7 to 28 July 2017 Trip to UK
After spending the day packing our bags and hanging about, our man turned up at 17:00 and dropped us off at the airport an hour later. We were at the airport five hours before the flight departed, but we were grateful to be there. St Denis airport is very small with hardly any facilities, so we had a very boring wait.
The 11 hour flight to Paris was OK, with good movies to entertain ourselves. We arrived at Orly airport in the morning and then had another five hour wait for our short 1 hour flight to London. It didn’t take long to pick up our hire car, so we arrived at our son Brett’s house at 19:00 just in time to relax with a few cold beers and a barbeque.
Our three week stay in the UK was the normal blur of driving around, visiting family and friends that we hadn’t seen for over a year. Of course, we spent a fair amount of time shopping for parts for the boat and the weight of our luggage went up from 8 Kgs each to 20kgs each.
On the last weekend of the holiday, we rented a small cottage in the Cotswolds with our two sons and their partners, where we had a lovely relaxed time chilling out and even had a traditional British Sunday lunch.
On our journey back to Reunion, we had a 2 night stop-over in Paris. Thirty seven years ago, we went to Paris on our honeymoon, so we stayed in a similar budget hotel in the Montmartre area. It was a nice break in the trip and we had a pleasant time walking around being tourists and eating good food. The only problem was the hordes of people queuing at all of the tourist spots which prevented us going into some of the attractions.
The flight back to La Reunion was on time and boring. At St Denis airport, we caught a bus to St Paul, which only cost €5. There’s a bus from St Paul to Le Port, but it doesn’t stop anywhere near the marina and we didn’t fancy lugging 20Kg bags a kilometre across town. We were hoping that there would be a taxi rank at the St Paul bus station, but no joy. After buying a new SIM card, we were able to ring a taxi firm, who whisked us back to the boat for €15.
We were relieved to get back to the boat and doubly relieved that it was still floating.
29 July 2017 Le Port, Reunion
We had a recovery day. Glenys motivated herself enough to clean out the fridges after three weeks being turned off and then played with the hosepipe to wash all the dust off the deck. I dropped the dinghy into the water and ran the outboard. We spent the rest of the day messing about and unpacking.
30 July 2017 Le Port, Reunion
I felt more dynamic today and started jobs with the parts that I’d bought in the UK. We’d had two new intermediate shrouds made by All Spars in Southampton and they’d noticed that the old swaged T-toggle fitted in 2012 in the USA was not exactly the correct part. I went up the mast and found that the old T-toggle was jamming in the slot in the mast. This meant that the wire was being bent at an angle to the swage and over time the stress on the upper wires had broken one wire.
All Spars had fitted the correct T-toggle and when I fitted the new intermediate shrouds, I confirmed that there was free movement of the toggle and no strain on the wire. Dave from “Jackster” lent me a Loos Gauge, which I used to set the tension of the rigging.
I set the back stay to 15% of breaking load and the new intermediate (D2) stays to 15%. I couldn’t measure the cap shrouds because they are 12mm wire which is too large for the Loos gauge, but I know that they only become slack at over 20 degrees heel. The mast looks straight laterally (up the sail slot) and I have about a mast width (260mm) of pre-bend that starts at the lower spreader.
The lower (D1) shrouds were slightly out of balance, but a couple of single turns on two of the bottle screws soon sorted that out and they are now evenly at 15% tension. I feel much happier with the rigging now.
We’re planning to go for a three day hike into the Cirque de Mafate, so we spent the remainder of the afternoon and all evening working out a reasonable route with three, 5 hour hikes.
31 July 2017 Le Port, Reunion
We finalised our route in Mafate and Glenys booked accommodation for two nights. We’re going to get a bus up to Dos d’Ane, then walk to Aurore which should take six hours. The second day will be a five hour hike to Ilet des Latinniers and the third day we’ll walk out of the Cirque along an impressive looking exposed trail called the Canalization de Orangers.
We’re looking forward to spending time in the Cirque de Mafate because there are no roads. Everything is brought into the valley by foot or by helicopter. There are a number of small villages dotted around the slopes of the ancient crater, so it will be interesting to see how the villagers lifestyle compares to the hustle and bustle of the coastal towns.
I replaced the two windlass switches with new ones bought in the UK and the day was over.
There are more photos in our Photo Album section.
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