Sunday 8 September

The rain from yesterday seems to have cleared and it is nice.  We decide to go out early to try to find food for this evening and the next couple of days.  There are fish stalls which say they sell fresh fish from the fishermen seven days a week, so we hope to find something there.  As it turns out, only 3 or 4 stalls are open and the selection is very limited so we give it a miss.  We do find a butcher and buy some meat and the nice greengrocers are open so I buy girolles and veg to make Ratatouille.  I will cook this evening and stock up the fridge.

Back at the boat we have a late breakfast of croissants and bread, our first since being back in France.  Then we just mooch about the boat until we have a late lunch of a bit of bread and cheese.  We are going in to town to see the boat jousting.  They are having a big tournament today in the middle of the town.  They call it Lance Sportive Palavasienne. 

We have seen this sport once before a few years ago in Sete.  We thought then and still think it is the funniest sport we have ever seen with the exception of the Scots sport of throwing the 56lb weight over the bar (another story altogether).  So what they have are special rowing boats which have a sort of staircase up the back ending in a platform not unlike the back of a gondola.  There are about 8 rowers in each boat.  In addition there are two men who sit in the bows.  One plays a drum and the other plays a sort of wooden pipe type instrument.  Then there are the jousters.  They sit on the ladder on the back, with the one who is doing the jousting on the platform.  Everyone is dressed in a special uniform- the rowers have their rowing club shirts, the musicians are all dressed in white with blazers trimmed in blue or red depending on whether they are in the blue or red boat.  The jousters all wear white trousers, blue and white stripped long sleeved teeshirts under a white shirt.  The jousting polls are long wooden affairs, nearly 9 feet long and they have a heavy wooden shield.  The idea is that the two boats row towards each other until they are close enough for the jousters to try to push their opponent in the other boat off his perch into the water!

When we saw this before we had no idea that there were any rules.  But today we get a souvenir booklet which describes the rules.  All I can say is that it is all hilarious, but very serious to those taking part.  We find good seats in a stand constructed for the day.  We are surrounded by locals who are all very keen and seem to know the competitors and are keeping score!  It is a great afternoon, but it does go on a bit.  It starts at 3:00pm and is still going on when we leave at 6:30pm.  We also leave just in time.  The sun has been out all afternoon, but it just starts to cloud over as we leave and the rain starts when we get back to the boat.  My only regret is that I did not bring my camera out this trip.  I have photos of this from last time we saw it, but I could have got some great shots with the 200mm lens!

On the boat we make dinner and I also make the Ratatouille and some taboule for us to eat over the next few days (tho tomorrow is a fasting day).  We fall into bed.  The diver has still not phoned us.