Chalon sur Soane
Seascapes Travel Log
Michael Grew
Sun 22 May 2011 18:23
Chalon Sur Soane 21.05.2011 46:46:64N 04:51:69E
Awoke to bright sunshine beaming through the cabin windows. Damn! That meant I didnât have an excuse not to rub the rest of the rubbing strake down. Ah well, onward and upward, it has to be done. After breakfast Lyle was as good as his word and brought along his power sander and extension lead. However a problem, he had Australian to French electric plug adapters but not English ones and I had forgotten to bring ours with us (How stupid is that?) I carried on scraping down and sanding by hand while Maureen walked up to the super market and bought a universal adaptor. By the time she got back I had completed two thirds but was absolutely knackered and running with sweat. With the new connector and a cold drink inside me I resumed and by a late lunch it was all done and the first coat of varnish on. On the subject of yacht varnish, if you ever need any in France expect to pay about 19 Euros for a litre! Having said that it appears to be good stuff (well I think it is, we will see how long it lasts). In the afternoon we walked up into town and treated ourselves to ice creams. When we got back to the boat we found another sailing boat moored right in front of us. The heavily suntanned elderly couple (our age probably!) were from Switzerland and were taking a 5-6 year trip, going through the canals into the Med. Around the Med. Then across the Atlantic to America. Crumbs really serious stuff! I donât think Maureen was at all envious. I was though. The wandering Australians returned from their rail trip to Beaune and joined us for drinks. After dinner we had much needed showers (well I did). Spent the evening playing cards.
Chalone Sur Saone 22.05.2011 46:46:64N 04:51:69E
Awoke to yet another day in paradise, blue skies etc, etc. Whilst having breakfast in the cockpit, we saw two of the first of the new cygnets sitting of the back of their mother. After breakfast I put the second coat of varnish on the rubbing strake. Then I went ashore to straighten the bent fairlead that had been ripped out of the stern port quarter (back left hand corner) by the high speed bargee, a few days ago. I found a hard wood stick on the way back to the boat that yielded me a couple of hard wood plugs to ram back into screw holes. Used a large hammer to straighten the two retaining screws and bingo we could be back in business. The boat moored behind us decided to go and get some fuel from the bunkering station (the marina diesel pump) so I quickly topped up our tanks from the three small fuel cans and hurried over with them to get them refilled. Had lunch while I waited for the glue around the pegs in the fairlead to dry. Then afterwards took the bikes ashore and came across a jumble sale beside the tow path. Lots and lots of very different junk than that you find in an English jumble sale. Maureen bought a bone china mug for herself on the boat cost one Euro. Thatâs good she wonât keep using mine now. The boat came with a set of melamine mugs that neither of us particularly like using. Black coffee stains them horribly. We carried on riding down the tow path but it was particularly uninteresting so we turned round crossed over the river bridge and rode up to the cathedral square and had a cold beer. Much more interesting! After loading the bikes back on to the aft deck (thatâs the blunt end). We sat in the cockpit reading and dozing with a cold drink, until Maureen decided to just pop and visit the Australians for short while. Yeah, yeah an hour more like. After dinner we walked up to McDonalds to use their WiFi to update Mailasail.com