Snork Maiden Lifts Out

Snork Maiden Lifts Out
Monday, September 21, 2009
Equinox, Port Le Foret

Equal day, equal night. It must be a propitious time to crane out. Here at PLF there is a very posh travel lift. Apart from a slightly botched exit from the pontoon, when SM took me quite by surprise, rearing across two spaces like a frightened horse! I spoke quietly to her, released the last moorong line, and we were off. Nice entry into the lifting bay - it looks like a concrete canyon, especially at the lowest of low tides. Herve and another of the matelots jumped on and Snork Maiden was soon cosily in the slings. I jumped off - well, sort of more like a gibbon really - reaching for the ladder on the side of the canyon and swinging over the gap. Then the lift trundles away at slow walking pace - always reminds me of a funeral, although this was more like a frisky wedding with the lift driver threatening to squish a couple’s car on the way.

We rumbled into Technical Area 1, where the Figaro boats live, so SM will be in good company. I am parked next to a tree (as is almost always the case) and, oh joy, next to the electricity and water box. Life is sweet. It’s quiet here at night, not too far to the loo, although peeing in a bottle is practical at night. If you envisage a boat that has a 1.5m keep under her, and a transom (backside) of around a metre, you’ll understand the necessity for a ladder (and a bottle to pee in). Everything has to be transported up and down the ladder or sometimes over the side on a jib sheet (rope to the landlubberly).

I am getting to like Mr Least Heat Moon and his River Horse more and more. He talks about how people change, and how the man planning the trip across America was not the same man making the trip 6 months later. I think I know exactly what he means. The other side of this coin is something I have only recently started to notice and that is that when I conjure up people who I have known for a long time (and we’re talking decades here) I see them as multiple images of themselves at different times. I see my Mum as the forty year old woman she was when I was four years old and at the same time I see her at 80 on her way down to Spain with my Dad and me in the old Citroen, sitting in the back like the Queen. I see Dexter as a baby, as a 3 year old, as a teenager, all at the same time. I see Al with long dark hair at the same time as I see his silver ‘wings’. And I see myself like this too. The only thing that puzzles me is that I never noticed it before.

Well, it’s dark outside now. I’ve finished my supper, but the washing up can wait until morning. (More life without plumbing.) Time to turn the table into my bed, and join the crew of the River Horse. It’s odd how 120 square metres of house seems not enough at home, but here rather less than 20 square metres of boat seems perfectly good for bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom, office, workshop, garden shed and spare room! If only we could transplant the trick, we could sublet the rest of the house to five other families.