Since today was another hot one, Frank and Chanthea decided to stay in the cool of the house, while we took Sarah and the two boys down the Tarn and up the Garonne on a little cruise. As we headed off, I noticed that the scaffolding on the Pont Napolean had almost been removed, with just a little bit remaining on the right bank.

After we turned the bend at the end of the Tarn, and started heading up the Garonne, I noticed something unusual. From our previous trips on this part of the river, I knew that we should stay to the left of the buoys as we headed up river, because of the very shallow water in the bird sanctuary area. However, as shown below, these buoys were red. One of the things we learnt in our training courses was “red buoys on the right coming down”. Since we were heading up river, we should have kept these red buoys on our left (port) side; but then we would have run aground (as Stuart had when he went up this river for the first time). I’m not sure why they used red buoys in this situation. Maybe they thought that red buoys would better signify danger (“keep away”), or maybe they had just run out of green buoys. For whatever reason, it is a potentially dangerous situation for first-time cruisers.

Once we had anchored in the same place that we anchored overnight a few weeks ago, the girls and boys decided they wanted to go for a swim. So everyone grabbed a floatie and off they went. After a half-hour of swimming, everyone was cool enough and so came back on board for some lunch. We then upped anchor and cruised back to Moissac.

In the afternoon, I headed out to Weldoms and bought a battery charger, because I still needed to fully charge the generator battery after using Stuart’s charger to re-condition the battery. When I got home, Rita and Sarah and the boys were about ready to go for more swimming at St Nicolas de la Grave. But first Rita let me know that some Australians had just arrived next door at Mr and Mrs Gisberts. It turned out to be Mrs Gisberts’ sister, and her daughter and son-in-law. In addition, Mrs Gisberts’ daughter (Francoise) had also arrived with her husband (Andre) from the north of France, while another daughter had also arrived with her partner. After I was introduced as the neighbour with the interesting Terrasse on top of the garage, I was made to feel like a member of the family, and spent the next several hours chatting in English and (part-)French and accepting drinks that they insisted I have. After Dominic (the daughter’s partner) arrived with a new guitar he had just bought from Musiczone, we spent a fair while singing along, and then the topic of the steelbands arose, and so I had to invite everyone next door to have a look and listen to the pans in our music room. All in all a very enjoyable afternoon, which cast an entirely new light on our neighbours (and their family).