Festival Day 3 - Sat 28th May

Fish smoking on the quay

A third sunny day so it's going well for the organisers. Hundreds of visitors milling round on the quay and on the pontoons; the food stalls and bars are doing a roaring trade and the live music is well attended.

Exmouth Shanty Men in full swing

Christophe, blacksmith with some artistic ideas

We have a quiet time on Bonify as most visitors to our pontoon are more impressed with the “Mutin” opposite – she's a lovely huge old French sailing yawl of a type called a “Dundee” and she's run by the French Navy for cadet training. The boat is quite a draw, and the uniforms too.

"Mutin"

There's a 2 hour “Happy Hour” every evening for crews of participating boats on board the Hydrograaf – another lovely ship, once the royal yacht of the Dutch royal family. I'll spare blog readers my poor photos which don't do justice to the excellent meals we have shared on friends' boats and likewise the blurred photos of happy drinkers including ourselves in various boats and bars – we'll leave it to your imagination.

Most of the crew of the “Mutin” join in the crew parties each evening (one of them is an excellent pianist) but there's one poor man left on board to keep watch – it seems a lonely watch and whoever's turn it is, he always seems to have a cigarette on the go.