Ride About Town

Yesterday (Sunday), after doing all the engine room morning routines and the ship familiarisation for our new engineer Maksim, I cycled into Bayonne with Rocha.  First though, we had to do a bit of minor maintenance to the ship’s bikes to make them road worthy enough.

 

The centre of Bayonne was fantastic, and gave me a real feeling of freedom from the ship.  I had run this far before, but at the time there wasn’t time enough to stop and see it all. 

 

It was Sunday so all the shops were closed, bar a few little convenience stores.  There were a few bars and restaurants open too.  We alternated between wandering and cycling, me taking quite a few photos all the while. 

 

We passed a beautiful park that looked very autumnal, although with quite a few leaves still on the trees.  At one point we got to the Bayonne stadium – quite a minor stadium, but beautifully kept. We stood watching a women’s rugby team warming up for a game, but it didn’t look like they were starting soon enough to be worth waiting. 

 

After about an hour or so we were pretty hungry for lunch so cycled back to the ship – probably only 3 or 4 miles, but typically the wind had been behind us on the way, and fairly strong, so cycling back was good exercise. 

 

It was an amazing change from the normal, and made me feel invigorated and refreshed.  For the remainder of the day I worked on my last report for this sea phase. 

 

Oh, and one thing I didn’t realise until recently…bikes on the continent have their brakes the opposite way round to the English way.  So, you have to be careful not to flip yourself over the handle bars if you stop quickly – not that the brakes were good enough to muster that in this case!

 

 

For today, I did all the normal duties and Monday bits, then began working my way through the minor electrical problems that need fixing on board – slow and methodical was the prescription for this.  Hopefully I’ll get them all sorted, as it will give me a great deal of satisfaction. 

 

Once I get internet again, I’ll put the photos up from Bayonne.