The QuarterMaster (aka the DS, HID, 'EID, 'EDB, SWMBO ) has made the important announcement that the Ship's Paper (kitchen roll to you) is off rationing. This revelation follows an unarmed recce ashore at the tiny port of La Capte where there is parking for your dinghy but not your yacht. Located a mile or two north of the popular anchorage at Rade de la Badine this seaside village has little to excite students of architecture (ancient or modern) but does have a few shops and a street market one day a week - sufficient in any event to satisfy the clean-up requirements of the amateur engineer.
Since then wine has been taken with the skipper and crew of Chicane of Falmouth and passage completed to the island of Port Cros where XII Bar Blues now swings to a mooring buoy in the eponymous harbour.
Your correspondent thinks that this place is as near as you're going to get to the appearance of a Caribbean island in this neck of the woods. Of course, the principle difference is how lazy the locals are. In the Windies enterprise abounds and genial chaps in boats will come and offer a range of services including the supply of lobsters and doing your laundry. Here in the S of F that free enterprise stuff has been bred out of them so if you want something then DIY is the way to go.