To the Mediterranean...

Sunday, September 16. Cool, windy, hot, threatening rain...

In Beacaire.

We had an after-breakfast walk to a Sunday market that Dave discovered on his early morning bike ride in search of croissants and bread, which became breakfast.

The market was interesting, very clean and very expensive. The We thought that we had spotted lunch until we discovered that a freshly BBQ'd chicken was $27.00 Canadian.

Back to our boat and we unhooked from our overnight guests alongside and made our way out of this very cramped end of the canal. The first hour was a bit of a white knuckle job for me as the first four or five kilometres is full of semi derelict boats, often two abreast. After we passed the one low bridge I felt a bit relieved. Without a word of a lie, we cleared it by two inches, right in front of the upper deck wheel.

Today is Sunday and it seems that fishing is a favourite pastime here. The fisher people often cast their lines across the canal and have to furiously wind in their lines to avoid us tearing them out.

Steering this boat is quite a challenge, even Dave has never encountered such a vessel. On a straight stretch of water with no wind it is relatively easy, not simple stupid, even that took me a few hours to feel a bit comfortable. When a wind comes up or you have to slow down or speed up the boat wanders to left or right and oversteering is difficult to master.

An interesting thing we have learned and are still trying to understand is that the toilets on the boat goes directly into the canal! So far we have seen no evidence of other boats toilet contents. Nor ours. We have encountered lots and lots of fishing in this canal, by locals. And we have been told that there are rather large carp in it as well. Too much info?

We are spending the night back at St. Gilles where we started from, to take on water and get some more provisions. It was a good test cruise and we are certainly much wiser than we were a mere 30 hours ago. The diet on this three week vacation is not our usually healthy home diet but we enjoy it In moderation.

After lunch aboard we took a shower in the bathroom in our ensuite. It proved much more pleasurable and convenient than I thought.

Tonight's adventure is to find a decent place to eat ashore. Napoleonic law states that grocery stores, drug stores and most eating places shalt not be open for the convenience of the public. We did find one: the hotel we stayed at when we arrived here two nights ago!

A short afternoon bike ride enabled us to experience the French pastime of ripping up roads and then paving over them in worse shape than when they were originally.

This life aboard is something that we have not experienced before and it is quite an enjoyable experience once your mind adapts and accepts the conditions and experiences presented to you.

Today Alyssa was informed by her booking people that we may be entitled to some monetary compensation due to the cancellation of our original flight from Paris to Montpellier. Bonus if there is.