Monday 23rd July Richardmenil

Breakfast consisted of Melon, bananas crumble and Greek yoghurt bread and marmalade followed by coffee and tea for the crew.

I Changed solenoid back over and tested with battery direct onto starter. Same clicking. Off to town to the telephone box to Order a new starter express delivery. It was not without difficulty but my french prevailed and the order was safely placed.

Returned to Doucette I set about removing the offending starter motor. It cam off without too much nonsense but as is my life with boats there was something to scare me and send me into a frenzy. The flywheel looked battered. This would be major. I called superstar guru. He asked for photos. Looked to me like the bendix had been bashing into the flywheel cogs and taken the edge of the cogs. Could this be why it was not biting. Oh my god, a new flywheel? I took pics with iPad and emailed them to Steve. I then worked on Tightening the stbd stern gland as it was leaking too freely. It is of course unbelievably difficult to get too one of the nuts and thus my cursing would leave me embarassed in front of the neighbouring dutch barge owners after i buggered my shoulder again and was left in more aching pain. Hopefully it was job done though.

We had been taken by the alsace speciality tarte flambé and had bought all the ingredients as one does but this time we used them and Collette made tarte flambé for lunch. Cooked on the cob they were superb. Will make them again for sure.

Après midi, the Crew had a sleep while I caught up with blog and we spent a glorious evening drinking rum gin and cremant and eating the last of the flambé. I had a good catch up with sis ange on the phone and we went to bed at a fairly decent hour of midnight.