It’s been a very busy 2 days. We’ve checked out of the hotel and moved our belongings onto the boat. That was a challenge because we were rafted next to an Outremer 45 and had to put our things on that boat and then pass it over to our boat – lots of up and down and over and under! And the bags all weighed somewhere between 40 and 50 lbs. each. No need for a gym!
Then it was time to start shopping for the things we needed to make Moxie a “home” – sheets (to sleep on not to trim), towels, plates, cutlery… and everything else. We’ve been to Carrefour 3 days in a row. Amazon France is getting a lot of our business as well. Although I’ve been working to learn some basic French, we can’t translate more specific things. For example, we needed a “light” duvet specifically for summer, but how do you translate that into French and how would the packaging be labelled so you could know for sure what we were buying??? How do you weigh the fruit you want to buy?
Using Google translate, we hold the phone camera up to the screen for the translation and figure out what to do next.
We tried to buy nuts in bulk (just like at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s) but trying to tell whether the almonds were roasted or salted was a challenge. We had to weigh our purchase but couldn’t quite follow the French instructions for the process of weighing so we could print the label. We peeked at what the French locals did and finally figured it out. The whole process takes a really long time and we’ve been rushing to fit our shopping trips in between all of the “training” we need to learn how the various boat systems work (more about that later).
We were supposed to go out for a “test sail” on Tuesday, but were “thwarted” because of a “stuck” marine lift. The boat yard had put a boat in the water using a special motorized trailer, but the boat was too heavy, and the trailer broke down while immersed in the water. In this picture, you can see part of the trailer above water. Since there was a “dock” behind us, and this lift to the side, we did not have enough room to maneuver ourselves out of our “parking spot”, so we were stuck. The yard tried to remove it with one crane, but it was not big enough, so they came back the next day. The video below shows them finally getting it out of the water.
We moved to a different dock – which included docking practice…. that’s a story for another post. Each day brings new challenges… but you won’t hear us complaining…. at least not yet!
So fun reading and watching the video! Obviously tons of work and reward! Thanks for taking us along for the ride!