September 1 -- Ed left for London today for his flight to Houston with Jun.  He plans to rejoin Skylark in early October. I am Skylark’s lone companion for the moment – time for owner and boat to bond, our fates are joined for the thousands of miles on the oceans ahead.  Next week, I will sail her to Toulon where she will spend September at the marina there.  Amel has offered one of their people to help with the docklines.

The Amel people have completed the work on the boat.  We now have two teak seats at the pushpit.  They don’t look as bad as I’d feared – there will be a photo of them in the next post.  The air conditioning in the saloon is working much better after the wooden baffle at the air intake was removed – no more ice on the evaporator coils.  I am visiting with Pochon, the Furuno dealer tomorrow, to get electronic charts for the Pacific, Australia and Asia for the passages beyond the Panama Canal.

September 2 -- rode the bicycle into the old town.  The bookshop has a lot of familiar books but all translated into French.  The shops are small and traditional, no hypermarkets.  There are a couple of large stores outside like Carrefour on the route to St Tropez. 

The Amel demo boat berthed next to Skylark is being prepared for the Cannes Boat Show next week. They even washed masts and we have water spots all over on our boat to show for it.  Many apologies but it was too much to hope that they would wash and buff our boat. In any case, I have 2 complimentary tickets to the Cannes show from Amel.  May go if  a convenient way to get there can be found.  Pictures of Hyeres old town in the next post.