Stepping Ashore in the Med

Mooring in the Med is generally done with the stern (or the bow) of your yacht facing the quay. That leaves a gap which needs to be overcome to allow you to get ashore. Passerelles are apparently the thing to have when cruising in the Med to allow you to gracefully step from your yacht to the quay. We don't have one so I went looking for what was available when we were at the Southampton Boat Show.

It seems to depend on what boat you have. It looks as though motorboats must have a super-duper hydraulically powered passerelle which cost about the same as a small yacht. Superyachts' passerelles appear to be designed in from the start allowing them to emerge from behind secret panels; they are even remotely controlled so that, at the press of a button on a key-fob, they can be retracted or extended when you are ashore. Yachts like ours, however, apparently just need an 'ordinary' aluminium and teak runged passerelle or perhaps a posher composite one.

Whilst gazing at examples of these passerelles (somewhat amazed at how many noughts there seemed to be on the price-tags) I was pounced upon by the sales lady. She assured me that I could be in serious danger of a hernia if I went for an 'ordinary' aluminium and teak runged passerelle. What I needed was their special carbon fibre passerelle. Light, stylish and incredibly strong. So strong in fact that it could take the weight of six bikini clad models; she showed me the pictures of it doing just that. A passerelle therefore went on the list of essential requirements.

The start of the passerelle project

For some unknown reason BV's Financial Director was not similarly convinced of the 'essential' requirement to be able to simultaneously host six bikini clad models on our passerelle. For the passerelle project I was therefore issued with a scaffolding plank and some sandpaper (admittedly at 1/100th of the cost of the carbon fibre passerelle) so that I could turn the rough plank into a thing of beauty.

Drilling, shaping and sanding is now complete; just the painting to go.

With sanding and painting the theme for this week's work we also turned our attentions to the shelf for the lazarette; a project which had somewhat stalled. The carpentry was finished with the inclusion of a cutout and the shelf has now moved on to the painting phase. The cutout will allow the Pela oil extractor to be stored in the back corner of the lazarette which is currently unused dead space; a neat solution we think.

Having just redone our First Aid qualifications Nicky set about checking the contents of BV's First Aid Kit. Amazingly even bandages have a shelf life. To set us up for our travels we therefore
decided to replace everything close to expiry date so that we won't have to worry about restocking the kit for a couple of years. The poor assistant in the pharmacy must have thought that we were serious hypercondriacs as we unloaded our basket at the check-out.