It’s that time of year again and we are back at the boat in Canet en Roussillon France.
The boat wintered well and other than a layer of red dust from the south easterly Sirocco, was pretty clean. It was a deja vu moment when we arrived and saw her in the slip where we had left her the previous August, but happily the factory had addressed most of the fix-it list as we had yet another new manager (the 3rd),working with us.
It took most of the first week to get things un stowed, re stowed and cleaned up (we had 6 huge bags of gear with us again this trip), and to acclimate to the new time zone which is 9 hours ahead of PST. We did make time for a few catch ups with our Canadian mates Doug and Sandy, and Spanish friend Pablo, and they brought us up to speed on their projects and fellow cruisers who had already departed. We were invited to Pablo’s daughter Elsa’s Confirmation BBQ which was a fun family affair, starting 8pmish and running to 11ish. There were huge Fred Flintstone sized T bone steaks, amazing salads of ;mushrooms, fennel, couscous, and mixed greens with lardon (bacon bits) and boiled egg. One of the guests was a pastry chef and she made 5 different deserts to spell “Elsa”, and the nice old fella in the photo of the cakes below, gave all the ladies a rose.
The first week was cooler than usual with the SE breeze continuing to bring red dust, but the normal fierce Tramontane started up and blew like stink for 4 days after that. This delayed getting sails on and going up the rig to change hardware, but I was happy to be able to get 6 loads of laundry done! Once the wind stopped the heat (and mosquito’s) returned, but we finally got Todd up the mast a few times and the new Code Zero halyard is now in place, and jib is on. We are now waiting on a few parts that have been due “tomorrow” for 4 days, but we’ve stayed busy attaching our interior shades (thanks Dom!!), rewiring a water pump, adding water tank inspection ports, wiring layout for Sat phone antennae installation (bit tricky),planning the spinnaker clutch locations, changing out the socket for the boarding ramp (passerelle), some provisioning runs for heavy stuff we don’t want to lug by foot in the heat, and a myriad of other little jobs.
The factory replaced our inverter/charger and a dock-side test of the solar, generator, and alternator charging went well. Previously the solar would shut down if we ran the gen or engine, and we would get a low amp alarm if we ran the water maker while motoring (usually the best time to make water!), and we had to bypass the multi control to get the gen to charge the house bank, so this is a biggy!). In addition, we have functioning fridge and freezers and the water maker is working (not at capacity but making good quality water at about 30 liter an hour..the navy showers will continue), so we are feeling pretty good about setting off soonish..after the next Tramontane blows through.
Best to everyone and here’s hoping the next update is from Spain, ole’! xx Virg and Todd
Glad to hear things are going well enough! How are the sun shades working out?