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| Ready to be hauled out at Peronnes Photo by Anne and Olly |
Sunny until mid-afternoon, clouds came over and later it rained, but we had none of the thunderstorms which the forecast had threatened. We were up bright and early to get the chores done and the ropes sorted out ready for hauling out. The Snails came across and moored on the other side of the trolley - nearest the lake when we get on to dry land. Fiddled with the ropes until we were in the right place when we shoved on the uprights with boat shafts, one at each end; the Snails did likewise. Marjorie arrived and asked if we were ready, she said she wasn’t and would be back in a minute after she had started the engine up. Someone must have waylaid her as it was nearly half an hour before she came back. Then, when we were part way up the slope, the motor cut off. Janinne was on the motor and Marjorie was keeping an eye on the trolley and us. Anne said she was a bit concerned about the fore end of Snail fouling on the next trolley so Marjorie lined it up by eye and said it was OK, it would miss. Turned out that Janinne had stopped the motor as the shaft coupling was coming loose. Mike climbed down and started tidying up, moving the metal stands that were close to the sterns of the boats, etc. We trundled up on to the flat then she had to stop it again while they repaired the coupling again. Mike decided to go and get the pressure washer from Laxom, the hire shop in Tournai, as it was after eleven a.m. After the motor had restarted and we were in our final resting place, I got the ladder off and connected the electricity cable up – it didn’t work so Mike had to sort it out on his return. Anne found a thick wooden wedge when we went foraging for wedges. We needed a large one under the port bow but Snail was flat on the trolley. Both boats were listing towards one another. When Mike got back we set up the pressure washer. The boatyard’s water hose was leaky as a colander (people keep driving over it) but the washer worked OK. Mike started off down the starboard side of our boat. I cleared up around the boat shifting loads of discarded rubbish left by previous boaters, then I went round with the secateurs to clip back the brambles. Mike finished down the one side of our boat and handed over to Olly so he could do the first side on Snail while Mike’s arms had a rest and he did other jobs. Olly wasn’t happy with the pressure washer, as it didn’t seem to be fetching the green stuff off Snail as easily as it did ours. Mike tried scraping the dried green weed off the starboard side of Snail with assistance from Anne. Olly got almost to the end of their port side then Mike had the pressure washer to our port side. M. Lemaire phoned to say he would be round to do our survey the following day. I crawled back on board with aches and pains from clambering up and down the ladder. After stowing the pressure washer back in the boot, Mike gave Olly the car keys in case he wanted to start early next morning, as the jet washing machine has to be returned around lunchtime.
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