Pain de Sucre
Pain de Sucre
Picture of Arnd

Arnd

2023-05-29 Pentecost Workday

Dawn

Well, actually just a bit before dawn.  I woke to the sound of roosters crowing ashore. I’d not anchored or moored this close in a long time and have been spared the bucolic sounds of roosters, goats or sheep. Today is going to be a Pentecost workday. I’m going to take advantage of the vacation day in Europe to catch up on my testing and other tasks.

Morning
Collecting daily mooring fees
Collecting daily mooring fees

The gentleman responsible for the moorings came by to collect the 19 Euro per day fee at 08:00 and I paid him and thanked him for his assistance last night, without which I would have anchored somewhere else in deep water and choppy waves.

I’m making great progress at work today, mainly because of the empty virtual office.

Noon
Pain de Sucre beach
Pain de Sucre beach

No lunch, I’m on a roll at work and want to finish as soon as possible so I can go hiking ashore. I got part of a baguette out of the freezer and am letting the remains of a small wheel of camembert warm up and get runny. That’s going to form the foundation of my lunch.

Afternoon

I have been putting off cleaning the hull for several weeks. Today I stopped postponing this onerous task. But before going into the water I decided to use my little electric trimmer and cut all of my hair down to 3mm. This was to stop all those nasty little larvae from wriggling onto my body.

Looking up le Chameau
Looking up le Chameau

The hull was in pretty bad shape. It took me a while to do a preliminary pass on both sides. I scraped away as much as I could reach from the surface without having to dive. With my short arms, this wasn’t much. I’m glad I decided to trim my hair – a quick shower off the transom was enough to wash those irksome larvae away, while they still stuck en-masse to my swimming trunks. Yuck – those wriggling little critters are just disgusting.

I’ve drowned my goosebump-raising larvae memories with a 1664 beer and I’m going to have to delve into the depths of my freezer to find something to make for dinner. I’m not energetic enough to dinghy into town – only to find out that the restaurants are closed this Pentecost workday…

Sunset in the Saintes
Sunset in the Saintes
Dinner

Some boiled then BBQ’d potatoes and sausages formed my dinner, along with my last can of beer.