Idle time at Port St Louis du Rhone

Still at Port Saint Louis and the wind is howling... It hasn't been too bad, up till 22h00, yesterday, the wind only got up to 45kts.. 

While we were eating lunch, a river boat was entering the locks, the wind was slowing he mixing of the water significantly and there was a tiny standing wave on the boundary.

Locks opening up

This photo was taken while having lunch - the the wind was strong enough to slow the mixing of the water..

Notice how much the Black mast in the distance is leaning 

The leaning mast belongs to this 60ft racing sled.

I took the above pictures to show how much the wind was blowing, it was only peaking at 35kts by this time... We finished our late lunch and as we had no major boat stuff to do (due to weather) we decided to go and see the bull taunting taking which was part of the festival of the Carmargue. 

So at 15H00 we bought our tickets expecting some serious bull taunting and we were pleasantly surprised.. There was folk dancing taking place..

Folk dancing

After the folk dancing stopped, a lady started singing an opera piece and the Cowboy was doing his bit..

Opera singer and Cowboy

After he singer was done and took her bow, we were treated to even more equestrian display by Cowboys/girls.

 After they had put on a display, we got to the bull taunting...

Giddy up, where those hoomans..

His behind you..

Arrg, gonna git you...

 This sport more so than others, the participants are extremely driven to excellence, any mediocre performance, quickly gets the corrective actions necessary.. One guy was just a bit too slow which resulted in the bull providing said correction, the taunter limped off with a torn shirt and a limp..
With one afternoon's taunting over it was on to the awards ceremony for the taunter who performed the best.. This was kicked off by the marching band..  

The victor collects his award

The aim of this activity as we have observed is for a taunter to attempt to remove a ribbon/piece of string from the horns of a rather pissed off bull with a metallic comb like thing without getting gored by the pissed off bull - we concurred that this individual did deserve he first prize - he was by far the most aggressive of the taunters, he narrowly avoided getting gored yet he collected the most ribbons/pieces of strings.

After the award ceremony we thought we were done for the day and wondered behind the arena to listed to some Gypsy music.

 Band warming up..

After one song, they promptly stopped playing and we were ushered back to the arena for some more something... We were treated to some further display of fine horsemanship. 

Rounding up he bulls (taunters were done with them)

These two girls made it look rather too easy. After this display, a rider would go to the far end of the arena, collect a bouquet of flowers and two other riders (too lazy to go to the far end of the arena) would attempt to take the flowers from the rider, go figure..

Steal he flowers from you mate

Close but no cigar..

After that display, the horses and the bulls were herded into the arena and the Cowboys/girls separated the animals, and herded them around the stadium. 

 After a few laps of herding the animals they put them away..

Putting ones toys away when done playing.. 

Further toying with the bulls..

After the animals were put away, it was back down to the band and we were treated to music.  After having a couple of pizzas and some good wine it was time for home

On the whole we had a really enjoyable day, despite the fact that the wind was howling and we were still at PSL... Tomorrow we will go to Port Nap as we have a date with a cherry picker to fix Flying Fynn's main sail furler and hopefully Tuesday we set off...