3^rd April 2008

It was a warm night, and I awoke this morning to a still warm body of a sparrow beside my bunk. Ginger! Does that cat never give up? Foolish question! The wind has suddenly started to carry the scent of summer. Today I updated my “to do” list. The varnish on the wheelhouse has really suffered this winter. My “lick and promises” of the last two years have proved totally ineffectual, and the varnish is flaking off. We now have to go back to bare wood , and start again. This time I will do it properly with ten coats of Deck Olie One Saturator, and six coats of Deck Olie Two Finition. This is the bullet proof finish. The work will require a new sander, as the only effective sander I have at the moment is the belt sander, which is far too violent for this particular job. There are two approaches to tools on a ship. The ten dollar Chinese tools, that you use once and throw away, or the beautifully engineered professional tools like “Kress” that come with a ten year guarantee. I advocate the latter.

The other item for refurbishment is the excellent Weber BBQ. It has been hammered the last two summers, and requires a paint job. I found some 800 degree spray oven paint during the day, and by the end of the afternoon the BBQ lid is now a very sexy silver. Alas while I was cleaning the grease caked griddle, it snapped in half. Not strictly accurate, it broke in half when I dropped it onto the grass on the pontoon!  Hmm…I think it will still work!14^th April 2008.

The lack of any news from Aigues Mortes for the last ten days has been partly due to the industrial expansion that the Proprietor of “Sarah’s Kebab and Internet Café” has been carrying out to his emporium. Not that I begrudge his efforts to expand his business. The problem appears to be that he has decided that more space is required for his diners than for the gaggle of Internetters who pay the odd Euro an hour. The reduction means that the four remaining computer positions have “French” keyboards. For a one finger man like myself, this is a challenge too far. “Plug in your “QWERTY” board”, I hear you cry. Been there done that, and it took the best part of my metered hour to pacify the other ’Netters who I had managed to disconnect whilst crawling around under the desk!

The interlude has not been has not all been bad news, because in the time honoured French (and British) fashion, three or four friends and relations hang around drinking beer, whilst the Mr Proprietor rushes around effecting his conversion. I have found that just turning up and expressing a few “Bon Travaux’s” gets me in on the beer drinking squad!  It has also given me the opportunity to explain to anyone who will listen that North London’s Arsenal is in fact a French Soccer Team. It was all going well until Arsenal crashed out on all fronts. Banging on that Liverpool F.C. is a Spanish Enclave just does not cut it. All good things cannot go on for ever, and the charming but more businesslike Mrs Proprietor has started turning up and riding shotgun on the fridge. Quelle Dommage!

This weekend I have been attacking the steel reinforcing plate that supports the Forward Capstan and Anchor Winches. “Alien like” quantities of Rust have been exploding through it’s paintwork this winter. Initial chipping with a cold chisel revealed that the rust was breaking through the original grey two pack epoxy undercoat. R.W. Davis & Son Ltd had energetically sprayed it over the entire exterior of the ship. (They also managed to get it over my late Mini Cooper S, which some bright soul had thoughtfully parked next to the spray site! “Am I still bovverd?”). An afternoon of sanding and heat gunning, revealed an offending coat of black gloss paint under the undercoat but with no apparent undercoat underneath that. Nice one! Fortunately my belt sanders have made short work of it, and with the rust treatment ready for paint in 24 hours, we should be undercoating tomorrow.

Overnight we had a had a heavy electrical thunderstorm. At around 2am, both Ginger and Lulu came to warn me that something was wrong. Believe me, a combined attack of “Mewing”and “Hot Whiskered Dog Breath”, will get through the stoutest pillow. I donned my Duvet Coat and Flip Flops, and took my scouts out onto the grass bank to watch the thunder and lighting breaking over the Garrigue (“Scrub”) mountains to the North of Montpellier. It took about twenty minutes for the storm to arrive, but by then my reassured crew were snoring their way through the rest of the night. I lay there, thanking the driving rain for washing away the steel sandings off Saul Nomad’s paintwork, and worried that it was too heavy for the grass fertiliser granules I had just sprinkled on my “Jardin du Marette” ( I think that translates as “Tidal Garden”).

The travails of a single pack leader!

"Une Tortue" passes slowly by my porthole.  Ginger has already done for most of the Hares!28^th April 2008

Summer has finally come to Aigues-Mortes! I was beginning to wonder, as for the last two weeks, chilly winds have pummelled us from all points of the compass. You also know that the season has really started, when the Bridge Keeper announces that the Grau du Roi “Pont Levant” is not lifting for six to eight weeks! An Annual Event. Funny coincidence that! The Grau do Roi Bridge Keepers have to be the laziest bxxxxx’s I have encountered on French Waterways!

Whilst soaping the decks on Friday I managed to find the only bit of deck that had turned into a skating rink. The new Black Gloss Paint I had painted around the forward Winch/Capstan. My fall was almost as spectacular as the bruise on my Coccyx. Fortunately Mike Waspe had some anti-inflammatory pain killers that proved to be dynamite. First job on Friday afternoon was to coat the gloss with a non-slip additive!

Still no sign of the dreaded Aigues-Mortes mosquito, but it is only a question of time. It is only hunts for an hour or so around dusk. After which time it presumably sheathes it’s blood sated fang. On the other hand, the Campervans are upon us in droves. They seem to be driven by the kind of people who if they were in the U.K. would buy a narrow boat. I do not mean that in a derogatory way, but as I have previously opined, boaters seem regulated out of it in France. These are stark warnings for the British Boating Industry which seems to be catching the European disease!

I was delighted when Mike and Marina Clark dropped by aboard their Sagar Barge “Columbus”. They were responsible for getting all the wild cats in St Jean du Losne neutered. It was thanks to them that a nutless “Paddy” and “Ginger” joined our crew in 2006. The Clark’s brought me up to date on the comings and goings at the H2O “Old Ecluse”. I was sad to hear that “Roxanne” the very large mischievous Heinz 57 pet dog of the Gerrard’s had died. The Ecluse Geese will be relieved, as “Roxy” had a habit of snaffling their eggs for breakfast. This was very much to Patricia Gerrard’s consternation, and “Roxy” spent many an hour on jankers!

We have guests coming this weekend. There will have to be a swingeing tidy up of the wheelhouse, as it is the centre of operations for the refurbishment of the Peugeot “Jet force” scooter. Incidentally I managed to buy a full service manual on Ebay for 99 pence. There is a lady called Lisa Yates up in Leeds who stocks the service manuals for every motor cycle ever built.

During the Saturday BBQ, Josie from “Procyon” told me that she thought that our April diary was getting a bit boring. I have to agree. All this talk about it’s/it’s not raining is hardly earth shattering stuff. I mentioned that I had planned to spice it up a bit by recounting that I discovered masturbation when I was 13 years old, and that it had played a significant role in my social life ever since. Going by the raised eyebrows and nervous laughter, I think it could go down well. The problem is that I could not think of an inoffensive way to introduce it into the Ship’s Log! It is not as though there is not enough material to write about in the Port. It is just that sometime I sits and thinks, and sometime I just sits!  God Bless Mark Twain!

9th May 2008.

Off to the Marette we go!

Markie Time?

Les Pecheurs! Sorry my English Keyboard does not do Accents! With the accent facing one way it means "Fishermen", with it the other it means "Sinners"!  Very insightful these French!

Going cruising tomorrow...last view of the erect mast!

Agge (The hairy One) and Martine!

Martine with Partner, Claude.

 
Ever felt excluded?  Emme and Josie are not revealing!

Mike Waspe trying to pass himself off as a French Rugby Supporter.  You could have fooled me!

The "Saul Nomad" Disk Jockey...known locally as the "Groove Machine".  Taken shortly before he was humanely relieved of his duties!  Shame!

My long suffering sister, Lorna Norman, being softened up in the usual Saul Nomad way!  Lorna is a seriously keen artist, and she loves painting the Camargue. “Good enough for Van Gogh, good enough for me!” she insists. Five years evening classes spent on watercolours and a further five on oils.  She has been the butt of a fair amount of family joshing.  Finally from out of 10,000 submissions, she has had one of her paintings accepted for the Royal Academy Summer Show!  She priced it at £ 400, and it was sold on the first day!  Queue further celebrations!  (Slightly embarrassing: her art teacher had his turned down!). All further joshing cancelled! 

...and if proof was needed, here she is in front of her picture! In the middle, two down, on the left...blue sky, two leafless trees pointing skywards.  I know it is not exactly Tracy Ermin's "knickers on her unmade bed".  However Lorna has been getting e-mails from all over the world requesting more tree pictures. She has been crawling under her own bed looking for previous tree work!

In my capacities as Chief Driver, Head Cook and Bottle washer, we took in Arles, Nimes and the Pont Du Gard...and not neccessarily in that order.  My SATNAV only boots up after disconnecting and reconnecting the battery!  Neil Tomlinson kindly lent me his annual Pont du Gard 10 Euro car park pass. A bargain as the daily fee is 5 Euros. Unfortunately I failed to listen properly to all his instructions, and I discovered too late that it only applied to the Rive Droit Car Park and not the Rive Gauche Car park. It cost me 5 Euros to get back out past the barrier! Bad language…never! As a postscript I recommend wearing trustworthy non-slip soles for your climb up the mountain at Pont du Gard. Two thousand years of walkers have rendered much of the rocky foot path mirror smooth.

The first thing for Lulu to do on a day trip to Arles is to drop the River Rhone by around a foot!

 
We moored at the foot of this stairway in October 2005. Typically there are no decent moorings for 24 meter Barges in Arles, so we used the VNF River Police pontoon and scarpered early the next morning.  Erin never forgets!

We encountered our old friend the "Camargue" slipping through the City.

On the way back we encountered these horses squelching their way around this resting rice paddy field in the Petite Camargue. Their hooves are perfect for this environment.

Then it was the Pont du Gard.

Bad news Lulu. You either come out now, or you are walking back to Aigues Mortes! 

19^th May 2008

 After a week of sampling some of my Asian Cuisine, Lorna wanted to get amongst some of the local dishes. On Monday we were off to Madam Coco’s, whose shoulder of lamb is legendry! So is Madam Coco‘s “off the shoulder“, but that is another matter!

This morning we found a shedded snakeskin out in the Marette. The skin was around five feet long. I have seen some largish snakes in this part of France, but this would be by far the longest. I have threaded it above my “Defense de Stationner” sign. It may boost the message, a bit like a bleached skull at the entrance to Dead Waters’s Gulch! The snakeskin may account for what appears to be some fang marks on the end of “Ginger’s” nose. If they are, it is reassuring that the snake is big but not too venomous! When it all goes wrong for “Ginger” he usually returns straight home for first aid. At dawn yesterday he stood beside my bunk mewing. Unusual since the mewing normally continues until he has jumped up and finished his wake up call with a ceremonial pummelling his claws into my chest. A fumbled inspection found his coat covered in seeds and burrs. He even lay on his back to allow me to remove a couple of thistles embedded in his belly. (A manoeuvre that should be classified as hazardous!) It was only later that I was compos mentis enough to realise that he was following me around the ship on three legs. The real problem was that he had managed to snag one of his front paws inside his collar!

Wednesday was Gavin Barlas's Birthday. Company Chairman, Gavin, who normally has to take himself seriously, had to endure wearing a silly hat for the duration supervised by wife Allison. He patiently suffered all the usual slings and arrows that a Birthday deserves.

Everyone is talking, but is anyone listening?  Very French.  After being poured a few drinks on the Barlas's “Lyoness”, a party of twelve of us set off for more of Madam Coco’s glorious Lamb. The sweet fresh garlic sauce is part of it’s secret, and as usual I drizzled it liberally. Later that night “Lulu” was not returning for a second kiss, but it was a sacrifice worth paying!

That's it. Bill paid and we stagger off into the night!

In case you were wondering, the weather is still pretty cool for the time of year. Good for painting “Saul Nomad’s” hull. Launching the Clam Boat for the first time this year, I used it’s stability to operate the power spray. After a couple of days the boat’s stern was well down. Craning it’s 350 kg out of the water just in time, more gallons than could be good for you ran out of a split in the hull bonding next to the transom.

 
Two days later, and the Outboard prop is still out of the water! A resin and fibre matting repair seems to have done the trick, and I am monitoring the situation! Like most tenders, the Clam Boat is used and abused. Fortunately the sale of the JetSki, enabled us to keep it’s services alongside the Zodiac…which although cheap, light and handy for getting ashore, has little else to commend it.26^th May 2008.

This week we have had the pleasure of Jose’s (slightly) older sister visiting the Port for a short breather from her arduous work for a National Children’s Charity based in London. Becky was a great hit with some of the marina’s more elderly bachelors, and certainly got me reaching for my blood pressure pills!

The repaired Clam Boat is returned to the water.

Fortunately Becky brought more good weather with her, and I managed to get the whole of Saul Nomad’s port side hull painted. It had not been done since 2006 and was beginning to look tired. We were painting in the water, so it required getting a list on. This was achieved by using the crane to suspend a ton weight six meters off the starboard side. The Land Rover is an ideal lump for this task, as it’s suspension takes out any nasty shocks from passing wakes. Early on my trusty 160 Bar power washer expired, and taking it apart found that the start capacitor had failed. That will teach me to hire it out, and generally ignore most of it‘s operating instructions!  Hopefully past hire receipts will cover a new Capacitor. Over to you Ryobi!

Mike Waspe kindly lent me his budget 130 Bar model, and I have to confess it’s pulsing Turbo Wand proved more effective on weed and Marine Growths than the Ryobi basic wand. I treated the few patches of rust along the rubbing strakes with rust converter. Why sand your rusty steel off when you can convert it back to solid? Then a coating of International black “Intertuf 16” hull paint, gave it a smooth as-new finish. Yet again I have to sing International’s praises, and I have no commercial connection with them. I cannot recall the name of the previous tar I used, but it stank of creosote for week’s afterwards and was a nightmare to get off anywhere it should not have been. “Intertuf 16” is virtually odourless, and easily comes off the body or clothes with white spirit.

Emm: 1st time "What is this "Pimm's O' Clock?"
           2nd time "I nevaire drink this Pimm's stuff again!"
           3rd time " Pimm's s'il vous plait!"
           4th time  "Alex and I, now we go the montagnes!"

On Saturday TV it was the gruelling European Club Rugby final, and on Sunday afternoon I settled down to watch the thrilling Monaco Grand Prix. Sunday evening was also Roast Chicken night on “Procyon”. Alex and Emm joined us, and they let it drop that for the next month they are looking after a flock of 1300 sheep up in a remote mountain valley for a month. Getting paid 1200 euros for their efforts, they should save enough of it so that they can reinvest it in their boat refurbishment. What no Sky TV? I am not sure I could be a jolly shepherd, but I must admire the couple’s resourcefulness!

Snakes Alive! “Prince” stumbled across the previous incumbent of the snakeskin a few days ago. Very lively and quite cross. Fortunately Josie spotted it at the same time and screamed “Prince” to safety.

 
Local boy, Alex assured us that the serpent is known as a “Montpellier Viper” and is indeed venomous…but not necessarily for humans. It is a tricky time of year with snakes as it is still fairly cool, and they are dopey enough to not get out of the way of unwelcome interlopers. So Ginger watch out. Ginger incidentally decided to visit my pillow at around 05.21 this morning to shake off the evidence of the heavy rain that was falling outside. He easily avoided the pathetic right haymaker I delivered and skipped off the bed laughing as he went!

I continue to watch the rise in price of Oil with some trepidation. I wonder whether it is too late to convert “Saul Nomad” into a sailing barge? In addition, The Sunday Times ran a money feature that recommended investing in Ports and Marina’s, as there are always captive customers who have to pay the “going rate”! Very cheering! At some stage, Saul Nomad’s flat bottom may come into it’s own along some lonely tidal creek! After our experience in Ilfracombe Bay in 2003, I asked Nielsen’s to build us a teak gangway that clips to the Gunwhale and reaches down to our dried out keel. I tested it out last week, and it still works perfectly for Dog/Human access.

No problem drying out!

Light the touchpaper and retreat!  Is that a dog,
or the biggest bloody firework that you have ever seen?

9th June 2008

Every time that I have watched the U.K. Weather forecasts recently, they have banged on about that wet weather that is coming over from France! In our defence, we have only been sending you what we have left! This time last year it was almost like the Gobi Desert in Aigues-Mortes. Now it resembles the Florida Everglades or even Tewkesbury. I feel pain for the parties of tourists scuttling around the town’s cobbled streets, feebly attempting to shelter under their flimsy parasols. I suppose it applies to every northern European’s holidays, once the good Lord pours his heart out. When they lived in Malaysia, my late parents used to take their U.K. holidays in March. That way they could be certain of lovely chilly March days.

Sheet lightning at two in the morning, eerily illuminates the sky!

Global Warming? You must be joking! Now one hears that Global Temperatures have not risen for ten years, I am preparing to place that particular catastrophe theory into the file that already contains the “Bio Fuels are the answer…whoops people are starving!”, “We were heading into another ice age” from the 1970’s and “the Full English Breakfast is bad for you” from whenever. One has only to listen to the talking heads that daily/hourly pop up on our screens, not to become cynical! Why is taxing us the only answer? That’s enough! I feel better!

Although not a great fan of wind turbines, I have spotted that some marine versions are now knocking out around 16 amps. This is serious, as I always thought they generated around 300 watts…good enough for the Laptop but not much good for my Double Fronted American Fridge plus one light bulb! The price is pretty expensive at around 3-4000 euros in the Marine catalogues, but it is an energy solution that is worth looking at as the price of Oil soars, and in any event the landlubber’s version will probably be cheaper. I have read recently that not only have there been food riots in several countries, but water riots as well. Water, water, every where and not a drop to drink! Unfortunately desalinators/water makers are very expensive at 6000 euros. But bearing in mind that a 35 litres per hour model draws only 300 watts, it is food for thought…because water supply on any mooring is a consideration. Free water on a free mooring is becoming a thing of the past!

Saul Nomad’s Hull is gleaming black again and the three anchors are bright silver once more. I never take much trouble with the anchors as the first time you drop them, it is cosmetically all over! Hammerite paint is handy enough for them. We now move onto preparing the wheelhouse for sixteen coats of varnish….then it is white satin on the saloon sides and grey non slip on the side decks. All before the end of July…jeepers!

I apologise for our diary entries becoming somewhat intermittent. The four year old laptop screen intermittently goes blank. When I conjure up the diary in the internet café, the musings become even more turgid. It looks like replacement time. It makes a change as most of my laptops useful lives are terminated by accidentally spilling a drink into them. That invariably invalidates the warranty!

On several days this past week we have had a party Belgian artists setting up their ezels on the Jardin. Led by their Art Master, Van de Moules, they unswervingly concentrate on painting our private view. I gather that they like to call themselves “Les Frites”, which shows that even the Belgians have a sense of humour!

"Did you say, Frites?"

"Please say that magic word again!"June 15^th

The fridge freezer has been acting up for the last few days. I think it has a fault that I first encountered in 2006, which is switching itself into de-frost mode. Not good when I am storing quite a selection of the marina’s fresh produce in it, including more worryingly Josie’s special supply of British Sausages carefully imported from Blighty. The cure involves crawling around on the floor, and cleaning the fridge’s electrical connections at ground level. Despite quite a bit of crawling about, no luck. The machine is overheating, but why? The fridge is built into a fan ventilated compartment and a check on the fan showed that after running 24/7 for three years, it had popped it’s clogs. So a trip to the Bricolage for an 11 watt shower extractor fan, and 24 hours later the fridge with it’s rear cooled off was back to normal…relief!

I seem to be on a winning streak. The internet café man suggested that my laptop’s problem could be the AC adapter. I doubted his theory because I had already checked that it’s output voltage was correct.
Then I checked out www.laptopsandspares.com found that not only were they charging a quarter of the price of the Sony shop, but their FAQ’S said that winding the cables around the AC adapter is the single most common cause of it’s failure! I have always done that! 24 hours later the replacement was Airmailed to me here, and the laptop is working normally again. As I also have a Samsung laptop with a similar problem, I may take a punt on that one’s AC adapter as well.

It’s a holiday weekend here again, and the campervans are out in force. At least we are finally getting some proper summer weather at last. Several of the smaller vipers have taken to sunbathing on the tarmac road. Mistake! I guess the larger grown up vipers never made the same error! The combination of the Euro Soccer championships and Grass Court Tennis from Queen’s Club has rather interfered with varnishing the wheelhouse! There’s a surprise!

 17^th June

I was watching “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek” (Preston Sturges - 1944) on Sunday evening. The story was of a small town “gal”, Trudi Kockenlocker, who got completely trashed at “a wild party, woke up the next day married and as it transpired…subsequently pregnant.” Her immediate problem was that she could not remember whom she had married. In 1944 this may have been a moral dilemma with our boys off on French leave and/or in the Pacific. Apart from the fact that somehow her name seems to have got past the 1944 Hollywood Censor, all the rest of it would now merely be another 2008 method of getting the keys to a council subsidised flat! With the twelve month anniversary of my disco damaged Achilles Tendon coming up on the 19^th June (My Birthday!), I think that even without any biological adjustments we better not aim for that kind of celebration! The saving grace of “The Miracle…etc” was that her husband could not remember either! I do not want to ruin the film for you by divulging the outcome…but I hope that you understand my concerns!

Then there was Harriet Sergeants’ article in “The Sunday Times” headlined “Ladies, thank heaven for younger men!”. When one is about to celebrate one’s 63’rd Birthday, this sort of article is requires study! She starts fairly innocuously “that as a general rule and contrary to the feminist myth, men are very good company”. All right so far! Then she ruins it by concluding that the limit is 58 years. After that men all become pompous idiots. She may just have had bad experiences, but a bit of introspection indicates that she may have a point. Alcohol turns me into an expert on most subjects, including “Boring for England” and “being far better at most things than I ever was”! A boater’s characteristic? Oh dear! It is a very fine wine line! Good friends will normally stop listening to it all or pretend to forget it ever happened, but for new acquaintances it can be tiresome. Moderation this year is called for! How’s that for yet another “resolution”?

Warning! Pontificating Imminent! George “Dubbya” is touring Europe for the last time as President. As usual he is being greeted with universal derision by the Liberal/Left media. What is it about Republicans that makes them all so stupid? Even as a graduate of Yale and the Harvard Business School, the President is variously described by a BBC T.V. talking head as a “Ninny”. To those of you with an enquiring nature, I recommend occasionally watching the English language “Russia Today” Channel on Satellite T.V.. The stream of invective about the West is an eye opener, considering that President Putin has already been turning gas supplies off. I would suggest that you also check your Atlas. With 61% of the world’s oil reserves in the Middle East, one should thank God that the U.S. is situated in such a perfect strategic position at a cost of some 5000 American casualties after the “mother of all battles”. Having been brought up in idyllic Baghdad as a child, it appals me that Bush gets blamed for the state of the country. Of course mistakes have been made, but having bloodily ruled the country for thirty odd years, it is hardly surprising that the twenty percent Sunni population were not going to give up without a fight. It has also let the Iranians in on the Shiite side. They never dared to before, because at the first sign of a Shiite uprising, Saddam used to kill a few thousand. He successfully invaded Kuwait, but Iran is even closer. How about Aminajhad(sic) in Kuwait City and Riyadh? Then the Western pips will be squeaking! As I recall it, the Democrat's fingers were all over Vietnam. Around 58,000 US dead and goodness knows how many Vietnamese, for nothing more than a “Bay of Pigs” hangover, the “Domino Theory” and an eventual ignominious withdrawal. I am not saying that the Democrats are all bad, since they have done so much that is right for the “checks and balances” of American society. It is the adversarial nature of democracy that is the problem, requiring hypocritical opposition for the sake of it. When are we going to hear more about Chinese culpability for the million or so dead sacrificed for the oil in Darfur and Burma? Saddam had handed over a proportion of Iraq’s future oil reserves to the Chinese. A master plan if you wanted to block the U.N. Security Council. What was America expected to say? “Oh! boy we cannot fight an illegal war”. (Arguable that one!) “Gee, Shucks, we gotta’ hand it to you Guys!” “Please let us know, when we should switch the lights off”.  Give me a break!  I better give you a break too!

It’s been raining again!

20th June

Woke up to brilliant blue sky, and a hangover. Noting that my illustrious and similarly affected friend's, Mike and Josie, were up already and applying white gloss to their stern, I had no option to dusting off my heat gun and sorting out a Bahco varnish scraper.   Three hours later and two third's of one side stripped, the 91degrees F., was getting to me!  An encouraging start, and we press on later!