The port at Les Sables-d'Olonne is big - I'm told it has 600 slips. It seems to be evenly split between sail boats, power pleasure boats, and fishing boats. There are a number of cafes and pubs right alongside with wi-fi available, which makes for a convenient place to sit and write this.
The first full day at Les Sables-d'Olonne was spent rigging and provisioning the boat for the voyage, getting documentation and insurance squared away, and generally poking about the boat learning the systems. There are a lot of systems to learn! I spent 2 hours finding and identifying all the through-hulls (holes in the hull near or below the waterline). I lost count at 25... I'll have to go back and check again.
The delivery company swaps out most of the running rigging (ropes to you land-lubbers) so that the lines provided by Lagoon don't get worn during the delivery. The picture above was taken from the top of Mirasol's mast while swapping-out the main sail halyard and inspecting the masthead. Mirasol's mast is 65' above the waterline. Thankfully, Mirasol has an electric winch for the main halyard. There is no way Jen could crank me up this mast, and no way she'd go up the mast herself. I've already been advised of that rule. (The other rule is that I'm in charge of fixing the heads when they break. Something about "not enough soap in the world..."). Note that in the above picture taken from the masthead, you're looking DOWN at the top of the masts of those two sailboats in the fore-ground, and they are drydocked about 15' above the water.
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