5 – Wow, what a test of our patience…

Wow, what a test of our patience…

After coming back from Switzerland, I found my boys on our dinghy with the engine installed. Quite cool to be able to move a little further!

The next day we sailed over to Porquerolles to enjoy the pretty island some more, waiting for the date to mount the lifting system, which should have happened within the next days. We decided to spend 2 nights in the harbour because the winds were going to be very strong in the night. And that’s when we noticed the problem with the engine cooler… After lots of research and thinking and analysing, Jean-Luc found the spare part in England, and we should have received it last Tuesday.

We finally left Porquerolles harbour only yesterday, after 12 nights, exploding our budget with harbour fees, ice creams, spare parts and taking the ferry to the mainland so we would receive the engine part quicker! We are EXTREMELY unhappy about how DHL dealt with our shipping from GB.

Then, Jean-Luc was on his knees at the bottom of the boat fixing the engine for 17 hours, partially with a little help from me and the boys! He’s a hero!

We’re now at anchor in front of the harbour of Hyères where our dinghy lifting system should be mounted today. But what a surprise again – or not – they will be ready only tomorrow, after they had promised it for last week Monday. So we’re waiting again!

Schooling is going quite well, they practice their English, German and French communication skills with letters to family and friends. They are extremely motivated to do research on various topics and then create a little documentary about it. And of course, they learn an immense amount of things concerning technical aspects of boating.

I’m also extremely happy to see the boys participating to shopping, clearing it all away and noting our reserves in our in-out booklet. Menu-planning is a different subject…

If everything goes well, we’ll be leaving on Tuesday late afternoon to cross to Corsica. That’s the plan anyway and also the wind and route plan we made with the boys during our aperitif this evening. We shall see. Time will tell 😉