As an expat you get used to saying goodbye to friends, knowing it’s not goodbye but au revoir. Still, as we head off downriver tomorrow for London, the English Channel and Calais, who knows when we’ll see our marina friends again?
And where will our supply of gammon and lamb roasts come from when we’re no longer here to win them at the Boaters Bar’s weekly meat raffle?
Daughter Wendy flew over from France on Monday to spend a few days with us before taking the Renault Twingo back to St Malo. We’ll get it from her in due course.
Busy Last Day
Engineer Matthew from the Piper team arrived this morning to fit a new propeller – same diameter, smaller pitch (whatever that is) – that’s smoother at lower engine revs, which is apparently a good thing. That meant taking Karanja up to the hard standing where she was launched almost a year ago, and lifting her out of the water. (At Piper’s suggestion and expense, incidentally.)
Roy took the opportunity to get the hull washed with a pressure hose to remove the smelly, weedy stuff that builds up.
After she’d been lowered back into the water and we’d come back to our D Pontoon berth for the last time, the Piper team fitted shiny new davit-sockets for the smart davit (crane-like thing) that we’ll be using to raise the dinghy up onto the deck from the water and back down again.
As the design and sourcing of this contraption and its various accoutrements has occupied a good percentage of Roy’s time for the past eight months or so, it’s a huge relief that it all worked out so well.
I always feel so much better when someone has cleaned my weedy bottom .. Have a great trip.. See you in France
Lynt