The canal du midi

[Irish Rambler]

I mentioned in an earlier post that the admiral wanted a 'beach' holiday as a change because we live on board full time and took our summer holidays in our cruiser along the canal du Midi.
We chose Spain for this break for several reasons, one getting dental implants in Spain is much cheaper than in France, and a bit like an excavator bucket needing new teeth after working hard, I also needed new teeth, I had jaw bone re-enforcement before we went to Australia last year (Paddy's Flying blog) the implants were done 6 months later, now it was time for the porcelain tops to be fitted which would entail two visits.
The Spanish border is only 40 minutes by car and the dental clinic is in Barcelona which is two hours away, so we booked a hotel near to Barcelona with the thinking that as I had two appointments, one for impressions and another a week later for fitting it was cheaper than driving back and forth.
We chose a 3* hotel in Pineda de Mar which was on offer on the site www.groupon.fr it turned out to be a wise choice. Pineda de Mar is not as commercial as some better known resorts and has a laid back family orientated atmosphere.
The hotel is clinically clean, even the cleaning maids bid you a cheerful Bueno dia, dining room is buffet style with ample choices and the young ladies who set tables and cleared the place were happy, friendly and very hard working. The young attractive lady who runs the bar is very generous with her spirit measures, a half large brandy balloon of Spanish brandy will set you back the princely sum of 4 Euro's, there's entertainment in the bar 5 nights a week. Yeah ! some good old Rock 'n' Roll, Spanish guitarists are noted for their skill and these guys were no exception.
Its the only hotel I've ever seen customers give the waitresses a hug and kiss on the cheeks as they were leaving and the waitresses were visibly upset at the customers appreciation of their work, I've been in 5 star foxholes and never seen such kindness shown like that before.
The staff of this hotel make the atmosphere into more of a family holiday feeling and of course this is passed on to the clients and makes their holidays memorable. Ours was, and we'll definitely go back again.(If only for the bacon and egg breakfast, they don't do bacon in France).

Photo's,
1, Our hotel.

2, The local chapel as built in 1700.

3, Catholic mass was in progress when this photo was being taken and like the photo being turned, being a WASP I didn't want to be turned either !

4, Monkey puzzle tree in the middle of the town.

5,9. I just can't keep away from boats. The tour boat runs a water bus service along this stretch of coast and the freighter was passing offshore.

6.7. The beach at Pineda de Mar is of coarse sand and shelves quite quickly and more suitable for older children who can swim already.

8. Great family bonds begin with bringing up happy children and the Spanish are very family orientated. Its not unusual to see families of 8/10 people including the children sharing a meal at 9 or 10 at night in a beachside restaurant chattering away ten to the dozen with lots of laughter.

10. I should've put this photo first to help to orientate you.
The area outlined is the Catalonian part of Spain, more on that in the next post. The three blue marks on the coast are from the top, our home in France, Pineda de Mar and Barcelona.

 

[Irish Rambler]

A few more photo's around Pinet de Mar.

1, The flag is the flag of Catalonia, recently the people of Catalonia voted for independence from Spain. With the backing of the EU the Spanish riot police violently put down the voting rallies and forced the leader into exile.
You make up your own mind about EU 'democracy'.

2, In Spain they have a very large Lotto called 'El Gordo' 'the big one', ticket sellers can sell you an eighth, a quarter, half or a full ticket.

3, Pineda de Mar town hall.

4, The towns water fountain in the central square, the place Catalunya.
You can just about make out the name on the plaque.

5, This 'modern art' lump of iron is in fact made of expanded polyurethane.

6, Typical deserted main street at noon when the Spanish take their siesta.

7, Modern art serving a useful function as a kiddies slide.

8, Everybody gets a balcony in these apartments.

9, These lime tree's line the main thoroughfare, nobody seems to pick the fruit. They'd be delicious as an 'ice and slice' in a gin and tonic.
Incidentally the British are often referred to as 'Limeys'. The old time sailing ships crews often suffered from scurvy due to lack of vitamins in vegetables, the ships Dr's discovered that lime juice was beneficial in preventing the disease so the ships pursers stocked up with lots of limes at each and every port they were available, hence the nickname.

10, No mechanical street cleaners here, this lady cleans a bit and chats to the locals as she works. Despite the amount of tourists the main street is kept spotless. The locals are proud of their town, and rightly so.

 

[Irish Rambler]

It seems that every Mediterranean port village has a Holy connection, Pinet de Mar is no exception as you'll see from a photo below, but try as I might I couldn't find any reference in English.
One of the ancient pagan rituals is the 'Nit Del Foc', what we call summer solstice, the Spanish call the 'Festival of Flame' or 'Night of Fire'.
This is on June the 23rd, the shortest night of the year and the 'Night of Fire' is to frighten away all the evil spirits and in every village there's music, dancing, food and the Spanish people just love fireworks, by the thousand of every type shape and colours, this is also the day the locals take the first swim of the year in the sea to wash away any bad spirits.
In the Pyrenees mountains which border Spain and France the largest mountain is called Mount Canigou, young locals from the French city of Perpignan trek up Mt Canigou and camp there on the evening of the 22nd of June and build a massive bonfire, as dawn breaks these young guys and gals each take a flaming torch from the bonfire and travel to all the towns and villages in this Catalonian region of Spain, even as far away as Barcelona. (The south west part of France was also part of the ancient region of Catalonia and Catalan is the ancient language still spoken by some).
In more recent times the French/Spanish Catalan people also helped and guided escaped prisoners of war and downed airmen during the World War two to escape from German occupied France by various hidden mountain trails up over the Pyrenees mountains and into neutral Spain to be re-patriated.

Photo's.
1, This is the legend of St Joan, in Spanish, mine is conversational Spanish, essential for beer, wine, food, so you have a go at translating it.

2, Obviously this is where people pay their respects by checking their spectacles, testicles, right arm and wallet.

3,I've always an eye for a pretty girl and this reminded me of the Llorelei on the river rhine during our cruise around Europe ( Windmills and Wine blog).

4,This anchor was from a shipwreck, now the only water it tastes is fresh.

5, The usual tourist rude 'T' shirts and geegaws.
Incidentally Souvenir in French means 'Memory'.

6,7, For anyone interested in bodywork this very clever, well thought out design makes an perfect market sales van by using a sliding body extension, just look at the length of sales area.
In pic 6 note the small stainless steel trailer up beside the cab, it carries a 20 KVA Genny up front for the fridges and storage at the rear.

8,9,10. We love the local markets for fresh food. Every size of olive, stuffed, natural, with, or without stones
Just look at the amount of people to see how popular the markets are with the locals.
The Spanish just love air dried sausages in every variety shapes, size and flavour much the same as the Americans and Australians love beef jerky.

 

[Irish Rambler]

I bet you think I'm getting paid by the Spanish tourist board, I'm just telling it like it is so that should you ever decide to go you know what to expect.

Photo's,
1, Having such a long coastline with both Mediterranean and Atlantic seafronts fish forms a large part of the Spanish diet.
The herring are tasty.

2, The sailors of old would recognize this fish, its Bacalao, salted cod. Its immersed in fresh water and the water changed every 3 hours for at least 12 hours before being cooked, because its salted down on the trawler that catches it, its fresh and doesn't need constant refrigeration, that makes it cheaper and was once regarded as a 'poor mans' meal

3,Some of these radishes are damn near the size of golf balls, they have a white crunchy tangy flesh and eaten raw or finely shredded in salads.

4, It always comes back to boats doesn't it. These are typical Mediterranean Lateen rigged fishing boats.

5, These are the diesel version, they have small bilge keels that steady them at sea and on land too as they're dragged up from the water over wooden planks topped with plastic to avoid damage and helps slide them up with less effort.

6,I read many articles on TF about boats in America suffering from diesel sludge in the bottom of the tanks, maybe you should copy the Spanish system where diesel fuel is put through a pre-dispensing pump filtration system. !

7, A roundabout feature in a Spanish town.

8,9, Altogether in this coach park I counted 53 coaches from various countries around Europe Spain, Holland, Germany, France, Belgium and Great Britain. It just shows how popular this region is with tourists. And, that's not counting the Russians, Finnish and Latvians who fly into local airports in the search for sun.
Who said swallows are stupid ? They always fly south for the winter !

10, So you think that water lubricated bearings are new, you can see the small metal tube angled to catch the water (circled blue) there's a corresponding outlet on the other side.

This concludes our visit to Pineda de Mar in Spain, I hope you enjoyed your visit with us.
Hasta La Vista.

 

[FoxtrotCharlie]

Love that part of Spain - when we walked the Camino de Santiago a few yrs ago we visited there also They let us know we were in Basque country!!

 

[Moonstruck]

I. R., I always look forward to your posts on TF. They are so well written, informative and illustrated with pictures. Please keep them coming.

 

[Irish Rambler]

Thank you for your kind comments FoxtrotCharlie and Moonstruck, they're much appreciated.

OK holidays over, early morning heavy traffic trip into Barcelona to visit the dentist and there's me lying back in the chair staring into the searchlight and thinking kind thoughts about dentists drills and injections when I hear the admirals phone ringing in the reception.
I can hear some rising tension in her voice and the odd word, tempet, inundation, emergence, the dentists got his hand in my gob while I'm getting into a cold sweat and thinking of dusting the insurance policies off.
At that moment he says finito I'm up outta the chair like a friggin rocket outta Cape Canaveral to see what's going on.
Long story short lets get the f out of here.

There's been an unprecedented rain fall which has caused massive flooding around Carcassonne and Trebes (read earlier posts) and our boat is at 30 degrees and the waters still rising.
I drive a Merc E 320 and by Christ I drove her hard up the motorway (about 150/60 kmh) up the motorway, so if I get a shower of speeding tickets from the French cops I think I'll go to crowd funding on TF.
If you read our earlier posts in this thread you will know we normally moor in Narbonne on the canal du Robine, between Narbonne and the canal du Midi we have to cross the river Aude, this has a 'Porte Gard', guard gate to prevent flooding.
As you well know civil servants don't work, especially after 4 o clock so no one issued a flood alert until 10 hours after the emergency started, naturally no one has accepted responsibility so no flood gates were closed and mother nature has no mercy for lazy incompetent humans.

Thank god for good neighbours, they cut the lines to prevent damage to the boats and by the time we arrived the powers that be had got their ass in gear and closed the Garde Porte and the water was slowly receding so it was a matter of easing the boats back into the canal to stop them grounding on the fixed bollards.
We kept a guard all night during the ferocious rain and by next evening the worst was past and the clean-up began.
Sadly further up the canal du Midi and surrounding areas 13 people lost their lives R.I.P. Our thoughts and prayers are with those families at this tragic time.
Bridges were washed away and millions of dollars of damage caused. Before any prick mentions modern day global warming the same thing happened in 1809.
The one good thing that shines through in times of adversity in the brotherhood of sailors who help each other at times like this.

Photo's,
1, This is Trebes harbour wall, normally there's outside dining along the quay, all washed away.

2,Hire boats grounded.

3,Quay wall after the flood.

4.Flooding debris.

 

[Irish Rambler]

We were more fortunate than many, both in the volume and power of the flood water but as the water receded in the canal it left behind a thick black glutinous mud which stuck like shite to the proverbial blanket.
The rain of course didn't just stop as if someone had turned off the shower, we had several short extremely heavy downpours, the rainwater was bouncing back up off the ground like gunfire showering everything around with a shrapnel of mud.
Some of the locals complained that they couldn't walk along the quay 'because the town hadn't cleaned the walkway', we were dumbfounded !
The surrounding area had suffered a catastrophic disaster, people had lost their lives, homes destroyed, businesses lost and all they could do was complain, an unbelievably selfish attitude.
As usual in our little boating community the brotherhood of sailors won the day, we simply just got stuck in with the clean-up operation, not only our own boats but the unattended ones too, the admirals kept us in hot cups of tea or coffee and bowls of steaming hot beef stew eaten in relays 'on the hoof' until finally the day was won.

Photo's.

1,2,3 Our friends Pat and Geraldine had returned to Ireland to help with new a machine installation in their business. You can see how the mud had 'japped' their boat. 'Jap' is an Irish slang term for splash.

4, You've had the before, this is the after.

 

[Irish Rambler]

Omissions
I didn't show you the comparison prices of fuel in Spain.
Photo.
Only white taxed 'road' diesel is officially allowed in the EU, France is very aggressive in checking leisure vessels but in Spain things can be more 'relaxed'. All prices are in Euro's of course.
Apologies for the photo clarity but some LED signs don't photograph well. Generally speaking 'Self Service' is about 3 cents cheaper than attended service and the term 'Power diesel' has a slightly higher octane rating.

I didn't explain the term 'shrapnel' I used in the previous post.
In the late 1800's an English munitions inventor by the name of Henry Shrapnel knew the naval artillery was using round iron balls of shot through an unrifled barrel, sometimes this shot was heated red hot to cause fires when they struck the enemies wooden vessels.
British Royal naval artillery officers tried to aim at the sails and spars to disable enemy ships so they could be boarded and captured.
A captured vessel meant prize money for all the crew, the navy paid nothing for sunken vessels
Henry Shrapnel invented a cast iron hollow ball with a fuse which ignited when fired from the barrel of a cannon, the ball was filled with explosive and small pieces of metal were packed around the explosive, which, along with the cast iron ball on detonation shattered into thousands of tiny pieces spraying a lethal shower of red hot metal, this exploding ball was an immediate success both for shredding sails, dismasting spars and eliminating any enemy within range.
This became known as 'shrapnel' after its inventor, Henry Shrapnel.
To this day if you hear British servicemen talking among themselves, or any ex British soldiers they'll refer to small coins in their pocket as 'shrapnel.
The British armed forces also named a military college after Henry Shrapnel at that time.

 

[Irish Rambler]

In an earlier post I spoke of some planned 'end of season' maintenance but the recent heavy flooding caused us to change to plan B.

Plan A would have seen us go to the shipyard for a lift out to get a grill made and fitted over the bow thruster tube apertures to stop debris entering the bow thruster tube, new brushes fitted to the bow thruster motor and a new anode as well as the usual hull clean and anti-fouling.
Because of the serious flooding we recently experienced it was foolish to attempt to travel by canal, rough seas and an uncertain weather pattern ruled out a journey by sea, a further restriction is that the canal system here in the South of France closes on the 31st of October.

So to Plan B.
The bow thruster had stopped working during the latter half of our summer cruise, they make boat handling so very easy and an inspection and repair was needed.
We had to revert back to our basic boat handling skills which entailed more work for the admiral as we resorted to using 'spring' ropes.
We've seen so many 'Captains' shouting and roaring at the crew trying to use ropes when they pass through locks I think I'd make a fortune out of commission handing out divorce lawyers business cards.
We use hand signals as we approach, and pass through locks, right hand raised a little, moor on the right, forefinger=front rope, centre finger=centre rope etc. Clenching fist=tighten, quick opening of the hand=release. You get the idea and its saves any misunderstandings and hot tongue and cold shoulder from the admiral.

Our bow thruster motor is located under the front cabin double bed and after dismantling the bed access is easy.
Removing the old brushes revealed the cause, the brushes were so worn that they simply wouldn't work anymore.
Fitting the new brushes (there are 8 on the Vetus 9512 model) is a relatively easy job and well within a competent DIY's ability.
One of the related problems we found was fine black carbon dust from the motor brushes which had made a dirty mess around the motor position, after cleaning the surrounding area and the bow thruster with a vacuum cleaner and then a can of automotive brake cleaner spray we decided to make a little modification.
What we've done is to take an old thin bed sheet and in effect made a spacious cover by stapling the sheet to the wooden supports around the sides and top, effectively stopping the black carbon dust making a mess everywhere whilst allowing the bow thruster motor to get sufficient cooling air. When we need access again we simply take down the old sheet and dispose of it.
As with all planned maintenance work a little forward planning is required, we get most of our spares sent out from England, they're generally cheaper than buying local even including the postage. We find the ships chandlers in England have a 'Can Do' attitude, some of the local chandlers tend to be lethargic and anything out of the run of the mill stock on the shelf simply gets a Gallic shrug of the shoulders and an apologetic 'Desolee Msr'.

Do you know who invented the battery ? Antonio Volta.

 

[Irish Rambler]

Here's a few photo's of the flood damage we recently experienced in the South of France mostly around Carcassonne and Trebes whereas we suffered high flood water with thankfully no damage.

Photo 1 is in Trebes, normally this area underwater is occupied by quayside restaurant terraces.

2, Washed up ashore.

3,Canal wall with soldiers drafted in to help.

4, After the water is the devastation.

5,Our boat marooned, fortunately where we were the floods receded and apart from thick slimy ooze to clean we got off lightly.

 

[Irish Rambler]

I mentioned is some earlier posts about modifying the engine air intake to reduce noise. This is what I've done and it reduces the noise by a good 25% which makes cruising a more pleasant experience.

Photo's.
1, I removed the old wire gauze air cleaner and made this 90' elbow.

2,Floorboards removed, you can the black wire re-enforced air intake pipe to the remotely mounted air cleaner.

3,If you think there's no dust when you cruise at sea or canals just look at this once white filter element. Even fine dust particles accelerate engine wear.

4,5, Air filter end cover before and after cleaning.

6, Black wire re-enforced air cleaner pipe, its important for it to be wire re-enforced to stop it collapsing under heavy suction at full throttle.

The 2 fittings on top of the diesel tank are a non return valve about to be fitted to the lift pipe. Below half a tank of fuel we occasionally had to use the hand pump to help the engine to start. I'll show you a photo of that in the next post.

 

[Irish Rambler]

We decided to uprate the charging system and this being an ex hire boat we found a lot of the PO's 'temporary quick fix' jobs and it's necessary to strip out all old regulators, unidentified black boxes and redundant wiring.

The photo below gives you an idea before we start to clean it up.

In the bottom photo, if you click on it to enlarge it, you'll see that I've encircled (badly) 3 areas you may be interested in.
The bottom left is our hand primer, we modified the old filter head which had a CAV sandwich filter for a 'spin-on' canister type which is cleaner and easier to change.
The new filter head incorporated a button pump (black circular button) which makes bleeding an engine virtually a thing of the past.

We sometimes had the trouble of starting the engine with less than half a tank of diesel earlier, I simply pushed the black button vigorously with the heel of my hand while the admiral engaged the starter, no need to bleed injectors and make a mess with diesel.

As a preventative measure of any future occurrence of starting problems we fitted a non-return valve to the fuel line BUT, once we'd done that, we checked all the unions and connectors on the fuel line and guess what ? We found 2 unions that required a quarter turn. In some circumstances its possible for air to get in the fuel feed line while under suction but for no fuel to leak out. I'm guilty of laziness I should have checked all the joints earlier, but if it ain't broke don't fix it and once the engine's running were all fired up and ready to cast off and go places.

When you travel you pass through various regions where the water is 'hard' and kettles, shower heads and taps get a layer of limestone which reduces efficiency, strong white vinegar will clean off any deposits but we felt it better to stop it forming in first place so we fitted a 12 volt de-ioniser.
The other 2 upper areas I've highlighted are the control unit and on the domestic water feed pipe there are 2 coils of wire (in opposite directions)

 

[Irish Rambler]

I spoke in the earlier thread about dust from the bow thruster which brings me to the subject of dust in general.
Essential for any engine is clean air because obviously dirty air increases engine wear, on many marine engines the air filter is a simple wire gauze strainer to reduce building costs and on the assumption there's no dust in a boat engine room.
Boat engine rooms are generally small, cramped, under saloon floors so cruising for a day with an engine just below a plywood floor can be noisy and uncomfortable.
Being the type of guy I am decided to do something about it based on my own work experience .
The engine on my boat is a 4 cylinder Perkins M90 (4236) based on an industrial engine, a great reliable workhorse with a long service life.
The first thing I did was remove the wire gauze air cleaner and scrap it.
Then I made a new 90 degree elbow in aluminium to fit over the air intake manifold pipe, visiting a local scrapyard I found an old forklift engine air cleaner.
These were cleaned/painted and mounted, the plastic pipe I used to connect the two is wire bound so that it cannot collapse under suction from the engine.
I complimented this by fitted 'Quietlife' sound insulation which has a foam/polymeric/foam sandwich construction with a washable facing under the floorboards and bulkheads.
To stop the partially empty tanks acting as an echo chamber and amplifying noise on the fuel and water tanks I fitted bitumen anti-resonance pads, the type you see attached under stainless steel sinks.
Anything similar would do the job.

What's the result of my tinkering ?
Cleaner air into the engine = less wear, a reduction in engine noise by approx. 25% = quieter environment = less stress and a happy crew.

Photo's.
1, Modified air intake fitting, it had to be a 90 degree elbow to clear the floor bearer.

2, Ex forklift air cleaner, remotely mounted away from the engine ( obviously under the floor, a sofa is above when the floor is replaced.) with an easy flow of air

3,Non collapsible wire bound air cleaner pipe.

4, After one seasons cruising this is the dirty air filter, the paper element is normally white.

5, Air filter end cap.

6, End cap cleaned ready for re installation with a new filter.

 

[Irish Rambler]

It appears that some of the last posts were repeated. I apologize for the digital gremlins who must've been touching the bottle (without me I might add)

As explained in previous posts we've been dogged by battery charging problems for some time, the very high ambient temperatures over this summer with fridges and freezers working flat out drove it home that we needed to remove our finger from the proverbial fundamental orifice and get the system repaired and upgraded once and for all, irrespective of cost.

Not counting the fact that I get to be real cranky when things don't work as they should

Research to find a proven system that suits our needs, ordering/getting everything to come together takes time also.
One thing we don't want is a generator, no matter how well installed and quiet they are they can still become intrusive over time, there's also a cost factor, purchase, consumption and servicing etc.
I prefer to keep things as simple and economical to provide for our future electrical needs as possible.

In previous posts you can see the wiring resembled my granny's knitting so when installing the new Adverc system the wiring was 'belled' (continuity test), where the PO had made 'bridges' for a 'quick fix' unnecessary/redundant/unproven wiring was removed.

The original plan A would have seen the area re-painted before renovating the system but due to the recent flooding in this area the Port Captain sprung upon us that we must move all the boats in this section over the next 4 days above the next lock in order that the section of canal we're moored on can be drained for flood repairs to the banks lower down the canal.

Many boats are unaccompanied for various reasons, we have French, American, Canadian, Hawaiian, Swedish, Portugese and Irish neighbours who must return for visa/family reasons and as good neighbours we look after their boats in their absence.
In a case such as this we have around 10 boats to move to the upper canal level along with our own, so we'll be kept pretty busy to get everything done before the canal is drained.

Under the circumstance painting my bilge's got put on the back burner, it will of course all be hoovered, degreased and washed down before we re-lay the flooring and we'll burn the midnight oil if necessary to get the job done in time.

I guess the old adage. 'The best laid plans make mice of men' still holds.

Photo 1,Excess wiring removed.

2, A neater job.

3,4, Adverc unit. Adverc mounted.

5,Circuit breakers before tidying up.

6, Circuit breaker legend.

 

[Yorki]

Thanks very much

Thanks very much for such a detailed account of your travels. Looking forward to the next

Steve

 

[Irish Rambler]

If anyone has bought a Seaflo 41 series water pump, we've discovered that the pressure switches can be prone to faults. (they're made in China) !

If the pump stops working because of the pressure switch (wire the pump direct to test it) we found that if the original pressure switch is removed and replaced with a Whale AK 1317 micro switch it's a direct replacement and works perfectly.
I should have bought a Whale pump in the first place but being a tight fisted bar-steward I bought a cheapo Chinese made pump, when you count up the hassle and modifications it would have been cheaper to buy a Whale pump in the long run.

Of course all that doesn't explain all the ear bending I got from the admiral.
'Cherie the dishwasher pas marche reparation immediatemont sil vous plait !
Cherie le machine a lave pas marche (washing machine).
Oooh La La, Cherie la douche pas marche, aide moi immediatemont !

Talk about getting your ears burned in French.
But makin up is real good when its fixed

Still I always get the last word,
YES DEAR !

Photo. Whale micro switch, part number AK 1317

 

[Irish Rambler]

One of the things that I also wanted to get fixed on 'Snow Mouse' was the original dashboard switches.
They were faded by UV light and had a chip out of the surrounding frame and wouldn't clip properly into place.
I had to find the right type of switch to fit the aperture.
The type that fits is called a 'Carling' switch and apparently there is another marque called 'Roca' which is interchangeable.

Photo's.
1, The old dashboard switches.

2, Replacement Carling switches with icons, bottom left.
The rotary switch to the right of the Carlings is for the 5KW diesel fired hot air heating. Apologies for the camera flash reflection.

3, Carling clip in switch

 

[Irish Rambler]

As the year is drawing slowly to a close our summer cruise along the Canal du Midi and Lateral a la Garonne generally referred to as the 'Canal du Midi' our memories of 40 degrees C temperatures are fading with the advent of the recent flooding and repairs to be done to the canal banks.
Our boats also needed some updating and repairs as you've seen from recent posts, all that's left now is to move our boats to an upper level to facilitate bank repairs and when we move back just before Christmas the toolbox will be out again for an engine/gearbox oil change so everything is bathed in nice clean oil over the winter months.

What now ?
We're going to head off (by car) to Caldea in Andorra, there is a magnificent spa centre with naturally heated mountain spring water for a bit of personal TLC before Christmas is upon us.

Next year ?
Plan A.
As we live onboard permanently and have taken our holidays cruising the admiral wants something different, a (nearly) non-boating holiday next year.
So we'll be going to Ireland with friends and hiring a boat for a short while and join the Erne Boat Rally. In an earlier life I was the chairman of the Inland Waterways of Northern Ireland so we'll be meeting old friends, and making some new ones.
After that we plan to go and see the Edinburgh Military Tattoo in Scotland, if your a 'Harry Potter' film fan we're also planning to take a ride on the 'Hogwarts Express' and maybe a ferry trip over to the Isle of Skye.

I thank you most sincerely for coming along with us this year, I hope you enjoyed it all as much as we did, as we all have different tastes and outlooks we hope you found something to interest you along the way.

Photo's.
Andorra nestles between the borders of France and Spain in the mountain range called the Pyrenees which form a natural land border.
This small landlocked mountainous country was, before the advent of the EU an 'offshore banking paradise'.
Its administered by France for 6 months of the year and Spain for the other 6 months, both of whom are full EU members, the banking 'facilities' are still available for any non EU member.
Because Andorra's poor in natural resources they still enjoy very low taxes, their income comes from general tourism, ski-ing, mountain walking and tax free shopping etc.
Andorra's not part of the EU so tax free limits apply, being a very small country the locals have a tight nit community, therefore its not unknown if a French/Spanish person who's bought a large amount of tax free goods in one shop for the shop owner to telephone the border guards (all locals) who will stop the car and confiscate any goods over the limit and split the profit with the shop owner.
The expression 'getting shopped' holds true here.
Buying small amounts in different shops would be a wiser move.
Diesel fuel is half the price of France, we take plastic drums and bring back around 140 litres in the trunk of the car, like spirits and cigarettes we buy a couple of drums in different garages and put it in the car behind our front seats never letting the garage owner see what's in the trunk. By the time will be visiting, being mountainous it will have lots of snow, so if asked by the fuel attendant if we want it lifted into the trunk for us, we casually mention the trunks full of ski-ng gear.
As our Merc's rear wheel drive the weight of fuel is also helpful for traction when driving in the snow, as well as saving us money.

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