Satellite
  • Day 509

    Rouen the saga continues

    August 14, 2020 in France ⋅ 🌧 22 °C

    We are at the yard at 9 when we were told the crane would be there, it’s already arrived but is too small to lift boat so driver is trying to get a larger crane to come. Christophe won’t speak to driver about our mast although it turns out small crane is sat there for 2hours doing nothing. Larger crane arrives but again Christophe won’t ask, says crane here just to do boat then goes. He also says he has decided it’s not safe to use his crane and when we ask what we should do he says he is too busy and walks off. We make a note of crane company name and send them an email, I also contact a number of transport companies to get quotes for moving the mast to somewhere with a working lift.
    We decide to head to town again and visit some of the free museums. Even after yesterday nights thunder storm it’s still very warm but this time we did manage to cycle in as John had replaced the punctured inner tubes. We visited the wrought iron museum that was really interesting, then the ceramic museum not so good, pieces all of similar age, style and colour. We look at a few more churches and find a tearoom with gluten free cakes, we buy a few and some normal ones for me, then head to the tourist information to see if they can assist with our mast problem. The girl we spoke to was great, she phoned the firm that had been at the yard and managed to arrange for an English speaker from the company to meet us at the yard tomorrow morning at 10:30, fingers crossed this is going to be OK, we have received a couple of replies from transport companies €750-1000 for moving mast. We are feeling positive as we return to the bikes, bugger it’s starting to spit, crickey the skies open it hammers down. We sought shelter and waited about 40mins, thank goodness we had cakes to see us through. It eases off and we head back fortunately we had closed most of the windows on board so only a few places to be mopped before tea and bed.
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