Ramukanji Rammed !

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So, we were having a great time in Honfleur; the food was good, there were nice walks, the town itself was superb (very Normandie) and a we had a decent place to moor up.

David and Paul had looked slightly shocked when I arrived in Honfleur and opened the van door - see previous photo!

Their solution was to load it all onto the boat, and leave.. PDQ!

Can't blame them at all, 'Good Luck' was their parting comment.

On Saturday, we decided we had better start to prepare the boat for its onward journey through the canals. The morning was spent packing, unpacking and filling the fore cabin with 'stuff', which would be needed, or would be fitted along the way. Also, the weather being so variable we had cold weather clothing, wet weather clothing and hot weather clothing , all to find a space for. I'm not good with clutter, finally solutions were found...sort of.

The boat does have a surprising amount of storage, adequate cupboards in the galley and a large fridge and equally large food store. The main problem being that the lids for both of these are the work surface also, so much forward planning required when cooking.

Anyway, things were getting sorted, I was down below and there was a crash. Looking up I could see a large yacht speeding along our port side, it's fenders being ripped off as it travelled along at speed. Mike had been on starboard deck fitting a mid-ship cleat and had been as equally shocked by the bang.

Needless to say, he was not best pleased and hurried over to 'fend off' and prevent further damage. At this point several people jumped aboard Ramukanji, ropes in hand , akin to a pirate takeover!

Apparently they wanted to raft alongside, though we had heard no requests and the boat had been travelling in the opposite direction before veering at speed towards us. it was difficult to ascertain who was the skipper, with one person seemingly steering and another handling the throttle.

Mike was by now a tad annoyed and 'politely' told them to get of our boat and 'go somewhere else'!

They did, quite swiftly.

A lady and an older chap did come by later to apologise , though weren't keen to swap insurance details. It turned out they were a sailing school and had a group of students aboard. Ramukanji was turned around to assess the damage, the newly polished sides a bit scratched now.

The ships dog had scarpered, far too much noise and drama for him to contend with!

Boat in order, sort of, and now ready to go forward on our journey through France by

river and canal.

We planned to head to Paris, then head south following The Marne Route.

Un-stepping the mast had been arranged with the help of the port officials at Honfleur. As there had been three bank holidays this week, many people had taken the week off, it was also a bank holiday on Monday (remember we're in France) so difficult to get a definitive answer to our enquiries. We were to travel a few miles upstream to Tancarville boatyard and they would do this for us on Tuesday.

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The mast had only gone up a few days ago, don't tell David the mast monkey it's coming down again already!