Getting Their Sea Legs

Dante and Calypso arrived on Petillant on Thursday. Calypso drooled all they way to the boat but thanks to some drugs from the Vet the drooling was not quite so bad. They knew exactly where they were and where their favorite hidy holes were to be found. They have had 3 days now to get their sea legs. Hopefully older and wiser they will not want to be outside the enclosure, nor will they want to jump off the boat and go visiting when we are at port. We leave at high tide tomorrow heading south for St. Jean de Luz which should be about a 24 hour trip.

Provisioning Petillant

One of the things I learned travelling down the ICW, Florida, and the Bahamas on Petillant involved our meals. I did not want to do any cooking that used lots of pots and pans, numerous ingredients, or took a lot of time. I also wanted to try the local foods and restaurants along the way and provision with what was available. Now thinking of what to stock to head south more thoughts come to mind. I do not want to haul a lot of food from shore on the dingy and I want to be prepared to deal with any fish we catch. Also as we will be in European waters, I should not depend on buying ice and we do not have a freezer. So in planning the provisioning, I have tried to stow what will be useful (and heavy) staples such as canned chick peas and pasta and leave a lot to what we will find in the markets along the way. At this point we have everything on board that I think is sufficient and we will see how it goes. Natalie had the guys label all the food brought on board before they took off from Stuart. It works really well.

Port Medoc en Fete

We arrived at Port Medoc just before May Day which is a national holiday here in France. Our marina was preparing to host a "Quai des Vins" festival. Three days of music, food and wine, sail boat races, fishing tournaments, and rides and games for children. The weather was splendid.

This is our first posting here after a long hiatus. Petillant is getting ready to cruise south to Spain. To see how we got to Port Medoc last week and why we are still sitting here as well as reading about our land-based life in France go to Ste-Foy-Bordeaux.blogspot.com.