Thursday 5 September

My leg is improving with each day so we decide to leave.  Our planned destination is Port Carmargue.  It is a huge marina on the edge of the National Park.  The books all recommend it especially as they provide free bikes so that you can visit the Carmargue.  I wonder if I can ride a bike with this knee?

We set off and all seems well.  The weather is lovely, but the wind is on the nose at about 11 knots.  We need to go out to sea to dump our holding tank, so we will tack a bit and see how we get on.  Well, right away we know things are not right.  Firstly the log doesn’t work.  Richard did not take it out when we left.  When he goes to try to get it to work he finds that it is completely encrusted with barnacles and the like.  It takes him a long time to clean it, but even when the wheel is clear and spinning free, it won’t work and we get no reading.  Richard thinks the barnacles, etc are fouling the outside and not letting the water past it!

Now we notice that the engine is not pulling as it should.  We are going at 2500 revs but are only managing under 4 knots over the ground, when we should be doing between 5 and 6 knots.  Part of that may be because there is a westbound current around here that can get to 1 knot.  We don’t know the speed of the current because of the faulty log.  Richard also mentions that when he left the mooring he didn’t think the bowthruster was pushing as efficiently as he would expect.  We look at the rudders and see that they are covered in weed and creatures.  We are now pretty sure that the propeller and the bowthruster prop are well fouled by barnacles.  We are finding that we can’t really make much progress tacking and we are going very slowly on engine.  So we will take too long to make to Port Carmargue - which is 30 miles away.  So we head for Sete instead.  We hope to have a look at things there and decide how to proceed.

We get to the port.  The book says call up the Capitainerie on the radio, or just find a spot.  Richard thinks he can do the latter, but we are perplexed at once by the mooring system.  The  books say you must pick up a buoy as you reverse into the space and then attach your stern lines.  The problem is that although the permanent moorings seem to have buoys the visitor pontoon does not.  So I must eventually call up the Harbourmaster and he comes and directs us in.  It turns out that the visitor moorings have lines from the pontoon that you walk up to the bows which are attached to the seabed at the front, where you make it off.  I’m not sure how we were supposed to work that out ourselves!  But with help we are safely moored.

So Richard now inflates the dinghy and takes it to the bows to see what is going on with the bowthruster.  He cannot really get to the thruster from the dinghy, so he gets in the water.  With his hands he can feel that the thruster propeller has stuff growing on it and he tries to clear it with a screwdriver.  He thinks he has helped it.  But now is the fun.  He can’t get back in to the dinghy from the water.  So he has to swim to the back of the boat, but I can’t let the boarding ladder down because we are too close to the pontoon.  So I have to let the forward line loose.  With the help of the neighbouring boat we get the ladder down and get R on board.  However, in the manoeuvering, he has managed to cut his hands on the barnacles and other shells growing on the end of the pontoon.  We patch him up and he tries the thruster, which seems to be working better.

So we are now left with a fouled propeller to deal with.  There are really no facilities here in Sete, so we will go to Port Carmargue tomorrow where there are all sorts of facilities for repairs.

We have a pleasant evening on board.  We seem to be one of only of 2 non-French boats here.  The French are all having drinks on the pontoon.  Richard goes into town for bread.  It is a very long way away and we are trying to save my leg from as much walking as possible.