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Published: July 28th 2011
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We returned to our floaty boaty home aboard Ozzy 2 in Lattes marina on may 19th. By the end of the week she was motoring once again … it felt good to be back on the water in our floaty boaty home!
We set out on a bright sunny day, passing a family of storks, some swooping buzzards, ducks, the much missed flamingoes, camargue horses and other birds and beasties. It was Spring in the south of France and all was rosy! After waiting for the lifting bridge at Frontignan to open, we motored through and moored up on the town quay in lovely sunshine. It seemed that a celebration was going on in town so we wandered off to have a look and soon found ourselves in the midst of the Fete D'Ete – a kind of carnival featuring flower decorated floats, dancing troupes nad marching bands. The atmosphere was joyous nad the participants in high spirits … on guy ran out of the procession to drop a fish in his mates beer when his mate had refused to give him the rest of it! In the UK that might have elicited a punch in the face, but here
it was greeted with laughter and a playful cuff round the head.
After the fete was over, we walked back to the boat, via the shop for a beer or two of course, and made dinner. We then went for a walk down to the sea front ... and it was blowing a blinkin' hooley!! Hopefully it'd die down before we crossed the big inland lake, the 'etang du thau' ... we'd been warned not to cross it in anything higher than a force 3 and it was currently blowing at around a force 7!!
We noticed that there were loads of mussels here, we were not far from the famous mussel and oyster beds of the etang du thau, so Mike took off in the dinghy to collect some. When he returned it was dark and just as we were settling down for the night we heard the familiar strangled squawk of flamingoes. We looked up at the sky (the roof was down) and saw a huge flock of the gangly pink fellas flying over us in formation. Half and hour later it happened again. What a perfect beginning to the next leg of our adventure!
The next morning we made headway at 8am for the dreaded Etang Du Thau, the winds had dropped right off overnight and, as it was so shallow, we hoped its surface wouldn't still be choppy. We'd passed it on the train to Beziers the previous Christmas when we visitied Jody and kate at Nick and di's house and had witnessed it in it white horsed frenzied glory. Therefore, it was with some trepidation that we nosed into the entrance. We needn't have worried at all. The light winds were barely stirring the surface and the sun shone down brightly from the azure sky...the dreaded Etang was beautifully calm. We crossed in under 2 hours, with no problem whatsoever.
By the time we reached the pretty old town of Agde on the Canal du Midi at 12.30, having traversed the strange 3-way round lock (my lassooing eye was straight back in – boom!) we tied up on the canal bank to eat our hand picked shellfish in the glorious afternoon sun. The mussels Mike had collected were huge, the size of my palm easily, and he'd filled a bucket with them. I therefore spent 3 hours of our 4
hour trip scrubbing and de-beardiing them so we could eat them for dinner! It was worth the work though – they were scrumptious steamed in white wine and garlic … Mmmmm! And it never cost us a penny!
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