When you have been married for 23 years your responses to
incidents regardless of their nature, change from" It wasn't me dear" to "of course it's my fault dear."
And so it came to be that we are now back out of the water one week after our
launch.
Apart from the slight leak we had a very pleasant little stay
in Sausset Les Pins.
We left Les Pins and had a lovely sail to the Iles Frioul, just off Marseille. We were looking to anchor
in one of the many bays but the whole of France had had the same idea. It was
the weekend so we made use of the harbour.
We know we are in the South of France because Hermy is one
of the smaller boats.
Mrs K has treated us
to some art photography.
A Sea Eagle!
Then from here past the Count of Monte Cristo's prison.
And into Marseille where we had decided that we needed to
download our new set of charts for the Med. The Navionics lady at the boat show
had reassured us that since we already had a Navionics card then all we needed
to do was follow the instructions on the screen to download the new ones. She
said it in a tone that had a slight hint of " and even an incompetent old
fool like you should be able to manage that."
How wrong she was. A whole afternoon in ' The Queen Vic' in
Marseille clearly demonstrated that all computery efforts on my part failed
with various pop up little screens saying such helpful things as
"no I'm sorry you pressed the wrong button" No I'm sorry you
took too long making sure you didn't press the wrong button" " Are you sure you have the right
version of office?" Do you know the
model number of your chart plotter? And finally "oh is that an old
platinum card I see? You can't use those to unlock a new card."
Well by this time Mrs K was reaching for my blood pressure
tablets and looking up a few words new to the English language.
We gave up.
I have to say the lovely people at Navionics, on being
informed of my best efforts made a phone call to Italy who unlocked the card
remotely and, hey presto, even I was able to download it.
Marseille is a busy old place with fantastic scenery
particularly from the Notre Dame De La Garde.
A splendid church on the hill.
I think the same psychological process that
comes in to play to allow women to have a second child following the agony of
birth came in to play when we saw one of these.
That will be a pleasant way to visit Notre Dame dear.
Completely forgetting our experience in Avignon last year. A thirty minute
spine jarring, bottom bouncing, teeth shattering ride up the hill convinced me
that there would not be a third child. Oh yes a whole class of primary school
children joined us too, adding to the merriment!
The Marseille guide book talks of a monument to the King of
Yugoslavia who was murdered in Marseille in 1934. Not many towns can boast the
murder of a king within the last hundred years so I set myself the task of
visiting this monument.
My first attempt failed, I must have got the location
wrong. Our second attempt discovered it. We were in the right location but on the
wrong level.
Half way up a lamppost. Not sure what the coat hanger is
for? Interestingly we read that the French Foreign minister, who also died, was in fact shot by a French policeman but this was suppressed until the 1970s. A French Cavalry man sorted the assailant with his sword then the crowd joined in.
Right we need a night at anchor to save on Euros following
Mrs May's best efforts, so leaving Marseille we head for the little uninhabited
island of Jaire ten miles up the coast.
We drop our 'Vulcan' anchor (or Mr Spock as we call him) in
9 metres of water on to sand. All looks lovely and both Mrs K and myself decide
on a late afternoon dip before tea.
Now you don't often get the chance to have a good look at
another girls bottom so I decided to take a good long look at Hermy's.
Rudder,
propeller, bow thruster, all good.
I was
just admiring the lovely gentle curve of her starboard hull when I saw what no
boat owner wants to see.
Lots of damaged fibreglass. It was at this point that
I realised that my husband development training had failed to consider that
there may have been a cause other than my shoddy plumbing to create the leak.
Hermy's bottom had been violated.
These are my thoughts. Will it cost a
fortune? Will it involve major hastle? Will it take forever? It seems the
answer will be yes!
Bloody hell!
I can't fix your bottom, but for the cost of flight and a nice five-star hotel, I can come and sort out your Navionics problems (just like last time). Come to think of it, perhaps you might throw in a bottle of wine as well. And for that, I might even take a look at your bottom as well.
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