On our way

View of Yonne/Joigny from ANJA

Penny returned after a good week in Guernsey visiting Liz and new son Noah. Liz got out of hospital for the last few days of the visit and continues to improve.

While she was away, David put in a further 60hrs work on things like re-varnishing the front of the wheelhouse, sanding and varnishing the mast, making repairs to the port topsides and repainting red and the rubbing strake black.

Upon Penny's return, we were back into the chores including provisioning, buying plants and herbs,

One disappointment was our electric hot water unit, which has provision for connecting to the engine. We had bought the special hoses and parts but discovered that the fittings inside the tank were rusted/corroded and therefore useless for what we intended. We looked at removing the tank but it appeared too hard as a wall and bath had been installed after the tank with no obvious way to remove the tank. Simon (who owns the boat yard) came and looked and decided it was a lot of work and probablty too difficult. This meant that we still had the diesel fired boiler and could use the electric heater in the few places we stay that have electricity provided. It would have been nice to use all that extra engine heat which otherwise just goes into the canal. Ah well, not a big problem. The same as previous years but no step forward.

We have also added tiling in the main bedroom, a hot water tap in the bathroom sink and a number of other improvements.

A big "Thank You" to Christian who lent tools, gave piping and offered suggestions on the best places to buy a number of items.

Over all, we accomplished around 29 of the 35 items on the list and some of them grew larger once we started them. We can perform most of the remaining items as we go down the river.

Finally, Friday arrived- our scheduled date for craning into the water. We had left our good friends Christian and Chantal at Les Chouettes and they gave us a beautiful send-off meal (including pigeons from their pigeon house) plus a package containing their fresh eggs, our favourite cheese (Epoisses) and biscuits). This was so that we would not starve!

 Pigeons at Les Chouettes

Simon was shortstaffed as it was the day between Liberation Day and the weekend. So David had to fill-in as a worker to hold the boat parallel to the crane and then the quay as it was lowered. There were two of us to hold the 36 tonne boat in the strong breeze but all went well.

We travelled a couple of Km to Laroche St Cydroine so we could wash down the boat completely (after it spent six months over winter in the boat yard) and for Penny to place the Geraniums and herbs into their proper pots. She also did a lot of further work preparing under the floor for rustproofing and painting. 

Late Saturday afternoon, we went through a couple of locks and about 8Km to the pleasant town of Joigny. We have been here many times before, but it is always pleasant and scenic. We had a fantastic meal at "Paris Nice" restaurant which had been recommended by Christian and Chantal. It was very reasonably priced and the food was excellent. Penny even had Kangaroo and Duck and there were 23 desserts on the menu.

 Kangaroo and Duck at "Paris Nice"

Tomorrow, Monday, we head off to Sens which is 30km and six locks away.

Franco-Portugese Mass at St Thibault