A wonderful weekend and some preparations

It was blowing over 30 knots in the harbour as I departed for a flying visit to France.  It was a good job Skipper Nigel was staying aboard to look after Gemini J as she was getting blown about all over the place in the choppy Mahon harbour.  I took a taxi to the airport and flew to Paris Orly, then drove (in another Fiat hire car) to Normandy.  I was very excited to have been invited to celebrate our dear friends Jo and Al ‘s Silver Wedding at their beautiful home.  The views of the island as I left were spectacular.

We enjoyed a fabulous meal on the Friday evening as everyone arrived ready to celebrate.  On the Saturday we were blessed with fantastic weather for our trip to visit the British Normandy memorial and Omaha beach.  Both are very moving and a stark reminder of the impact of war.  There are almost too many names at the memorial to comprehend and so many of them were just so young.

In the afternoon we headed back to casa Assheton and enjoyed a very relaxing time – celebrating over a glass of champagne and more wonderful food thanks to our hosts.

I had a truly wonderful and memorable weekend with lovely people and I was so happy to be able to share the time together.

When I got back on Sunday I could see Skipper Nigel had been busy doing various boat jobs. It turned out he had had a shower on the boat while I was in France.  The waste from the bathroom has always been a wine cork rather than a plug, however when trying to remove this, it broke in half, it was corked 😉  He got a corkscrew and tried to remove it, finally he got half of it out.  He was worried that if it went into the drain it could damage the pump but a lot of jiggling about and he got it out.  Then, the big issue was, did he have another cork ?? Then he thought – ahhh Al has a wine cellar, he must have a cork – WhatsApp Sarah and ask her to bring a cork back to fix the shower on the boat.  In the morning, he went to the recycling to take the rubbish and there, by the glass container was this cork ….. that afternoon’s job was to trim the cork to fix the shower;-) (no need for the WhatsApp)

In the run up to my weekend away we had been busy preparing Gemini J for our potential crossing to Sardinia.  This involved a full re-stock, especially of the heavy items. I headed off to the supermarket where I picked out and bought everything, arranging for it to be delivered to the boat the next day.  This was the first time I had done this and it worked really well – 6 huge boxes arrived the very next morning and we had the boat apart to stow everything away safely.

The other main concern with our 200 nautical mile crossing would be fuel.  Gemini J only has a 65litre tank so we knew we would need to carry a lot more fuel than normal and also to re-fuel on the way.  I went to the chandlery and bought 3 more 20l containers.  I was surprised to find they were cheaper than in Cartagena, (thinking everything was more expensive on the island).  After I had bought them I had the delight of walking backwards and forwards to the fuel station filling them up.  Mind you, they were a bit cheaper than the 585€ bill the yacht in front of me had to pay to fill the tank.  I had a good laugh with the petrol pump attendants as I turned up 4 times with cans to be filled.

Once that job was done all that remained was for Skipper Nigel to work out the best way to stow them – bearing in mind their weight.  When I arrived back from Normandy the job was done and we have 2 cans on each side of the boat plus 2 in a locker.  That should be more than enough for our crossing – especially bearing in mind we would like to sail and use no fuel if possible;-)

Monday came and we watched the weather – deciding that Tuesday would be the best day to set sail.  That evening amazingly we were sitting aboard when we heard “hello there” – we turned round to see Immie and Pierre from yacht Primadonna – our neighbours from Yacht Port Cartagena.  We hadn’t been following their progress nor they ours so we were all super surprised to see each other.  They came aboard and we had a lovely evening sharing stories of our journeys so far and onward plans – for them southern Sardinia and Sicily and for us Northern Sardinia and Corsica.  We went to bed hoping for fine weather and fair winds the following day.