As soon as we got up, we started working on getting ready to go to sea. We were only making a short day hop, so getting ready went fairly quickly. When we checked out with the marina, we found out there was a 20% VAT (sales tax) on top of what we had been quoted. We wish they had mentioned the VAT before the moment we pulled out our wallet to pay.

We pulled out at 1100. We are sad to report that the fenders were all covered with a thick black slime that managed to get all over the entire exterior of the boat. It is pretty gross.

The ride over to San Tropez was calm, smooth and flat. The wind was light. It was wonderful. If only every passage could be so nice. As soon as we were in the open ocean, we started making water. Since the bay in Monaco wasn’t clean enough for us to want to make water in, we were almost completely out. As soon as the tanks were full enough, we started a load of laundry. Since our washing machine is so tiny, we really need to do a load of laundry every other day to keep the laundry pile under control. Needless to say, we weren’t able to do laundry while we were in Monaco, and the laundry pile was huge.

Just before 1730, when we were within minutes of Saint Tropez, the washer stopped in mid-cycle and made a funny clicking noise that we have never heard before. The washer/dryer door auto-locks as soon as you turn it on, and it unlocks when it shuts off. When it is locked, there is a red light on, and when it is unlocked, the red light blinks. The red light was blinking and the washer was clearly no longer washing, so we figured the washer had shut itself off for some reason. So, Christi tried to open the door. Not only did the door not open, the handle broke off in her hand. Oh no! We guess it was still locked.

Since we were pulling in, we needed to forget the washer for a while and focus on parking. We called the marina and were told to take a space near the entrance. We were delighted to see that there were 8 empty spots in a row, and we chose to go smack in the middle. Ah, the luxury of all the room you could ever possibly want for parking. The marina didn’t send someone to help us, but the guy from the boat closest to us came by to help us tie up. It was immediately obvious we were too wide for these spots. The way the guy tied us up, we were taking up two spots. We had three mooring lines to choose from, so we picked two and proceeded to get ourselves situated.

Getting the mooring line on the starboard (right) side of the boat is easy. You just walk along the walkway from the back to the front. But on the port (left) side, the back half of the boat has only a ledge measuring a few inches wide. From the back of the boat, we have to kind of shimmy along the little ledge, holding the gross, disgusting, slimy rope with our left hand and holding on to the boat rail with the right hand. You take a step forward, let go of the rail momentarily, grab the rail a little farther forward, then take another step until you get to the pilot house, where there is a walkway. Your right hand is generally wet and slimy from when you initially grabbed the line, making you worry about losing grip on the metal rails. You have to hold your left hand out as far away from you as possible, because you need to make sure that the rope doesn’t catch on the stabilizer fin under the water line. At the end of the ledge, you have to climb over the rails onto the walkway. Keeping the rope in hand as you climb over the rail can be tricky, as it is slimy and hard to grip. And, we have neglected to mention that any time we handle “slime lines” the green slime juice from the ropes tends to get all over the boat and all over you. And it really doesn’t smell good.

Once you make it to the walkway, it is usually easy. Except when the mooring line is too short for us to attach it to the boat. Which it was in this case. This is only the second time we have had an issue with a short mooring line, and both times it has been with the port side line. After a second attempt using a different mooring line, we gave up on the port side mooring line altogether.

Eric tried to reposition us to take up only one spot, but it was a futile effort. We’re too wide. By trying to take up only one spot, we wound up taking three spots instead because we stuck out so much on each side. So, we repositioned ourselves back to only taking two spots. Eric walked along the dock and saw that several other boats were taking up two spots, too, so he felt better about our parking job. And most of the boats only had one mooring line on, even if they had two spots.

The office closed at 1800, and by the time we were finally situated, the marina office was long closed.

We turned our attention to the washer/dryer. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t get the door open. Sigh. We went to dinner at a restaurant on the boardwalk in front of the marina. The food was great, and while expensive, the portions were surprisingly large. We ordered a goat cheese salad and were surprised to see it was a standard lettuce salad topped with slices of crostini laden with generous amounts of goat cheese. We also had duck in a creamy sauce that was excellent.

After dinner, we worked on the dryer some more, and thank goodness, the door opened and we were able to hang the wet things up to dry.