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American Spirit II - Day 189; Cathedrale du Sacre-Coeur & Dinner with Meryln of Poole; Sunday, July 13, 2014



Up at 7:00 AM to go to the Sunday Catholic Church services at the Cathedrale du Sacre-Coeur. My driver, Wesley, was supposed to pick me up at 7:45 AM. However, by 7:50 AM he wasn't here so I took another taxi. Wesley called me 10 minutes later,but...if you snooze you lose.

I got to the cathedral at 7:55 AM, and only then saw on the sign in front of the church that the services started at 8:30 AM. No problem. I'd brought my Kindle. It was a large church. I'm not sure of what classifies a church as a cathedral. The cathedral was organized into 4 seating sections; the benches were wooden and bolted to a colored concrete floor. There were no kneel boards. During the services if you were to kneel, it was onto the concrete floor.

The church was 75% full by the time the services started; with 60% female and 40% male. A choir was seated in the entire left section of the church. Basically 1/4 of the church goer's were in the choir. Impressive. There were no missals or psalm books. However, a projector was shined onto the front wall to the priest's right, with the prayer words and song words in French. Yes, with a name like 'Cathedrale du Sacre-Coeur,' the services had to be in French. Go figure.

At the beginning of the services, when the priest and alter men (there were 3 alter men and 1 alter boy) walked from the front door area to the altar, besides bringing up the bread wafers, they brought up some sort of vegetable with long roots and set those to the left of the alter. Not sure what they were. The services ended at 9:50 AM.

I called Wesley and he arrived 5 minutes later to drive me back to the boat.

Breakfast was at 10:30 AM: scrambled eggs, the last 2 lamb breakfast sausages and french bread. After breakfast while I washed dishes and organized the cabin, Joel continued working on the hydro generator; replacing two of the bolts that held it to our transom; rewiring some of it; and 'waterproofing' it so we get no water leaking thru into the boat's rear storage via the electrical wire attached to the hydro generator.

Joel also tried to install the Tachometer, but the one brought in by Angie a week and a half ago was the wrong unit. If only we'd looked at it when she was here, I could have given it to her to mail back to the company we got it from when she went home last Friday. We'll have to have our new crew member, Jeanine Miami, do that when she gets here.

Joel and I visited with Bob and David of Vivo, a large American catamaran; during the mid afternoon.

Joel and I went to dinner at 6:00 PM with Jonathan and Jenny Crowe of the sailboat Merlyn of Poole, an Oyster 45 tied up along our starboard (right) side. We went to a restaurant only a few minutes from our marina called The Brewery. Earlier in the day Jenny had given Joel and I each one chocolate chip cookie that was still hot from just being baked in her boat's oven. Extraordinary delicious! First homemade chocolate chip cookie we've had since leaving the US. One of the subjects we discussed was how couples handle sailing with just 2 standing watch; versus getting a third crew member for the long passages. If your third crew member is not someone you know, its a crap shoot as to whether or not they'll work out. You'd think logically that getting a really experienced sailor to sail a leg with you might be ideal; but often times a sailor with a lot of experience will have their own way of doing things which may conflict with the way you run your own boat. You can't have two Captains on a boat. These conflicts have been so great on some of the boats in the rally that crew have either jumped ship to crew on other boats; or been booted off boats and then end up being on another boat or no boat at all.

One of the nicest things about the cruising life and cruising in a Rally, is the people you meet. Some of these people will become friends for life. Some of us will be sending and receiving Christmas cards to each other until we start dying off; or until we can't remember who are friends are. What a morbid thought.

We were back on the boat at 8:45 PM.

Lights out whenever. (I can't remember the exact time). Happens sometimes.

Brian Fox


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