Monday 15th August - Frontignan

A fairly late start for Crew but today a little cleaning needed to be started as tomorrow Frank and Carol, our New Zealand friends would be coming aboard.  Their boat is in St. Jean de Losne but they wanted to attend Peters' 60th birthday party in Montpelier so they are taking a train from Dijon and joining us in Palavas-les-Flots as we offered them a bed for a couple of nights.  Henk arrived just after 2.30 and rafted alongside us.  He joined us for a beer and chat and we watched as the boats started to arrive for the 4 o'clock bridge opening.  The road bridge only opens twice each day - 8.30 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon.  Eight boats passed through from the other direction first then eight from our direction, although a very inexperienced hire boat crew were not quick enough on the uptake - they made a last minute go for it and the man operating the bridge stopped it from closing so that they could just get through but, last minute they chickened out and came and moored in front of us!  We whiled away the rest of the afternoon, contemplating where to eat.  Henk asked the Capitaine but he wasn't really sure which restaurants would be open as it was a 'feria' - strange he should use a Spanish word for 'fair'!  We looked to see if a hotel that Henk had found was open for dinner but, alas....no!  We ended up eating a pretty good dinner in the L'Epicurien restaurant, next to the usual Vietnamese restaurant that we have frequented before.  Digestifs on the back deck then to bed - the sea air seems to be making us sleepy!