Belisama in the operation room... 16 November

On 4th June 2021, as Belisama was lifted in Sables d'Olonne for the yearly check-up, I had asked Thierry Leprince from Alubat to have a look at the rudder as we had struck a rock two years before, without any noticeable steering consequences (see the post). But in fact the hull had been slightly pushed-up and this required to change the rudder posts on both sides, kind of a hip surgery...

Belisama had been in Alubat shipyard since early June. By mid-July, the insurance experts had reviewed the problem and agreed to cover the damage. Too late though for having it done before the annual summer Alubat break in August. As Belisama is now wintering in Sables d'Olonne, the time pressure for completing the repair became lower and the work just started recently.

The first step of the surgery was to open the body and remove both hips (rudder pods)...

Yellow foot chanterelles in November! 14 November

Sunday 14 November, sunny cold morning, 4°C, ideal weather to get to the forest and check what mushrooms could still be found there... As for the place, we chose the island of Selaön, in the lake Mälaren, around 100 km from Stockholm. For picking the spot, we relied on a Swedish friend telling us to go on the southern shore of the Lake Mälaren for picking mushrooms. The reason is that Lake Mälaren is what remains from the glacier lake located on the south of the ice cape on the North pole during prehistoric times, 12,000 years ago. The good soil that had accumulated over the years rose over the sea/lake level in relation with the rising of Sweden after the melting of the ice cap. On that basis, we checked on Google Earth which area could be good. Criteria were: 1) presence for a forested area, 2) on a flat ground, 3) far from villages and habitations. These proved to be very good criteria as you can see in the picture below, gathered in 2 hours.

4 kg of yellowfoot chanterelles!