The arrival had us here just after 2 in the afternoon, but all the mooring balls were gone. As Peace and Plenty are presently traveling without a depth sounder, we motored around to find a safe piece of property where they could drop the hook and still have safe "swinging" room. We got them situated, and then ourselves, in among the moorings and in a good flat piece of water near the shore. We were just about to have our anchor beer when things took a turn for the worse. An official-looking launch came out with a little man in it who yelled in two languages for us to up anchor and vamoose. He guided us both to a patch of water well out from the town for our anchors. I hate, and indeed seldom anchor in 11 metres, but we both got our anchors down and they held fabulously. The obvious downside was the swells and chop that literally kicked Cat Tales sideways every two seconds. I considered renaming her "Lurch". However, imagine what these were doing to the very tender C&C 38 beside us. Lorna was quite sure she was at the end of her patience, by morning. When friends aboard s/v Changes and s/v Baidarka called saying mooring were available, we made our windlasses rather hot hauling up all that chain and made some waves of our own in to town. We're still 4 minutes by dinghy to the dock, and there are still lurches aboard, but one can consider it life.
Yesterday was further taken up by the clearance, a cute french lunch, and the obligatory tour around town and shopping for the ladies in the various boutiques. For those of you not familiar with this little town, it revolves around the 4 catamaran ferries that arrive each day from the main island, primary loaded with European French, and we suppose all the supplies the locals try to sell them. We're a minor bycatch of that.
Today was quite fun. The four of us walked to the beach at Baie de Pompiere, on the east side, slung some hammocks, and just chilled. Well, the wind was so strong that it was chilly, but, well, down to +25 C with the wind chill. We had a big Heineken and a Bokit each, and made our way back to town after lunch, and back to the boat for rest and chores.
Tonight we have a meeting at the pizza joint with 5 boats involved. It can't start until 7pm, as this is France, and civilized French people don't talk about eating before then, you know. They provide free wifi at the restaurant, and it is there that this blog will be posted!
