After another windy and noisy night the crew refused to get out of bed. master of the ship was not amused, a bit like Queen Victoria then, so we did not leave at 08.00 hrs as expected. But it was still blowing. Any way the lighthouse called so I made a picnic and we went for the bus. Small island , small buses. It was packed. We had a seat and tried to count the bus stops before our stop but no chance of getting off!!!! So we went all the way to the beach on the other side of the island where everyone else got off and we moved to the front of the bus and told the driver where we wanted to go. A raised eyebrow later and we were off. He threw us out at a nice village bar so we stopped for coffee and then began our walk. Before too long we knew we were on the right road as we could see the lighthouse ( which just happens to be next to the island aerodrome.)
On arrival at said lighthouse we were greeted by the ferme notice. It is only open on Wednesday and Saturday and the bus doesn't run on Wednesday. Very French. So we found a nice field and ate our picnc and decided to walk back to Joinville. Phil managed to find a track non ballisez(?) and we had a pleasant walk back to the coast. ( Who needs buses?) Our reward was a good beer in a small cafe at the port.
That evening the wind got up again and a large boat tried to come in alongside us.Phil , Nick and Rona went to take their lines but I had one of my feelings and stayed on the boat and got a fender. The chap seemed very capable as he had reversed in to the marina but he started to show off, using his foot to operate the controls and missed. He got confused and turned too late and the wind took him. I managed to get a fender between our sugar scoop and him and then a stanchion and him but he still managed to hit and dent our toe rail and scratch our paintwork and he wrecked his horseshoe buoy and there were bits of it everywhere. He also almost had Nick's outboard the other side.
He never appeared again. His very embarrassed wife came and apologised and gave us her insurance details and Phil was very nice to her and every one felt very sorry but I realised I couldn't move my hand or grip with my fingers and when I looked my arm seemed bent. I had a small black line. Any way ice cubes and a pressure bandage overnight seemed to help and all I have now is a bruise which is getting larger by theday. It was obviously a crush injury and I was pleased not to have broken it but I have no idea at what point I damaged it but I can only presume it was when the chap leaned over to push our boat and I could no longer get myself out of the way because he was holding the boat against me.
The crew is very sorry that it refused to get out of bed in view of what happened at the later hour.
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