go back to the boat to see how Richard is getting on.  The mast is now on plastic supports ready for us to take off the masthead equipment including the aerial, the windex and the wind instrument.  We also have to take off the spreaders and then wrap everything together ready for shipping.  All of this takes much longer that we hoped.  So birthday lunch is a takeaway pizza from the local bakery!  Not exactly what we had in mind.

After some puzzlement over how to dismantle the last things, it is finally mostly achieved and we can start thinking about how to celebrate the birthday.  We go into town and revert to plan B.  That is to buy a nice piece of beef and eat it with one of the good local wines.  I can't find an open butcher in the town.  I found 3 that had closed down, which doesn't say much for the state of the economy here.  In the end I wind up in Intermarche again and buy a huge bit of beef there.  Heaven knows what it will be like.  I can't find anything to go with it, so that will have to wait until the rest of the shops re-open at 4:00pm.  I can't believe that the French still keep these weird working hours when the economy is in such a mess.

Richard has had to buy more packing tape and I find him still wrapping things around the mast when I finish my shopping.  Finally we are ready to leave the mast for transport.  We see the harbourmaster and pay for the work.  The work on lifting the mast, transporting it to and from the boat to storage on the roof of the toilet block, and then to the lorry plus four days berthing comes to less that £200, so that is not bad.

The weather has improved a lot and it is now fairly sunny and quite warm.  We are off to the tourist office to see if we can arrange a visit to one of the Chateaux.  We have also been given a voucher for a free bottle of local wine!  At the tourist office they cannot contact Chateau Lynch Bages, which is the local one with very fine wines.  So we walk over to the chateau and make reservations for a tour tomorrow morning at 9:30am.  We are gluttons for punishment.  While at the Chateau we find their little village and buy a half bottle of Chateau Lynch Bages, Pauillac Grand Cru Classe, 2003 for dinner.  On the way home we find a small Carrefour and buy the rest of stuff for dinner.

It is a beautiful evening.  The sun is shining and it is quite warm, but not hot.  We can eat dinner in the cockpit, which is a nice change.  Dinner turns out to be quite good, despite all the problems. We have foie gras with Champagne to start.  Then we have the roast beef with shallots, asparagus and bought Hollandaise sauce.  The beef turns out to be very nice indeed.  The wine is superb.  But then it did cost a fortune!  For desert we have Religieuses and finish up the Champagne.  We now feel very mellow.  We are much more relaxed.  We will stay here until Thursday when the shippers come to collect the mast.