We are woken up by the
telephone. It is the boatyard
about our winter storage. The bad
news is that he cannot put our boat in his boatyard. However the good news is that he has agreed for us to have
our boat on shore with another yard that just does storage. He will do the maintenance work. But we must go to the other yard today
to organize it. The weird part is
that the yard who will now take our boat was one we contacted before who told
us that had no room to store the boat.
I guess it helps to have influence.
The next problem is the shore
power line. But that too sorts
itself out. Richard first tries to
contact Southerly and find someone who can talk him through re-wiring the
end. But they are all at the boat
show. So he goes to the chandlery
where he bought all the stuff and they find someone who can wire it up. He comes back with an intact wire and
when he connects it to the electricity it works!
So after a real French
breakfast (we decided that we needed cheering up) we motor round to the other
side of the harbour and find the boatyard that will store our boat. We were told that we could put the boat
near the Harbour office, but there does not appear to be any room there, we
just moor up in the first empty space we see. This marina is full of very large boats, almost super yachts
and they had told us yesterday they had no room for us, but they don’t seem to
mind our plonking ourselves down for a while. Richard goes to the office and comes back and everything is
agreed. We will bring the boat
back on 4th October. It
will go the in the yard next to the boatyard we went to yesterday who will do
the work we need. It will be more
expensive than if the boatyard stored it, but at this stage we are just so
relieved to have organized everything.
Now we can be on holiday!
We have two weeks to ourselves.
And the weather is now lovely.
The sun is shining and the wind has dropped to next to nothing. So off we go to Ile de
Porquerolles. It is one of the
Hyeres island groups. We are told
that there will be no trouble getting a space in the marina. I am looking forward to some creature
comforts for a change.
We put up the sails and as
we get out of the inner harbour the wind is blowing about the top of a 3, so we
start to sail. But it doesn’t last
long. After a while we are only making
2 knots, so the engine has to go on. But after our last trip out this is
heaven. It is even smooth enough
for me to make sandwiches for lunch under way.
We get to the Island and are
directed on to a berth. There is
even an Englishman on the pontoon to take our lines! Now I do really feel like we are on holiday. The place is like many French islands,
very much a holiday place, with loads of people coming and going on the
ferries. But it is all very jolly
and the afternoon is lovely. The
only problem is that the Harbour Office is a long walk from our pontoon
(although we could just take the dinghy there direct) and the facilities are
far away and shut at night! So it
seems that we will be showering on board again. But as we are now connected to electricity and have water on
the pontoon, it makes no difference.
We book in for two nights.
Not sure what we will do, but it seems a nice place to be for a
while. A walk around the town
finds us some ice creams and a shop to buy ice cubes, so we can have iced
drinks tonight! The weather report
looks settled for tomorrow. Then
the wind will pick up, and go easterly.
So we may go back towards Bandol after all. My only concern is that with our luck we will have trouble
getting back to Toulon for the 4th Oct, but then it is a fortnight
away.
Back on the boat we have a
go at cleaning the outside of the boat and get it looking quite
respectable. Have our showers on
board and then sit down to a civilized pre-prandial drink of run and Coke and
canapés of tapenade. Now this is
more like it. It is warm in the
sun, but when it goes down it is quite cool. So back inside for dinner- duck breasts a l’orange with the
good claret left over from the other night. Very soothing.
I am now working on my
tapestry. Better than just playing
games on my I-Pad. I just miss
radio 4.
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