Thursday 9th June 2016 Pont-de-Loup. At last! Off the dry dock.

Opening the gate valves to re-fill the dock

12.4° C. Sunny with white clouds. Mike was up early. Nobody about until two men cleared the dock of wooden boards left by the welders before opening the two gate valves to refill the dock. It was 8am. It filled slowly, at 11am they brought the big crane to lift the gates and the bridge out. We backed out first – the big pump that empties the dock was on and was trying to pump the canal out! Mike shouted to then to tell them and he’d just got our stern to the far canal

Filling up

bank when loaded boat Dependant came round the bend. We shouted to tell the crew of Vage to stay put as they were just about to back out and follow us – why did nobody think to call on VHF to say we were coming out of the dock?! Turned into the basin and moored along the end wall by the slipway again. L’Imprevu, on the slipway, was still undergoing stretching, gunwales being fitted on the port side, starboard side was already done so they’ll soon be

Pont-de-Loup dry dock

back in the water and back to work. Started cleaning down. Buckets and bowls, the shower, the toilet – all needed scrubbing to get rid of the mud, river water wasn’t at all clean but it improved them. Lunch. Mike went to see Sandrine for our receipts and went out in the car to Carrefour Market to get some bread and buns and take back an empty bottle that I’d bought which had a refund of 20c – it had contained lambic cherry beer, sour isn’t the word for the stuff (looked it up and found it’s a very rare beer, only made in a small area of Belgium near Brussels, sorry not really a big fan). I scrubbed

Getting there - it takes three hours to fill

the front deck and put the paint, brushes, rollers and trays away until next time…..