Spending money pleasurably

Enki's cockpit, with the all-important hard top

I'd forgotten we had taken photos of Enki back in June when we first saw her. She was still in the water then. But now's perhaps a better time to show her off.  We made full payment for Enki yesterday.  The reality of that hasn’t yet sunk in. The euros have gone from our bank account, the registration papers are on their way to Canberra, but that’s not what I’m talking about.  Enki will feel like our boat only after a certain period of time has passed. 

Aft cabin - there's also a single bed on the port side, on the other side of the chair

Forward cabin

Nav station and saloon bench seat  

A boat, liked a house, changes hands at its own pace, which is quite separate from the legal machinery involved. The spirit of the previous owner stays around in the myriad of decisions he or she has made about what should and shouldn’t be on the boat. On Kukka, we were very aware of Mr Tada (her original owner) during our first season aboard. During our second cruising season, he retreated. We’d made her ours.

Christoph shows me the stove - is it big enough for the bread pot?

Christoph, who built Enki and lived aboard her for five years, is a minimalist. He wears sober colours and he doesn’t chatter.  He’s an architect, a Swiss architect.  Enki is sober too., verging on stern.  What we like very much about her, among many other things, is that she isn’t over-accessorized.  She is strong on essentials, light on bling.  Her extras, for instance, include well- thought-out partitioning inside drawers and around the galley, and an enviable stack of vegetable baskets built into the hanging locker of the passage cabin. She has no television or airconditioning. That we found to be the exception rather than the rule. TV isn’t our thing, more than ever so at sea, and airconditioning ducts take up a lot of space which would otherwise be available for storage.  Christoph also did without a bowthruster. That’s unusual these days on a boat her size.  We part company from him on that point.

There’s a bit more waiting to do. The registration papers have to cross the world and come back again, completed, and then we will accompany Christoph on a visit to French customs. He’ll sign Enki out and we’ll her sign in. While we wait, we’ll begin to absorb our new ownership.

We will also continue to eat well. Some of you will be surprised that up till now I have posted so few pictures of food and/or markets. Well, here they are.

The weekly Port St Louis du Rhone market happens on a Wednesday morning when the main street is blocked off.  The stalls are a mix of what the British call tat (cheap clothing, trinkets, the kind of stuff which in the old days used to be sold by tinkers) and fresh produce. We are just two, so I’m holding back most of the time. One slice of tomme de brebis, or hard sheep’s cheese this week (last week I bought a soft sheep’s cheese and a mid-ripe goat’s cheese). A whole slice from the belly of a tuna. Yellow peaches, apricots, strawberries, small green plums (Claude Reine), massive tomatoes, courgettes shaped like plump pears, eggplant, salted almonds….We still have not finished the sausage from last week, made from half pork, half bull (taureau). It’s strong. We passed on the donkey sausage (true).

Port St Louis is a working town. Its market is not for tourists.  There are no panama hats or olive oil soaps or Opinel knives or bunches of lavender. But there is street theatre in the summer. Yesterday, three men dressed in suits were being led on leashes by a woman.  They were billed to appear again last night at the port. But we stayed home last night, cooked our tuna, and nursed Alex’s back. Tonight we’re going to hear Bryan Ferry at the Roman theatre in Arles. He’s got to be concert fit!