We were up around midnight last night just to have a look at the little area where we are allowed to dry out. The grumpy older man in the capitainerie earlier, was at pains to point out that we are not allowed to do any cleaning…just to look. His younger assistant was much more helpful, pointing us to the best spot and probably wondering when his boss is due to retire. The area we have been shown seems to shelve quite steeply so we plan to try to hold Heydays at a jaunty angle to the harbour wall to give us the best chance of getting at the prop ‘just to have a look’.

By 8.30am we are playing around with lines and are the subject of many conversations and even some helpful advice from the dockside, including the inevitable ‘not sure why you are there, it is much better on the other side’. This latter bit of advice came once we were well and truly aground.

We settled in to do some general polishing while the tide retreated and ended up feeling quite smug with the way our old boat scrubs up.

As it turns out, the prop is not bad at all, but we look very hard at it and miraculously it develops a deep shine and a nice new coat of grease. We pay attention to the paddle wheels for the logs and they turn out to be the root cause all along. Perhaps we needn’t have dried out after all…

With the tide returning, Heydays once again returns to her natural element and we shoot round to fill up with diesel before Chris arrives on the bus from Quimper, having flown from Southampton to Rennes and then trained to Quimper. John has a shave and shower in her honour…