…..but we are not getting anywhere! This is a quick update:
THINGS ARE HAPPENING! But so far the Freshwater has only rocked gently in it’s moorings.
In the meantime we flexed our muscles washing the boat inside and out, spliced ropes for additional fenders, mended seat covers, extended sunshades and purchased stronger stakes.
Not to neglect our leg muscles we cycled to lovely Dôle. Along sunny fields, big barges, groups of fishermen on the left bank of the Saône the route turns west into the tow way of the Canal du Rhône au Rhin.
The 30km there - a piece of cake! But our cockiness was to be punished on the way back to St. Jean. A strong headwind and our stomachs busily digesting a good lunch made the last 8 km home quite a struggle.
In the meantime our friends Angus and Pam had set off to Dôle on their boat with a leak around the shaft seals, which they thought might fix itself as previously experienced. Well, it wasn’t to be and after hourly pumping the bilge all night, they returned to the marina tail between their legs. Currently they are enjoying once again the penthouse living with their boat being propped up on “stilts” in the boatyard. Oh, the joys of boat life!
Luckily the weather has been really warm and sunny, so what could be nicer than living surrounded by water, nice people, good restaurants and pleasant countryside.
As an extra bonus we had the visit from our lovely friends Gerd and Kyung Hae from Sydney and Birgit from Bremen.
Gerd, who initially had planted the idea of “doing the canals” into our malleable cortexes, seems to have caught the boating bug himself. Currently favouring a barge rather than a motor cruiser, he inspected 2 big barges with us in tow.Their spacey kitchens turned me green with envy!
After a quick lunch on deck our friends had to return to the Alsace from where they will be heading to Switzerland, Germany and Turkey. They are really roughing it too!
Yesterday, in the early morning, our new rudder positioning sensor arrived, hurray! It is meant to be 90% compatible with the positioning indicator meter on the flybridge! We got up in a flurry to once again allow the mechanics to crawl under our bed to access the rudder.
Trust our luck, the sensor fell into the 10% non-compatibility!
Here we go again! A new, compatible meter had to be ordered and now we are waiting for its arrival and installation.
The photo on the right is for my daughter, Nina, who loves shoes - and chocolate!
Seen at a chocolatier on another excursion to Dijon. But this is another story!