La Grande Motte:
Now that we were safely back in La Grande Motte, we needed to clear in and get started on the “to-do list”. Stephane was taking the month of August off – and he sorely needed the break- so Rafael was now our main contact. Once he and Anthony reviewed the list of ~45 items, Rafael began coordinating the repairs and upgrades while we tried to clear in….
We left the boat about 3:00 pm on Wednesday (7/28) and headed to Sète by car – the closest port of entry. It’s only about 30 miles away, but the winding road and heavy traffic made the trip over an hour…. Once we got closer to the town, we had to dodge people, motorcycles, bicyclists, other cars – and wind our way along tiny, cobblestone streets. The town was packed with tourists everywhere! Many were from a cruise ship and/or a ferry. We started off at the marina, thinking that they could point us in the right direction. Nothing there, so we tried the Capitainerie, but once we arrived, we found it was closed.
So we searched for the Douane (customs) office, Googled the directions, and headed that way. Once we arrived at the address, we rang the doorbell and explained that we needed to clear into the country. I’m not sure how much English they understood, but they let us in anyway. Once in, we showed them passports and tried to explain again, but that person had to go get someone else who spoke English. We finally met with a very nice man who understood what we needed, but said we were in the wrong place. He told us to either go down the road to another customs office, or, if that was closed, try the Port where the cruise ship/ferry passengers were.
Ugh… No one seems to really know what to do with us. And every time we have to go to another place, we have to walk back to the car, inch our way out of the teeny, tiny parking space, drive down the crowded cobblestone roads (and try not to hit anyone), find another parking space, inch our way into another teeny, tiny parking space, figure out whether we need to pay to park, and if so, how much, and then walk to the office. By now, we were hot, tired, and patience was running thin (especially with me).
We walked to first office, rang the doorbell, no answer. Back to the car we went, new directions for the Ferry port, and back in traffic for twenty minutes. There was no parking available anywhere, so Anthony let me out and waited in the car. I ran up the stairs and saw lots of people coming out, so maybe this was it. I got to the top and entered a huge open room with HUNDREDS of people in 8 or 9 lines who had just come off – or were getting on – a ferry or cruise from/to somewhere in North Africa (BTW – There’s no air conditioning in this room!). I quickly decide this was NOT where we needed to be, and I was not going to stand in one of those lines to ask somebody else where we should go. We decided to call it at that point and try again on Friday! If no one seemed to really know where we should go, then waiting a few more days wouldn’t make that much difference.
We headed back to Sète early Friday morning (7/30) with a couple of new possibilities – hoping one of them might be the right place. We found one of the offices, rang the doorbell, and were let in. We explained our same story and were asked to wait in a different office.
In comes a very nice woman who asks for our papers. Ooooh, maybe we’re getting somewhere. She looks at our papers, asks if we have more papers (Anthony keeps handing her boat documentation, vaccination cards, etc…), but soon it’s pretty obvious she’s not the right person either. Damn! We resort to non-verbal cues by pulling out the passports and smacking our fist on the passport to indicate a “stamp” and she realizes what we need.
She can’t help us BUT she has a new address for us to go to – one we’d never been given before, so off we go again… fingers crossed.
By this time, we’ve learned not to leave the room until we’ve put the address into Google Maps and verified we’re going to the correct place. We drive back across town, find the street, find a parking place, inch our way into it, put some money in the meter, and set out for the address. We come to an old stone building with a gate in front and ring the bell. A police officer comes out – flak jacket and all – and we explain what we need. She opens the gate and takes us inside. We sit down and another guy takes our passports. Okay… this is a good sign… I think (unless we’re about to be arrested….).
A few minutes later, we hear 2 “smacks” that sound very much like someone has just stamped something….. and shortly after that, a man walks out and says “Here you, go. Welcome to France!” OMG. We’ve spent hours searching for the place to get our passports stamped, and once we found it, the whole thing took less than 5 minutes!!! Ironically, they didn’t ask us anything – not “Which country did you come from?”, “Do you have a negative COVID test?”, “Are you vaccinated?”, “When did you arrive?”, nothing…. Sheesh!
Now that we were legally in the country, we could turn our attention to “the list”. Rafael told us that he had contacted the “absolute best” engine mechanic in the area – which turned out to be Amine Berrahma – the same person who taught the diesel maintenance training class in May.
Amine showed up on Thursday and quickly set about diagnosing the problem: checking filters, using the hand pump, starting the engine, all with Anthony observing intently to learn as much as he could. He quickly isolated the problem to be a blockage in the fuel tank. (Anthony was quite chuffed, as this is where he thought the problem was too).
After using a telescopic rod to try to clear the fuel line and then physically blowing on the fuel line, Amine concluded that the fuel pick-up line was completely blocked. It wasn’t a problem with bad fuel.
Unfortunately, the fuel pick-up line was completely inaccessible from the inspection hatch in each tank. So, instead of spending hours trying to diagnose the exact cause of the problem, Amine suggested we just create a new pick-up line in each tank that would (a) fix the problem and (b) be accessible should something like this happen again. Amine thinks that somehow we got some hot fuel that softened the plastic of the tank or the hose, causing the fuel pick-up line to be complete closed. Anthony, after thinking about it more, thinks that perhaps the fuel line might have been bent so that the end could lie on the bottom of the tank. Some warm fuel may have caused the bend in the plastic fuel line to then kink, like a garden hose might do. We will never know for sure.
It was late in the day at that point, and Amine agreed to come back on Friday and finish the job. He did come back, late in the day and promptly fixed the issue. It was fascinating to watch him work – so much hard won experience and knowledge – making a 90 minute job out of something that would have taken Anthony all day. After he was done, he bled the engines, and they fired up first time! Here is his contact info if you’re ever in LGM and need a great, hard working mechanic: optimotor34@gmailcom
On Sunday, we visited a place called Aigues-Morte – a French medieval village. We wanted to walk around the top of the outer wall (like Dubrovnik, but much smaller), but needed to show proof of vaccination first (this was the 1st place we were asked about this). Luckily, we had pictures on our phone for this very purpose. It was nice to walk around, but none of the exhibits or historical information cards were in English (the French are VERY protective of their language), so we weren’t able to learn as much as we wanted, but it was still a nice change of scenery!
Monday morning came and workers were busy with various tasks. We wanted to add a 4th battery to store excess energy from the solar panels for use when there was no sun. We also added a stern light on the back of the solar panels, had a scratch repaired, replaced the starboard trampoline (so it wasn’t so “soft and spongy”), added engine sensors, added mosquito screens to the back, repaired broken zippers and lots of other small things to make sure we were “ship-shape”. This meant the boat was in a constant state of disarray for a few days which made it difficult to move around.
It was sort of like trying to live in your home while it’s under construction, but we had a limited amount of time to get everything done – for two reasons: 1) we needed to leave in time to meet Andrea and Chris in Menorca by Saturday (8/15), and 2) the Outremer office (and most of Europe) was shutting down for the last 2 weeks of August. Many folks were already on vacation, but they worked diligently through our list.
By the time the weekend arrived, we were ready for another change of scenery – this time – further North – into Grenoble – located at the base of the French Alps and home to the 1968 winter Olympics. We left on Saturday (8/7) in the pouring rain for what should have been about a 3 hour drive. Six hours later, we finally arrived at our hotel. Everyone in France was on the road with us and the rain did not help matters.
We stayed at a “Novatel” which was nice, but a little run down. But the view of the vineyards and mountain behind us was beautiful. This was taken from our hotel room window at sunset …
We went into town to have a look around and find a place for dinner. It was still a little rainy and cool, and still a little early for dinner, so there wasn’t much of a crowd even though it was a Saturday night. Walking around, we were struck by the amount of graffiti. It was everywhere and there seemed to have been little attempt to clean it up. Between the gloomy skies, closed shops (either because of COVID or the August holiday), and the graffiti, the town looked pretty run down and we didn’t get a favorable impression. We kept on wandering anyway searching for a place for dinner and landed at a great restaurant called La Côtelette (chop house).
Our dinner of tuna tar tar and roast pork was fabulous. We topped it off with caramelized pineapple with whipped cream for dessert! The city might be a little dated, but the food was fabulous!
We went back the next day and took a cable car up to tour the Grenoble bastille – not “the” bastille that launched the French Revolution – but “a” bastille which is the generic term for a fortress. Here some of the descriptions were in English which made it much more interesting for us. The view of the valley below was spectacular, and we hiked down for some exercise.
We wanted to visit a small mountain town nearby called Voreppe and so headed that way hoping to have lunch. The town was dead… nothing open, not even a gas station so we headed back to La Grande Motte since we had plenty to do to be ready to leave for Spain.
Since it was our last night in La Grande Motte, for probably a really long time, we treated ourselves to dinner at the Yacht Club. The food was magnificent, and the view was spectacular.
The winds looked good for Monday and Tuesday and then not much after that. We needed to be in Menorca NLT than Friday to meet our daughter and fiancé, on Saturday so we couldn’t wait forever. We decided to try to head out on Tuesday to catch the last of whatever wind was left, hoping there were no further engine issues!
After some last minute provisioning, returning the rental car, installing mosquito nets on 2 aft cabin ports, and exchanging contact info with all of our new friends, we departed the “P” pontoon for the last time.
As we close the chapter on France and our time here, we can’t help but marvel at all that we have to be grateful for. It has been a wonderful experience and we look forward to all that is to come. Au revior France….
Hola España! BTW – The engines worked perfectly on the 30-hour sail to Menorca (arrival pictured below) and we had dolphin escorts about 20 miles from land!
Hola Thorpe’s! Glad to see you are meeting up with family and moving forward with your travels. Love you lots, Susan