Wanderlust – First Impressions

Today was my first day looking at the new boat, Erik drove me to the marina (click here for a google map) and before looking inside the boat, I spent 15 minutes just walking around her and then on the foredeck. My first impression was that this is a lovely big Baba, but in need of a lot of cosmetic attention,  she has a brass rub-rail which is coming away in places, the cap rail has a little rot around a couple of screws where the bungs have popped out. there was a little water damage around one of the 5 prisms, but all in all, nothing major there.

It was while we were looking that a Chinese man came running up to us rather excitedly telling Erik to hurry up and get to his boat before he lost his dinghies. It transpired that the management of the marina had decided to have a ‘Spontaneous Radical cleansing’  of the pontoons, this entailed taking everything on the pontoons off and to a lorry to be disposed of. This was without warning or notice to the berth holders, Erik, like most in the marina is a liveaboard, and he rushed back to his boat to see the security men walking away with his dinghy! Angry scenes ensued, people dragging there bikes, storage boxes and other junk onto their foredecks. Some owners not present may have lost a lot! The marina is run by the state, and the officials can be very officious it seems.

On with the inspection, once I had helped Erik get his dinghies off the pontoon.

The boat is lovely, huge inside, not sure I will ever be able to take the baba 30 seriously again, I can’t imagine ever wanting a boat bigger than this. Everything is of the high quality you would expect of a baba, however as usual, the chainplates had been leaking, some very badly, and will need to be pulled to check for crevice corrosion, before hitting any oceans.

There were lots of small problems, like hoses that need replacing, the battery wasn’t charging the engine, the instrument panel for the engine was cracked and I suspect moisture has got in, explaining the intermittent readings it gave. a lot of the electronics doesn’t work, and the masthead sender for the Autohelm Wind display is U/S.

On the plus side, the engine started instantly, the Fuel tanks are new and in two pieces, so a day tank, backup system is possible.

We went to a local shopping Mall for lunch as I needed a local SIM card and desperately needed some sun tan, so hot here. It’s a bit sad that the Mall could have been liverpool one, Barcelona or probably any other large city in the world, we could chose from KFC, subway, dunkin donuts, starbucks etc etc.

Back to the boat to read through its paperwork, hoping to find proof of VAT payments, or proof of a visit to the EU or a French department before the RCD rules call into play. Managed to find that the boat has been everywhere I want to go, like bora bora, fiji, vanuatu etc, I wonder if it left good Karma.

Back at the hotel for the evening to watch a spectacular display of lightning.