Category Archives: brittany

Thursday 2nd July 2020 – WITH NO ALARM …

… this morning I slept right through until everyone started appearing in the dining room. 07:55 or thereabouts. nd todaym for the first time since I can’t remember when, I had three proper meals today. This sea air has given me an appetite.

But more of that anon.

First thing though was to check the dictaphone. And sure enough, I’d been miles during the night. It must have been a very restless night, that’s all I can say. And when I return home and transcribe them I’ll find out where I’ve been. And, more importantly, who came with me.

After breakfast I went ashore to use the facilities in the port, and then came back on board. We left port pretty smartly in the beautiful sunshine and once clear we ran up the sails.

And now I know why I felt so ill the other day. This afternoon I banged my head on the hatch cover (yet again!) and found that I’d left half of the skin off my head hanging onto the edge of it.

That prompted me to go and look in the mirror. And sure enough, a bright red face, swollen eyes – I caught the sun when I was steering the boat the other day and I’m pretty badly sunburnt around the face.

No wonder I was feeling so cold!

We eventually arrived at the Ile de Chausey without mishap – no patrol boats or policemenm although there was a Customs boat in port – but he paid us no attention. Lunch had been taken in mid-ocean so as soon as we arrived we took a zodiac ashore.

This time I managed to make a full circuit of the island, visiting qlmost erverywhere that I wanted to go, and then we had a drink at the hotel and came back to the ship. But not before Strawberry Moose had his photo taken with yet another admirer who fell in love with him.

Pierre, our captain, knows someone on the island so he came beck too and we had a good chat for an hour or so.

It was also the birthday of Catherine, one of our passengers, so we had a little birthday party. I played the guitar too and someone told me that I had a good voice. It just shows you how much alcohol everyone had drunk this evening.

This evening there’s a very low tide so we can’t anchor here. We’ve retreated round to the north side of the island. We’re catching the wind full on and with the running seas it’s pretty uncomfortable when we are stationary. But apparently when the tide recedes, we’ll find ourselves in a little lagoon surrounded by rocks and in the shelter so it should be very comfortable.

There will be no alarm tomorrow either so I’m hoping for a good lie-in. It’s my last night on board tonight which is a real shame. I’ve really enjoyed it.

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Wednesday 1st July – MUCH TO MY …

… own surprise I once more beat the third alarm to my feet. But that was more in the hope that I wouldn’t awaken my fellow passengers with the racket that it makes rather than any keenness on my part. Some stuff on the dictaphone too and I’ll tell you more anout that as time goes on. I’ve not yet listened to it so I don’t know as yet if I have had any exciting company.

Mind you, my shipmates aren’t so pleased with me. Apparently David Bowie awoke the whole ship this morning and they have politely asked me to switch off my alarm tomorrow.

We had a leisurely start today and Strawberry Moose became the first moose ever to set hoof on the Isle de Brehat. There he found himself a girlfriend – it was love at first sight.

This all involved a zodiac ride and if anyone from Adventure Canade were to see the security precautions that we took, they would blanch. But we made it ashore (and back) safely and had a good tour around the island for three hours or so.

Back on the Spirit of Conrad we had an unexpected hitch. The anchor was jammed and it needed both the crewmen to free it. However we needed to leave at that moment because of the tide so Yours Truly was trusted with the controls all on my own for about an hour or so.

Luckily I wasn’t at the controls a little later because we had “an incident”. There was a ship anchored off the coast right in our path and as we approached it, it signalled to us to “clear off”. We saw no reason to so we carried on regardless and right behind it was a police launch – the Geranium I. And they came to intercept us.

Apparenty this ship is surveying the ocean bottom and there have been some disputes with the local fishermen, so a 500-metre exclusion zone has been declared around it. All very well if you are a local and you know, but if you don’t know, you don’t know.

They were on board for almost an hour verifying all of our papers and everything before they cleared off.

The weather, that hadn’t been too good to start with, deteriorated over the course of the day. We passed Cap Frehel in a heavy cloud and by the time we moored at St Cast le Guildo) it was raining heavily. Mind you there are some good modern showers in the harbour office so I for one took full advantage.

Rosemary called me for a chat too which was nice – but that meant that it was quite late when I came back on board. However with no 06:00 alarm in the morning it doesn’t matter all that much. I’m off to bed and hopefully I’ll be having a good lie-in

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Tuesday 30th June 2020 – IT WAS AN …

… early start this morning. We were supposed to be present in the dining room at 06:00. And much to my own surprise I was there as well – which just goes to show that I can do it when I try, even though something awoke me at 03:30 and I didn’t go back to sleep for an hour and a half.

There were some things on the dictaphone that I listened too and which I’ll transcribe in due course. But a welcome return to Zero who has accompanied me on many travels in the past but hasn’t been around for a couple of years. How nice for once to see a familiar friendly face on my journeys around the ether.

When the tide turned at 07:00 or thereabouts we were all fed and watered (I actually had some bread and jam and a banana) and we set sail out of the bay where we had spent the night. Straight into a raging sea.

We were all allowed to take our turn at the wheel – to keep it between 45 and 50 degrees to the wind. And it’s not that easy steering a 67 foot yacht in a high wind at speed. It reminded me very much of trying to steer a Morris Marina – you turn the wheel and nothing happens for a couple of minutes and then suddenly it swings right round – far too far so you have to swing it back and inevitably repeat the process. I zigzagged my way down the Brittany coast like a drunken sailor as far as Cap Frehel and then someone else took the reins.

Talking of Cap Frehel, I took a photo of it as we went past. Regular readers of thie rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago I took a few photos of what I thought was Cap Frehel and there was a very distinctive object visible, even though it is 70 or so kms away from Granville. When I edit the photo that I took today, you can compare it with the one that I took then and draw your own conclusions.

Shortly after this I was overwhelmed with fatigue and started to have the shakes again and went freezing cold, which is not like me, hot stuff that I am. I think that I’ve eaten something that I shouldn’t. Only one cure for that, and that was bed. And there I stayed for … gulp … three and a half hours. I missed lunch, so I was back to two meals per day despite having had breakfast.

It took a while to recover my composure too.

By now we were sailing up a river towards the port of Lezardrieux where we eventually found a mooring. I was in charge of tying up the bow and I could have done a better job there too.

We had an aperitif (tisane for me) and then took the zodiac to the shore. A pretty little town it is and I’ll tell you why – and that is that even though the port car park has been remodelled like that of Granville, it’s not an appalling, tasteless patch of tarmac but nicely cobbled with trees and bushes, which just goes to show that you can do it if you try.

What a dreadful lack of taste there is in Granville.

There are also rows of low wooden posts around there marking the boundary as I discovered to my cost when I wasn’t looking where I was going.

Another thing here are public showers and I wish that I had known that before I came ashore.

Later in the evening we – three of us actually – went for a zodiac ride upriver. And enjoyable as it was, the rain put a dampener on the whole proceedings. We’re having no luck with the weather.

There had been pasta for lunch and there was some left over so I had that with one of the curries that I had brought.

But now it’s pouring down with rain outside and it’s not the weather to be out taking the air. I’m going to have another early night and hopefully have a good sleep. We’re back at sea tomorrow.

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Monday 29th June 2020 – JUST FOR A CHANGE …

… I was even up before the second alarm this morning!

And how long is it since that has happened?

But it was just as well because there’s a lot to do this morning and there isn’t much time. I’m going to be on my travels again this morning and I’ll be away for at least 5 days. I’m not going far but I’m not sure what the internet arrangements so the updating of these pages during my absence might be somewhat sporadic – rather a case of pot luck I’m afraid.

I was in Wales last night and there was a group of us standing on the corner of a field. We heard this strange noise and it was a lorry that went past – an 8-wheeled seed tanker thing painted beige and green from somewhere in Church Stretton. It was making a really weird noise and the driver had his foot down, was driving through these lanes and turned back onto the main road and shot back off down this main road at an incredible rate of knots. Someone said “does he always drive like this? Fast?” and my father said “Oh God yes – this is nothing. Wait until they get on the open road”. A friend of my father’s who was with us he came out with something or other about it. Then we were all discussing our sleeping arrangements – who was going to sleep where, all this kind of thing. It was quite evident that a couple of use were going to have to share a bed because there were not enough beds to go round. As you can expect, there were a couple of ribald remarks made about that as well.

Having backed up everything on the computer I went for a shower and then finished off my packing. Knowing that food is going to be an issue I took some supplies out of the freezer, some vegan cheese an a couple of vegan burgers as well as a few things to nibble on.

Then loaded up with supplies, luggage, a guitar and Strawberry Moose I headed off into town. I reckon that I was somewhat over-ambitious with the amount of things that I’ve taken because it was a struggle, but luckily with the tide being out the harbour gates were closed so that I could take the short cut over the top of the gates.

Arriving at the harbour, I quickly located Spirit of Conrad and lugged my stuff aboard. She will be my home for the next few days. There’s a trip organised down the Brittany coast where I’ve wanted to go, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall. Pierre the owner told me about it but it was fully booked, although someone wasn’t quite sure. As it happened she withdrew and he came to see me two weeks ago to say that the place was free.

Knowing full well about these cruises I chose one of the two cabins in the stern section. All the others can stay up front in the noisy bit.

When everyone had assembled we had a snack and when the harbour gates were opened, we set off, right into the teeth of a howling gale. We crossed the Baie de Mont St Michel at an angle of about 45 degrees, meeting Thora battling her way in.

It took ages to cross the bay but eventually we found ourselves in the lee of the Brittany coast. We sailed for a while up and down in the Cancale roads before finding a suitable place off the Port de Briac to drop anchor.

After a rest and a good chat we had tea and then everyone else went off to bed. Because of the tides and current we have an early start in the morning so I’m going to go and join them.

Not literally, of course. I’m off into my own little corner of the boat. All this sailing has made me tired.

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