At last - Progress!

Caudan Marina, Port Louis

Our new sail arrives

After what seems like a month of Sundays, we finally seem to be getting somewhere.  Our new sail, sheets and furler extrusions arrived and, a week after anticipated, we got our act together to have the lot installed.  What a wonderful feeling.  

Immediately upon completion, we sailed up to Grande Baie to get a change of scenery, fuel up, do our final provisioning as well as to hang the new sail at anchor rather than against the wall in tricky winds.

Hoisting the new forestay and furler

 

 

Grand Baie is a major tourist area but is a great stop for provisioning as it has two huge modern supermarkets with everything you could possibly need.  We haven't seen anything of this ilk since Australia. 

The yacht club is extraordinarily friendly to cruisers offering one month free membership with use of all its facilities which includes the most amazing hot showers I think we've ever experienced.  Such a treat!

We got up before sunrise this morning to take advantage of a "no wind" situation so that we could hang our sail.  A new sail always comes with a little concern that it's going to fit properly and we're thrilled to say, it did.  Calypso is finally dressed.

We had hoped to spend some time down at Black River as well but time is definitely not on our side so we will finish up here, return to Port Louis to check out then be on our way.

One thing that I hadn't mentioned in my previous blog was that after we left the sling lift, we went into the Caudan Basin to turn around so that we could tie up to the wall on the starboard side making it easier to extract ourselves when the time came to leave. The Basin has a depth of 4 metres so no problem, right?  Wrong!  Just as we started the turn, we hit something very hard and very sharp just about a metre under the water.  Even though we were in neutral at the time, we hit so hard that we bounced backwards and some of the headlining fell down.  It must have been something like a huge metal beam or a sunken boat but it was solid!

Once we'd tied up, Paul jumped in to check it out and found a sizeable chunk removed half way up the keel.  Damn, and just literally minutes after we'd been put back into the water.  He then got out his trusty underwater putty again but there's no two ways about it, to fix it properly we'll have to haul out again but, as it's not an emergency, we'll wait until the time comes for the marine inspection when we put her on the market in Cape Town.  Just another little episode to add to those already shattered nerves.  I think, in my next life, I might rather consider taking up knitting or crocheting as a hobby.

The following are more photos taken around Port Louis at the waterfront and the market.

PHOTO ALBUM:

Around the Caudan waterfront

Perfect displays

Just don't take from the bottom