We had originally booked 7 nights but with the Mistral forecast for the end of the stay we stayed for an extra 2 and felt the effects of the wind first hand. It blew from the North West with gusts up to 50 knots, and even safely tied and sheltered by a 60 ft yacht next to us, it felt as if we were on the high seas.
Getting the mast reattached (restepped in yachty speak) was the big event, where we spent a day unpacking it, refitting the radar, radar reflector, antenna, rigging, washing, cleaning and oiling the mast, and on Wednesday, with the help of Rob and Lizzie, and the Port Napoléon crane, fork lift and cherry picker drivers refitted the mast. The following day we helped Rob and Lizzie do the same and refitted the boom, kicker and genoa.
We also refuelled, which was not as simple as it could have been and involved cycling to the outskirts of Port Saint Louis to a portakabin in the middle of an industrial district to basically set up an account and order the fuel, and then in the afternoon await a small tanker with a long hose to fill up the boat. To refill it took 173 litres from the tanker plus 38 from a couple of Jerry cans which worked out to about 1.4 litres per hour since we last filled up a few days after Paris. Despite the hassle, it was cheap at €1.39 a litre. We thought that that was the end of filling up, however the next morning we woke to a few drops of diesel on our bedding, coming in through the light fitting. I still haven't worked out how probably over filling the tanks slightly on one side of the boat results in diesel dripping in the rear berth 12 feet back of the other side of the boat. I suspect there's a vent pipe, but if so it's far from obvious.
We bought and fitted 2 new 110 amp hour domestic batteries, not cheap and certainly not worth their weight in gold.
On Sunday we also spent a couple of hours on the beach, a half hour cycle ride south, which gave us our first taste of the Mediterranean.
Finally, once the Mistral had passed we had an extra day getting a quote to get a stainless steel bridge made and fitted over winter. I think he actually quoted for 2, both gold plated judging by the quote!
So enough of Port Napoleon and with a forecast lull in the winds we have decided to head out to the Mediterranean tomorrow.
