We have left Beaucaire!
03 May 2012 | Port St Louis
George. Sunny, partial cloud, light breeze.
I'm pleased to say that I am now able to plot our new position, Fandancer is now in the Mediterranean port of Port St Louis. We left Beaucaire on Monday 30 April and travelled a short distance to St Gilles down the canal and stayed overnight and most of the next day as it was a holiday in France on Tuesday 1 May and the locks were closed. We moored very close to the St Gilles lock on Tuesday night and woke to a beautiful sunrise on the Wednesday and we went through the lock at 0730.
After we left the canal, we joined the Petit Rhone and went upstream for about 3 hours until meeting the Rhone proper. We had been keeping a careful eye on the weather all week, and also the current on the Rhone, which can be very strong at times, but we had absolutely no problems and made rapid progress to Port St Louis, we had to slow down a bit so we got there for the lock opening at 4pm. We met up with a friendly Australian couple, also in a yacht, and moored near them in the marina.
On Thursday morning, Tim got the boat ready for the re-masting, getting the bottle screws ready, the spreaders, etc. We motored to the Navy Service yard and arrived at our allocated time. Of course, being France there was no one from the yard to meet us, so Tim expertly motored Fandancer in astern to the little dock area, and eventually the team of yard workers arrived and did an excellent job replacing both masts. We were thinking of how to dispose of the three wooden mast supports that Tim had carefully made before we left England, and just as we were taking them off the boat, a French couple came and spoke to us and said they were looking for some mast supports as they were soon doing the reverse trip to us and going up the French canals. It was their lucky day, we gladly handed them over.
We then motored back to our marina space and Tim spent the rest of the day sorting the rigging, adjusting all the bottle screws, setting the mast, etc. tomorrow we will put the spars back on and also the sails. Then maybe we can go for a short shake-down sail!