Case Pilote, Day 4

Mike spends most of the morning doing admin stuff on the computer and then disappears outside to mend the gennaker where it split a couple of months ago when it was unevenly furled up in a gusting wind.  Since I am writing this the following day, and when in a marina/port like this, just hanging around, my brain seems to switch off in an overheated frazzle, I have no idea what I spend the morning doing.  I get really fed up on days like this though.  I am much better when I have something to actually accomplish, or at least nice scenery to look at from the cockpit.  Here, the only thing to watch is a digger which is dredging out the harbour.  Fascinating?  No.

Photo:  Dredging the harbour

We put together a list of everything we need to buy and/or fix before the start of the World Arc.  It is a very long list and I am sure we will keep adding to it over the next couple of months.  Putting the list together also sparks off a little research on the internet as I want a washing machine and spinner.  It will be no fun trying to wash sheets and towels in the small kitchen sinks.  Clothes I can deal with.  We will be after a small portable one, the type that people often buy for caravans.

In the afternoon we put the gennaker back up, unfurl her, then re-furl her again to take out all the kinks.  I leap off the boat to take a photo because under normal circumstances, we are sailing when she is out and you can’t get far enough away to get it all in the photo.

  Photo:  Jeannius with her gennaker repaired and flying

Once the gennaker is dealt with we disappear inside as the sun is scorching.  I decide to try making bread and cooking in the pressure cooker as the article Jo and Kev gave us said this was possible.  I have to say that making it in a bread machine is a hell of a lot easier but it did work out well.  It was a little ‘dark’ on the top and bottom but we knew it would be as we need to buy a flame spreader from a camping supplies shop.  It was definitely edible though, as is shown by the fact that we ate half of it straight away while still hot.  It means that we don’t need to buy a bread machine when we are in St Martin next month.

Photo:  Yummy bread – the first I have made on the boat

Philibert, the engineer, arrives to fix the cylinder head on the generator but eventually has to give up when it gets too dark for him to work.  He will be back in the morning.

We are so stuffed from eating half the huge loaf that all I cook is a small amount of garlic crab for dinner.  Neither of us had an afternoon nap either so, embarrassingly, we are both tucked up in bed before 9pm.  Mike goes straight to sleep and I read for just a little while.