Monday 7/10/17 we were up early and back on the moorings at the factory dock where Wilfred, a really nice and knowledgeable guy, came aboard and took a look at the jib furler line noting it was for a Bali, not a Catana, and changed it out with a line of the proper length. Right after he left our Swiss friend Stephane came by and dropped off a fresh baguette but was short on time as he only had a few days to work on his boat before leaving again. Stephane and his wife Laure had retained a lawyer to assist them in getting their boat finished and the stress showed. At this point they had sold their home and they had been living in a small caravan since April while the kids finished school for the year. Finally their contract items were getting addressed to satisfaction but there were a lot of systems that Stephane, (with the help of Laure’s father and another sailing buddy) were sorting out themselves. He asked if we could meet later on his boat before going to dinner at the restaurant of our mutual friend Sandrine, and we subsequently had a fun night catching up on all his news and seeing the progress on the boat.
Back aboard Right Meow, Todd worked though a B&G Marpa problem with the aid of a cable from the electrician, and the water maker got a look over. It was discovered it still had the wrong pump which kept switching off after running only a few minutes. This got changed out again and now it was at least making water although at a much lower capacity than the 60 liters an hour it was supposed too. The plumber came back early the next day and used a membrane-cleaning treatment to see if it would help. It improved production to around 35-38 liters an hour, so we would just plan to run the water maker anytime we were motoring or charging with the generator to keep up with the demands..thank goodness the guest head could now be flushed with salt water though!!
We were also checking weather twice daily for a good window to sail to Toulon as we were picking up our friends Mark and Michele July 17 and it was now the 11th. It looked like we could motor over in light wind the next day, or if we waited until Thursday the 13th, we would be able to sail the whole way with decent breeze, ahead of another Tramontane which was due on Thursday afternoon. This meant we would have to scurry to a NW protected anchorage in the Toulon area and hunker down until it blew over. I walked over and said goodbyes to the Canadian’s Sandy and Doug, and Pablo and his wife, then returned with Todd for a “quiet drink “with Kim and Colin aboard their boat..where we ended up having breakfast for dinner when Foxy served us up gorgeous sausages, eggs, and chips at 11.30 pm..yep, travel info was exchanged, stories were told, and fun was had!
The day before departure was filled with final cleaning, stowing of fresh veggies and fruit, filling water tanks, getting spare fuses, and organizing the chafe chain, in case we had to stern tie to rocks and tree’s along the way. Joaquim who had often been helpful when we were in a pinch, stopped off and we restated to him that we would be back in September to leave the boat again so they could fix the air conditioning and the charging system issues, which had been discussed and agreed upon by Pascal the project manager ( who was currently away on his honeymoon after getting married over the previous weekend), and Joaquim suggested we email him when we knew what date we would be returning.
We then enjoyed a last bottle of champagne with Kim and Colin that they brought over, before having dinner and getting to bed at a reasonable hour. Typically we don’t sleep that well before a passage with all the variables wandering around our heads, but I consider “resting my eyes” to be helpful anyway.