Wednesday 29 May 

The morning is grey.  I get up early to go to the bakery and have our first disaster.  We have forgotten that they are closed today.  So it is cereal again for breakfast, despite our fast yesterday.  

Then as we want to cast off, it starts to rain, quite hard.  We go to the fuel pontoon.  There is a problem.  The machine only allows you to buy 100 euro worth of fuel, which is only just over half a tank.  Richard doesn’t want to try further, so we go.  I hope this is not a mistake.

The weather is horrid.  We get out of the river and the wind is all over the place.  It goes down to 8knots and then up to 20.  The sea is also very rolly.  I have taken a pill, but I am not comfortable.  Actually not sick, just miserable, wet and cold.  So I spend most of the trip below stretched out on the bunk.  I thought we were going to divert to Concarneau, but when I get up Richard has taken us on to Ile de Groix.  Even Richard is fed up with the weather and has spent a lot of the trip at the chart table in the warm.

Coming in to port is a bit hairy.  The sea is too rough to take in the main.  So we start to go in the harbour.  There is just about enough room to take the sail down, but the main sheet gets caught in the hatch over the galley and that takes extra time.  By the time we’ve got the sail down the ferry is coming in and we have to rush into the port before I have got any fenders or lines out.  Of course it is also pouring with rain.  Eventually we get line up to go into a berth, but it is too short.  We don’t care, a nice Frenchman helps us with lines and we are in.  It is after 2:00pm, so we can’t get below too soon to dry out, warm up and get some lunch down us.

After lunch it stops raining!  We try to find a place to eat a Fruits de Mer.  Disaster again.  Both restaurants are closed today.  It isn’t going well for us.  We could try to order a take away platter from the fishmonger, but I would rather go out.  So we will eat in.  We can’t even take a shower.  They have closed the shower block and have temporary facilities which look awful and close at 8:00pm.  The heads are full of our oilies trying to dry out, so I’m not sure what I will do.

After dinner the sun sets and the sky is red.  Could that possible mean decent weather tomorrow.  I have my doubts.  The shipping forecast on Radio 4 is bad.

Tuesday 28 May

Yes the weather is bad, so we aren’t going anywhere.  It is raining hard on and off.  We keep getting caught out in the showers.  We are fasting today so we have a lazy morning with a light late breakfast.  I shower and wash my hair.  I keep hoping we will find a good place to have a seafood platter and I could get dressed up.  Nothing yet.

We decide to take the bus to Quimper. It leaves from the centre of the town at 1:00.  It is an odd route going back and forth between villages, sometimes going back on itself.  But in less than an hour we are in Quimper.  We are going to try to do some of the shopping we have been unable to get.  We do very well.  We get the French Sim for my phone and a wireless 3G thingy which will get us Internet for all our toys when we can’t get free WIFI.  We also get me a watchstrap and I buy a new butter dish to make up for the one I broke in Dinan.  The only problem is how I will get it to Dinan.  We’ll work it out.

We have drinks with Jean and Tony on their Bavaria.  The only problem is that we are just on fizzy water.  At the same time I do a couple of loads of laundry so we have clean linens and underwear to last us for another week or two.

Dinner is a sparse but tasty prawn dish from the diet cookbook.  Then to bed.  We will go somewhere tomorrow.

Monday 27 May 2013

We get up at leisure, as the office doesn’t open until 9:00am.  We have breakfast and then sign in and I get to shower.  It seems a lovely day.  We pay for two nights, but we are not sure what we will do.  The weather forecast is not good, again!  They are predicting strong winds over the next two days and rain.  We shall play it by ear.

First thing needed is reprovisioning.  So we walk up to the big Carrefour and buy the place out.  We have a long trudge back with four heavy bags.  I’m not sure how I will get the lot into the fridge and store lockers.  When we get back it is an effort, but I just manage.

We have lunch on board and then walk around the town.  We have been looking all day for a place to buy a Sim card for my phone.  We also want a dongle for the computer to get internet when we cannot get free WIFI.  Here they claim to have free WIFI, but it is very restricted and downloading the Times uses up our allocation.  We have no luck in getting the phone equipment.  We shall have to try at a bigger city.

We have invited the couple on Melody for drinks.  We will do Pimms.  Only problem is that we can’t find ice cubes.  I try to make some in the fridge, hanging, plastic bag ice cube bags on the plate.  It does work, but the water is not sufficiently frozen in time for drinks.  But it is nice to know we can make ice cubes!  We have a nice chat with Jean and Tony.  Then make dinner.  Use up the duck breast I bought some days ago.

Now it is pouring with rain and the wind is up.  If this keeps up we aren’t going anywhere tomorrow, except perhaps by ferry or bus to Quimper!

Sunday 26 May

So we are up at 5:30, and it is not yet light!  But the weather seems fine.  There is little wind and the sky is clear, so off we go.

After we cast off I go below and make us smoked salmon bagels for lunch.  I am not up for breakfast, but R is cold and hungry so I make him a hot chocolate and then go back to bed.  I am really exhausted.  I meant to stay up, but just could not manage it.  By the time I wake up at 8:30am we are well into the Channel du Four.  And all is fine.  There is very little wind and what there is is more or less on the nose, so we are motoring.  We are going great guns with strong SOGs.  So all seems really well set to get through the Four and the Raz.  I make us a quick breakfast and then Richard goes down to have a bit of sleep.  He gets up as we approach the Raz.  The timing is just about perfect.  We get there just at the end of slack water and get around the point with only a very little adverse tide.  We think we are the last to get through easily.  At least we can’t see any boats behind us.

We are really doing well and Richard suggests that instead of stopping in Audierne we go on the Benodet.  It seems a good plan and we go for it.  The weather is cold but lovely and sunny and still quite windless.  We get in to Benodet about 6:00pm and find a reasonable spot on the inside of the visitor pontoon.  We can’t sign in because the Marina is on winter times and isn’t even open on Sundays!  Locals tell us the codes for the gates and the showers.  The latter is no use to me because the showers need jetons to work, but Richard is advised there is one shower in the gents that works without a jeton and he does get a nice wash.  After we get in, a Bavaria called Melody comes in.  This was the boat we saw in Trebeurden and who were also in Guernsey with us.  Small world really.

The evening is lovely and we take a walk to the entrance to the river just for some exercise.  Richard even gets an ice cream, so he really now feels like we are on holiday.  We are very pleased with ourselves.  We have covered the distance of a Channel crossing today and made up some of the time we have lost.  It didn’t even really feel like a chore!

Saturday 25 May

We have been in L’Aber-Wrac’h for the past four days.  The heater is working as long as we don’t turn it off.  Not ideal, but we have kept warm in truly awful weather.  The weather forecast was bad, but the weather has been worse.  On Thursday it was bright, but very cold and very windy (up to 32 knots).  We had long walk up to the town to buy food, but the shop is bad, and we get very little.  We have dinner in the nice seafood restaurant and manage to get on and off the boat for that.  To do so is something of a miracle in the conditions.  The boat is being blown off the pontoon and the wind is too strong to pull it in.  Also the sea splashes up in huge waves just near us and we have to run across to avoid getting soaked.

This all gets much worse on Friday when the winds stay up at about 20-28 knots all day.  The boat lurches with the wind.  Richard keeps putting more and more lines on.  We seem safe enough but it is not at all comfortable.  And it has started raining.  Not continuously, but in showers.  We go out to lunch for a snack, just to get off the boat.  But it is hard to walk in the bad weather.  Ugh.

The weather forecast for today was much better.  Sunny and settled winds.  Richard wanted us to go to Camaret today, but I have rebelled.  The forecast for the seas is terrible.  There is said to be waves of .6 to 1 metre high on top of a swell of 2 metres!  This is in one of the worst bits of water we will encounter.  I am unwilling to spend 5 hours in those conditions.  It turns out I am not the only one who decides we should wait for the sea to calm down.  Not one boat has gone out today!

But the weather is nice enough for us to have a long walk along the headland to the sea.  We are fasting, but are allowed a dozen oysters each for dinner which finally makes me think I am on holiday in Brittany.

We will leave very early tomorrow morning.  Richard wants to try to get through the Four and the Raz in the same trip.  That means going to Audierne, again skipping a town which is good for provisioning.  We are running out of food! 

Wednesday 22 May 

Up at 6:15 to leave before the sill closes at about 7:00.  We have had a free night because the marina office doesn’t open until 8:30, so there is no one we can pay for our berth.  Odd system they have here in France.

The weather is nice in that the sun is shining, but it is still cold.  The sea is awfully lumpy.  It isn’t rough, but we are rolling around so much you can barely walk when you go below.  Richard is anxious for us to get in to L’Aber-Wrac’h before the tide turns.  The wind is only the bottom of a 4, so we motor sail virtually all the way.  As we approach the harbour we see a number of boats coming out and turning west toward the Channel Du Four, the route past the end of Brittany going south.  We toy with the idea of going straight on, but neither of us can face another long passage.  We can be in harbour at lunchtime if we stick to the plan, otherwise we wouldn’t get to Camaret until between 7 and 8 tonight.

So we go in to L’Aber-Wrac’h as planned.  This probably means staying here until Saturday because the weather forecast is for strong winds over the next two days.  It isn’t an ideal place to stop because there are few shops and not much to do.  But it is a pretty harbour and there is one nice restaurant, where we can go tomorrow night.

So here we are.  We have had a nice walk, found where we can buy gas and have had our meager low calorie fasting day supper.  Only problem is that the heater is still not working and the fix Richard was taught to make is also not working!  Maybe we can find an engineer here? 

Tuesday 21 May

Up at 5:30 to leave for Trebeurden.  Funny thing is that many of the other boats on the pontoons are going at the same time.  I guess that is a good thing.  We manage to have a bowl of cereal each and I make a sandwich for us both.  Then we just have a long, tiring and cold day on the sea.  Everything is grey.   The sky is light grey.  The sea is dark grey.  The only wildlife we see are gulls and they are mainly grey also!

We are both tired due to the cold wind and early start so we take turns going below to sleep and warm up a bit.  The journey goes well.  Mainly a force 4 on the beam.  We sail most of the day and boost our speed for a time with the engine.  The journey takes 10-11 hours, which isn’t bad, but we are exhausted when we arrive.  But we have finally made it to France. We also arrive half an hour after the marina office closes! So no shower and if we do leave early tomorrow morning, no chance to pay a berthing fee!

We are both desperate to get warm.  The heater won’t turn on again, so Richard has to do his playing will the system to start it up.  When he tries to do that we have another little problem.  The catch for the lock on the panel falls out and he can’t open the panel to get to the heater mechanism!  To get around this he has to take the headliner over our bed off to give access to the lock.  He manages that but then it does take 2 tries to get the heater going.  But we have now heated up the boat so much that we are in short sleeved t-shirts!  

Dinner on board - Caribbean Chicken Curry - nice and warming after our super cold day.  We even get WIFI on our new system and have spoken to Colin in Norway.  

Must get to bed early because we have another very early start and the sill out of this marina closes at 7:00am tomorrow!

Monday 20 May 

We have a bit of a lie in.  But the situation is improving.  The sun has even come out.  Well at least for a few minutes.  By the time I get up it has clouded over again, but it still is a great improvement on yesterday.

After a shower we break our fast with a nice big bowl of porridge.  That really fills me up.  First thing to do for the day is to try to find a heating engineer to look at the heating system.  At about 9:30 am Richard finally gets hold of the local agents for our heating system only to find out that their only heating engineer is on holiday this week.  That sounds like our luck.  Richard then gets hold of the people who installed the heating.  On the phone one of their engineers instructs Richard on how to get diagnostics on the set up and he says it has cut out because there is insufficient voltage.  That makes no sense because we are on shore power and have three new batteries.  The engineer suggests we run the engine for a while and try again.  So Richard does that, but there is no luck, except that another fault code comes up on the control panel.  So Richard rings them again and this time gets a much more helpful engineer.  He says the electricity issue is historic and certainly the heating did turn off for lack of power when we were in Newport at the beginning of the month.  The new code shows that some unburnt diesel has lodged in the system.  The engineer explains to Richard in great detail how to correct it, so he will try.

While he is doing that I guess I might as well make the most of my extra day in Guernsey by doing some laundry.  We have been out for less than a week, but the sheets could use changing and we seem to have a bag full of dirty clothes.  So I trot off to the Marina laundry room and do a couple of loads.  We do need the clothes because we are running out of long sleeved tops.  We didn’t pack for this cold weather.

When I get back to the boat I find Richard doing the last bit to fix the heating and it seems to work.  It does make the heater chuck out huge amounts of smoke, but apparently that is a good thing.  Anyway the boat gets very warm, so lets hope for the best. 

I make yet another trip to the shops to get food.  We have lunch and finish the puzzles in the Times.  This should be the last time we can buy the paper. We hope we might get enough WIFI to download the paper.  The Marina WIFI is set up not to allow anyone to download things!  

It is now nearly high tide and everyone is thinking about leaving so we guess we will go to.  First we go to the fuel pontoon to top up with duty free diesel.  I suggest we check the gas bottle and get new if necessary, but Richard is certain that won’t be necessary.  Then off to the outside pontoons where we will spend the night.  At least we are getting this fourth night free!

I decide to do a new recipe for the boat.  So we have a steak dinner and I make bread and butter pudding.  Guess what, yes the gas runs out in the middle of cooking dinner.  Now it is too late to buy cheap and convenient gas.  Typical.  The desert turns out very well, but I don’t think it is a practical dish for cooking on board as it needs to bake for 50 minutes.

Now it is getting late and we have a very early start in the morning.  5:00am has been mentioned.  So we hope to start the heater and go to bed.  The heater is still not quite right.  As I write Richard is doing his clearing bit on it again.

Yes, it worked and we had a nice warm night.  

Sunday 19 May 

I have had a disturbed night.  I was so tired, but I did not feel well during the night.  I feel all weak and shaky.  It must have something to do with what I ate or drank last night.  I get up fairly early.  I take the opportunity to shower hoping that will perk me up, but I feel no better.  I’m not sure what to do.  

The plan for today is to leave the Marina at the first opportunity which is not likely to be before midday.  Then we were going to go west.  Richard has calculated that we can get to Treguier River by about 8:00pm, which would just about do.  But I don’t know if I am up to a long sail.  But worse, the weather has deteriorated and it is raining.  We are not sure if it will carry on.

While Richard goes to have his shower I go back to bed to see if that will make me feel better.  It doesn’t really.  In the meantime the weather is getting worse and worse and the forecast is for force 5 winds and rain.  Neither of us fancy going out in that.  As I keep saying this is supposed to be fun, not a chore.  So we will just stay in.

We made our minds up before we came that we would try to lose weight.  We started the 2 day a week fasting diet a few weeks ago and both lost a little bit, (about 2 kilo for me), but we had lapsed in the last week.  But we are going to start again and today is our first fasting day on the boat.  Maybe that is just as well with my tum being ropy.  

So we have a long boring day on the boat while the rain gets worse and worse.  We thought we might try to go to the cinema, but find that there is no cinema in St Peter Port and the only one is on the other side of the Island in an hotel.  So we give up on that. 

We eventually have our super low calorie dinner - prawn stir-fry.  I really was hungry today.  And then to bed.  It is still raining and freezing cold.  The radio weather report says it has been warm and sunny today in southern England.  Have we gone the wrong way!

Saturday 18 May

Richard spends the morning trying to find someone to fix our heating.  It is freezing and although we can run our fan heater while here in the Marina and hooked up to electricity, we are dreading what we will do over the next few days when we may have to anchor.  Of course the problem is that it is the weekend and no engineers seem to work at the weekends.  We have left messages with the people who installed it in England and a heating engineer here in Guernsey.  We don’t really want to stay around until Monday to find someone.  So we decide to play it by ear and see how we get on.

We do a bit of shopping in the town. The weather is so cold there is no question of my wearing anything but my jeans!  They are getting a real workout!  We find that a new Co-op food market has opened locally which is helpful.  So I now have at least three dinners on board.  

The weather is so nice, that we decide to have a long walk.  We take a no 11 bus to the south of the island.  The bus fares have gone up.  Last time we took a bus here (but that was 8 years ago) it was 50p and now it is £2!  We get off at the end of the line at Fort Grey and walk around the headland.  It is a bit up and down, but a nice walk and it has done wonders for my Fuel on my Nike band.  I think I have done a record number today!

We then walk back to the road.  We find a bus stop right away and Richard looks up the timetable and finds that the hourly bus is due in 15 minutes, which isn’t bad.  So we wait around, and a bus comes but going in the opposite direction.  Nonetheless it stops and tells us to get on board because they have changed the route due to a big football match today between Jersey and Guernsey.  So luckily we make it back to the port.

We are going out to dinner.  We go to a restaurant we have been to at least twice before.  It is called the Absolute End and is a seafood restaurant.  We have a nice dinner there and get persuaded to buy a more expensive bottle of wine.  When we get back we just collapse into bed exhausted.  

Friday 17 May

To get across the Channel in daylight we have to start out at 5:00am.  It is awfully cold.  I have put on so many layers I can barely move.  I am wearing my silk long johns, a long sleeved tee shirt, an intermediate fleece, a warm fleece and my full waterproofs.  Richard is similarly togged up.  Despite the cold, the weather is not bad; there is some sun. The wind is blowing from the east, with a bit of north in it. We sail out past Hurst Castle and then on past the Needles.  Goodbye England.

We start with a force 4, but it is the top of a 5 for most of the trip.  Richard has plotted us a course to let the tide take us west and then east.  We have taken turns having a bit of a sleep on the way to make up for our very early start.  The sea is quite lumpy.  We have waves of up to two metres.  It is far too rocky for me to go below to make food.  But my provisioning has come into its own.  We have giant chocolate biscuits for breakfast and Cornish pasties for lunch.  I am grateful for having a seasick patch on! 

As we are approaching Alderney we are still a bit far west and find that we are ahead of schedule to get to the Alderney race, so the tide will be against us.  So instead Richard decides that we will go through the Swinge.  The timing is better and it is a shorter route to Guernsey.  As soon as we get to the Swinge the sea flattens a lot, although it is still somewhat lumpy.  But that makes the last bit of the journey much more comfortable.  So at 7:00pm, just 14 hours we tie up to the waiting pontoon at St Peter Port.  We knew we would have to wait to get in to the Marina.  The tide won’t come up to get over the sill until about 10:00pm.  But that is fine.  We are really pleased to be here at last.  

We have time for me to cook dinner on board - sausages and mash on the basis that this will be the last of English sausages.  We manage to stay awake until we can get in to the Marina.  It is very empty.  We have never seen so few boats here, but then again, it is earlier in the season than when we have been here before.  We are moored next to a Southerly 38.  No one is on board.  We think they have left it here ready for the Regatta at the end of the month.

Thursday 16 May

So with plan B in mind we set off at a reasonable time - 9:30am to go to Lymington.  The weather is nice.  Almost clear skies and sunny.  But it is a bit cold.  The wind is light but South East so we can sail.  Given that it doesn’t get above a 2, we are going along quite nicely at just under 4 knots.  Maybe all our new gear is working.  We even put a fishing line out, but the paravane won’t stay under the water, so we give up.  As it is calm I make sandwiches which we eat under way.  But then the wind drops and turns around to be nearly on the nose, so we have to give up and motor.  Anyway, I want to make it to the fudge shop to stock up for the Channel crossing.  The little shop in Lymington makes the best fudge in the world!  It also has great ice cream.

We get into Lymington at about 4:00pm.  In the sun it is quite warm feeling. We get our fudge and ice cream cones (which neither of us should be eating- given our weight) and we have a nice walk around the town.  Buy just enough food to keep us going for a couple of days.  

So back to the boat.  As the sun is going down it is getting cool, so we turn the heating on.  First horror, the heater is not working.  It seems to have given up the ghost.  We have also discovered that the spray hood has ripped stitching.  So we still have problems.  Later we also find that the toilet is not working properly despite it having been completely replaced.  It does not empty to sea at all.  It keeps going into the tank.  At least that is the best way around, but it is a pain.  So we now have three things wrong with the boat and no time to have them fixed.  Not a great start.

We have changed plans again.  Richard has been doing the plotting and says that the distance to Cherbourg is the same more or less as that to Guernsey, so we are going to go straight to Guernsey.  That will save us one day.

Wednesday 15 May

We go to the boat by train so that we don’t have to worry about returning the car to London.  The trip goes well including our stop at Waitrose to get enough food for the next two days.  Plan A is to set off this afternoon and go to Whitecliff Bay off the Isle of Wight.  That will give us a head start on the Channel crossing.  Then we will set off at dawn tomorrow to go to Cherbourg and arrive in daylight.  I like Cherbourg and because I have not had the chance to provision the boat (due to lack of car) we can buy wonderful food there.  There is a huge Carrefour in walking distance of the Marina and you can take the trolley back to the Marina with all the shopping.  There are also wonderful markets there.  So I am looking forward to filling the boat with all sorts of French goodies.

But again things don’t work out as planned.  When we get to Itchenor we find the wind is much stronger than predicted and it is likely that Whitecliff Bay will be very lumpy and uncomfortable.  So we discuss the weather with Carl at Southerly.  He is a very good sailor and after looking at the weather charts on the computer suggests we go to Lymington tomorrow and then cross from there where the conditions will be perfect for a decent crossing.  That seems like a good plan, so we stay on the Northshore pontoon for the night.  As a send off, local friends, Nick and Sue Mason, come for a drink.  They too ask me to write a blog.

Go For It Goes South

For the last year Richard and I have been planning to take our Southerly 110 sailing yacht to the Mediterranean.  The weather in northern Europe had convinced us that sailing in southern waters was to be desired.

The original plan was to take the boat to the boatyard where it was built, Northshore Yachts in Itchenor, to have its usual yearly maintenance and get some other repairs and improvements made for the trip south.  So on a very cold and blowy day in early April we took the boat from Gosport to Itchenor for the work to be done.  The plan was that the work would take 2-3 weeks, which would then give us a couple of weeks to use the boat and make sure everything was working well.

But the best laid plans of men go awry and certainly ours did.  After ten days at Itchenor we decided to go and see how things were getting on only to find that Northshore Yachts had gone in to liquidation.  So to make a long boring story short, that caused so many delays and difficulties that we lost hope in getting away in May at all.  But on Tuesday 14^th May the boatyard rang us to say all the work was done and we were on!  So excitedly we threw our last few things in cases and got ready to go on Wednesday.

Then the idea of this blog came to the fore.  A number of friends have suggested we do a blog to show how we get on taking our old lady Go For It (and old lady me) south.