This is a controversial subject which needed a little thinking about, yes I know tick tock, but we as boaters all end up talking s..t at some stage in an evening when out socialising.

On the continent, in general there are very few location where one can do a pump out, and historically boats on the continent nearly all have sea toilets, so what to do……when in Rome and all that….

A decision was made last June that we needed to have a Seacock welded into the bottom of the swim in the engine hole, close to the prop, so whilst in dry dock being blacked we had Les who runs Welford Marina and Facilities weld in the offending item. Seacock and Valve £95 approx

We then purchased a whale toilet waste pump for around £200 which was positioned close to the Blackwater tank and linked via a diverter valve to the seacock and the original roof pump out point. This allows us to choose either to pump out normally or dump straight through into the river ooooh!

This has made me ever so lazy, as it used to take me best part of 40 mins to do a manual pump out, now all I have to do is put a hose onto the roof pump out point hit a switch and it’s all over and done with in 10 mins. Lovely…….

No we won’t be swimming in the rivers on the continent, although I have in the past.

I trawled the internet and found out it is virtually impossible to get a French bank account without having a permanent address in France, it’s not impossible as Credite Agricole will allow you to have an account, using you permanent UK address and Bank…..but a big but for us we needed to be on an electoral role, which we are not. Ah!

We bank in the UK with Nationwide B/S and they have an account which is called Flexplus. The account is chargeable at £10 a month but pays interest at 3% per month on balances up to £2500 which will pay about £7 after tax. It also has European Breakdown cover for account holders car, Worldwide insurance for your Mobile Phone and Free Cash withdrawals from ATMs worldwide plus a few other add ons. So all in all

We have also opened an account with a company called CaxtonFX which allows one to load the card up with Euros from your bank account at very good transfer rates, the card is linked to VISA or MasterCard, your choice, and is used like cash. It can be topped up by phone, iphone App or on the internet.

With both above we hope to have covered all eventualities where money is concerned.

Only time will tell………we will keep you updated.

We were having a BBQ with Joe and Lesley off NB Yarwood, Sue and Vic off NB No Problem, somewhere on the River Ouse. From one of our number came the question “wouldn’t it be lovely to take our boats to France?”
That was it the seed was planted, everyone in the group were given tasks to do and so it started to happen.