bonjourmatelot

So much for new year resolutions then. It’s now July and this is only my second post 

I have excuses! plenty of them!!

Today, ends the first week of our new ‘M.O.’  It’s now too hot to do much down below in the cabin ( 34 degrees C) and working on deck is crazy as there is no shelter. So, we rise before first light, make a pot of freshly brewed coffee – I take my chinese medicine first (more about that another time) and the coffee is a reward  and we slowly surface….

By 6.30am we are on deck working on the foresail. So far, we’ve got the fittings onto the boom, the boom is suspended by the lazyjack system and we’ve lashed the sail onto the boom and the yard.  The halyard and yard hauling parrel are attached to the yard so tomorrow we can haul the sail up one panel to attach the first pair of battens.

MMmm bit too technical? well I’ll just have to sort those pictures out!

The rest of today was spent lounging in the cockpit. Well, Rene lounged, because he’s feeling under the weather with a gum infection, and I spent the day catching up on emails and paperwork.

Talking of pictures, Dominique passed by in his dinghy today and he has some photos he took last week when we took Crib out for her first sail in over a decade.

No promises this time for when I’ll get the next post up!

Finished wiring up the Xantrex battery charger, balanced the batteries (re-arranged the way they are connected together) laid more enormous cabling for the split charging system and found a place to put the Alternator regulator…..  Tomorrow more of the same!  Monday is my deadline to have the electrics finished as we have friends coming over to the boat for supper and a game of Cribbage. Then, next week we can start on the sails!

No chance of getting away to Philippines until end of the year now.  Our deadline now is to get Crib sailing by May 1st. If we can do that, and the sea trials go well, we might just enter the Hong Kong to Macau Race at the beginning of June.  No promises, but we think that it will give us something to work towards.

Weather has been warmer these past couple of days – 28 degrees yesterday reminded us of what’s to come. We really need to get the inside jobs finished as quickly as possible before the heat gets overpowering like last year.

Hope you’re all well and enjoying the spring we miss the daffodils, the asparagus and the green of Normandie.

We’ve been here 14 months now and I’ve been meaning to put a blog together since we arrived!  Wish I had, we’ve done so much this year so many challenges and so many successes – hundreds of picture too.  What I’d like to do is post once a week to let you know what we’ve been doing. and spend  a little time learning  how to get the best out of this software. For the past 14 months, the doing has taken up all the time but ever the optimist, it can be my new year resolution (Chinese new year, belated)

Wish me luck and call back soon!