Whale washing

Being moored to a mooring buoy (especially when you have given it a big tug to be sure),  gives one a more relaxed night’s sleep. No worries about dragging the anchor or other yachts dragging, you can sleep worry free!

So it was a leisurely start to the day with a dinghy ashore for me to watch the France vs Ireland six Nations game in a French port with Frenchmen. In the end France ‘nicked it’ but I was more enthralled with the tweets from Esher vs Fylde which left me drained as the score and ascendency swung back and forth with Esher just winning in the end. The bad news was that the viewing venue is closed on Sunday so it will be an attempt to stream the England game on Radio 5 over the internet as we make our way to the north-west corner of Guadeloupe.

The clear waters in Les Saintes bay prompted the breathing kit to be deployed so the missing anode from the prop could be replaced and a general ‘scrub up’ exercise carried out.

We managed to secure a table in the vaunted restaurant ashore which had been ‘complete’ last night so by the time John adds his thoughts, we will have experienced this treat:-

John writes:-

Well the first part of my day was laaazzzyyy, just sitting in the cockpit in the shade reading my book. Around midday I went for a rather sorry snorkel seeing lots of dead coral and a few fish. Hardly the Great Barrier Reef, but the water was cool and I decided that would probably be enough exercise for one day.

HAH! Fat chance…

Admiral Lord Nelson hailed me from his rubber dinghy and within half an hour we were grinding bits of reef off the bottom of Hejira. I have to admit the pumped air breathing gizmo was rather cool, and allowed one to hack away at the barnacles for a lot longer than by snorkel alone, although I could taste plastic for a while afterward.

All this submarine activity gave me a chance to try out my new underwater camera, and I reckon the results aren’t bad, and the first real pictures it took are of a close encounter with a whale doing what whales do in their natural habitat. I’m sure it was only a baby whale and probably thought the bottom of the boat was it’s mother judging by the way it rubbed itself all over the hull…

Out tonight for a cracking meal at “Au Bon Vivre”, ask Nick and he’ll tell you it was one of the best meals he’s ever had. (He’s told me seven times already tonight…)

So, Guadeloupe-bound on the morning tide…

…all 8 inches of it.