Because there never seem to be enough!

We fly home to San Diego on Monday and hope to get a lot of things done between now and then. And then while there we hope to get a lot of things done. And then we come back and do the same!

It’s not exactly cruising yet. So much to do and the paperwork and language barriers don’t help. The latest is our shipment from West Marine is stuck in Paris. They want all kinds of proof that we own the boat, that we are leaving the country with the boat, and won’t resell the goods, or else we have to pay 20% Value added tax VAT. The whole idea was to save money and know what we are buying in the US, ship it here which we were assured was easy breezy if you follow their instructions to the T. Which West Marine assures us they did.  Everything here has the 20%VAT except in France you don’t have to pay it on food.  The other problem is getting the paperwork done that deletes El Pato/Gato from being a French documented boat and then making it a US doc boat. They tell us it’s different here and our friends who are helping us buy and change the papers are asking daily for what we/they need. And we have no idea whats really going on! It’s a mess that someday will be over. Meanwhile there are all kinds of things to register like VHF radios, EPIRBS, AIS and Iridium Go!

Ah well you want to hear more about the adventures! But just so you don’t think all we do is play, there is that other side to being here and getting a boat ready for a long crossing. Lists and more lists. Fun to check things off but we keep adding more than deleting.

We are very thankful we are at the Catana Yard where anything and everything can and will be fixed. It’s just hard to communicate and even if we did speak French (they all know some English) the culture is different and their speed is not the same as ours.  Everyone is only allowed to work 35 hours/week, they take long lunch breaks and actually go home. Coffee and cigarettes are so common it’s actually quite sad.

But we continue to enjoy the French wines, cheeses, breads and desserts, fresh produce, and friendly locals.

Last night Claude from our favorite Catalan restaurant Vigatane came over and brought us a cruising book for this area. He showed us a sweet little island off of Menorca and some other cool places to visit. We plan to do a some island hopping before the big jump to Canaries. And we found out Stephane made it there in 8 days from here. The Bali hit 16 knots down one wave so that’s the new record for the newest boat off the mold.

We our looking for a downwind sail and hoping to find a used one from a Swan through Mitch. Otherwise we are pretty well stocked.  Tomorrow another sail before packing up. Hoping it does not blow 30 which is quite common this time of year. And it might be just me and Eric which will be a first. No problem leaving but coming back in and Med mooring backwards with a side wind and very little space between boats? We’ll be challenged for sure!

OK back to work on the lists!

Claude at Vigtane  Wind cloud!