Friday 27 May 2016

All goes bent in Fecamp.

Probably the nicest spot so far. Fecamp from above. Wife made me walk up here to satisfy the step app on her Iphone!



You know when you text a busy ,frustrated, working mate that the biggest problem you have is that the Garlic, Boursin and the bottle of red wine are too cold to start lunch, then, deservedly,  things are about to go wrong!

Well they did. No electrics on the pontoon, no problem we need to move the boat further up. We can do that even the nice Germans next door agreed to help us despite my gaff when cleaning seagull poo of the spray hood earlier, the Luftwaffe reference without checking their flag of origin first was a mistake.

Start up the engine, let her warm up, sounds lovely, ignore wife's comments about billowing white smoke and oil slick emanating from our exhaust. They guy next door had his outboard cover off so it was to do with him, obviously! Wife persists so need to point out her error more emphatically. Shit! engine off.

I am sure I read somewhere that Yanmar's need a good blast every now and again to prevent carbon build up. It must be that. Five minutes of polluting Fecamp harbour and there is clearly a problem.

Looks like an injector problem according to Google. The Marina advise that I visit the local Uship office but I have no idea what Nigel Farage can do.



The very nice man agrees to look at the problem on Monday after a little French teeth sucking to prepare me for the worst.

Monday arrives and Grice turns up, a young, dour chap, that is, until I welt my head on the boom which cheered him up no end. He agrees with Google and takes all three injectors only leaving a small diesel stain on the carpet.

Speak to the marina about extending our stay and they agree,  but say we must go into the locked basin. I explain that I haven't got a motor and he says no problem I'll give you a tow. Normally such a manoeuvre would involve all my sailing mates being notified so they could bring their cameras.

Tuesday 23rd May, Hermy is towed into the dock. I can't help thinking of HMS Victory being towed into her final resting place in 1922. Notice how close that boom is to ma tete!


I settle in to French life as I am informed that the work on the injectors will take a week and we plan our victorious arrival in Honfleur to meet the Smiths and the Kings via hired Renault Clio. Luckily they have booked an Air B and B that has three double rooms. 
Do you think they knew?

I throw myself in to the live aboard chef roll. Did you know the French sell peas in small green mouthful packets? Extraordinary!


We visit Fecamp Benedictine Palace, Incredibly it is devoted to distilling alcohol, apparently some old Monk had the forsight to blend herbs and alcohol to make rather a tasty shot. Some French guy, Monsiour LeGrand, found the recipe and made a business out of producing the stuff. What a good chap!


I reckon we can get this between the windlass and the port shroud!


Technology has proved to be a real challenge, Iphones , tablets and laptops have been a real pain, mainly due to something called roaming, BT, and the unreliability of Wifi. Below is our most reliable bit of technology keeping us abreast of what's going on in Blighty. 

I bought it in 1980 for £6 when I started at Chester College to keep me in touch with the outside world. Still doing its job. Seems to like Smooth radio at the moment. Unfortunately they only have three adverts which they keep repeating.

Continuing with our, what we do and don't like about French life, we have noticed that the French are not adverse to whipping it out and having a pee where ever they may be. Slightly disturbing at times but I have to say that the good old English drunk often adopts this French behaviour but not usually in times of temperance. Despite this 'Whip and pee' culture we do still find that the French are very friendly, polite and courteous. "Pardonez moi monsiour je suis just having a quick peepee"

A great thing that we have noticed is traffic lights that count down to going green which is fantastic taking much of the stress out of traffic lights wondering if they ever will change. We must adopt these.

Just had the bill for the injectors.
That's it, will have to pull children's university funding.

Saturday 21 May 2016

Dieppe is closed!

Dieppe is closed!

Came out of Boulogne Sunday morning and made our way nicely under sail towards Dieppe. Hermy sails very nicely and we made good progress but gradually reefed down as the wind grew and the chop increased. Not forecast and wife not happy. Glad to get in to Dieppe harbour which was welcomingly sheltered. Popped into a nice visitors berth and all was well.

Practiced my French on the bemused marina lady whose English was on a par with John Gielgud's.
At this point I proved that banging your head was not just an onboard ritual, when I bent down to place marina stuff in my rucksack and on coming back up hit the underside of the counter with rivet tearing force and an enormous resonating crack. The poor lady didn't know whether to apologise, call an ambulance or check the counter for damage. She quickly took her lead from my caring wife who was doubled up with laughter. I continued on as if it was just a normal daily occurrence which I am beginning to think it is.

We felt there were similarities with Dieppe and Dover although no Witherspoon's evident but I did have wait to make a deposit at the bins whilst a man went through what was in there, he may not go back if he started to look in mine!


It has a castle on a hill, and I am sure I saw this woman in Dover too.


The castle also had a museum which was highly advertised and we tried to look at it. Day one it was closed because it was lunch two hours, day two it was closed because it was Tuesday, and on the third attempt it was closed because there was a strike, it's a bit like working with the Met.


Nice views of where the Canadians attacked in 1942 op Jubilee.

Dieppe was not enhanced with the gloomy weather and to cheer ourselves up we caught a bus to St Valery en Caux, a port we were going to leapfrog so we thought it would be nice to have a look. Bus turned up and a nice lady drove us for an hour for 2 Euros each.


St Valery En Caux harbour, lovely if you could airbrush out the Winibagos.

All was well here until we decided to go back and wait for the bus for half an hour before we realised we were looking at the July/ August timetable and not the "Dieppe is closed" timetable, still despite the strikes they were running.

Had lunch and got completely soaked before catching the bus home.

As a trained observer I couldn't help thinking that the couple I held the Marina gate open for might be English. About thirty minutes later Dave from Morning Mist whom we had met at St Valerie Sur Somme came up to the boat and said I thought that was you! We were invited for drinks at 5:30.

At SV En Caux we decided to begin our lists of good French things and bad French things. Number one good French thing are the police sirens. They are the old fashioned ee  orr  ee orr type which conveys perfectly to the public that there is a problem, likely to be a load of rubbish but we had better get there and make sure. Rather than the stupidly hysterical American type of wailing and whooping that startles the shit out of the public and conveys the message that the world is about to explode but 5 seconds later it stops and you draw up to a Witherspoons where two drunks are arguing over the next round.

Worst thing - no fat free milk and their coffee is crap.

Stayed two days longer than we wanted to because of the weather but the forcast was good for Friday 20th wave height .06 metre and 12 knot winds. Not true 2 metre waves and 20 knot winds with driving rain. Carol Kirkwood or Nina Ridge wouldn't do this to us.

Caroline sunbathing.


Fecamp looks really nice.


Saturday 14 May 2016

Etaples and St Valery Sur Somme

 Etaples is a tricky entrance but luckily there were plenty of local boats knocking about to give you a clue and we were lucky to follow a local all the way in. The Capitainarie was very helpful but wanted us to turn the boat around , not sure why, perhaps he hadn't had enough sport that day. We did this after the tide had turned in about four knots of stream. Impossible to bring it back on to the same hammerhead so backed on to the next one up and then left it too late to change it before we told them. They were fine about it. We found out why we had to turn round when we saw the tide come in. Like white water slalom.

Hermione was the first British visitor in 2016.


The French clearly haven't got their tides worked out, whilst it was perfect to attempt entry to Etaples at around midday once you're up here you can't leave until mid afternoon and then your buggered to go in anywhere else. The options are hike back up to Boulogne or try something more adventurous like anchoring overnight or trying a night time entry. Neither recommended.

The speed of the incoming tide is worth seeing. Quicker than a Westerly Centaur around the Isle of Wight.

Gone!

                                                                            Back!












Seagulls here are really big and when you wake up looking up the skirt of an extra large one perched on your aft hatch you get  a sudden feeling that to move rashly may have consequences that might take some time to clear up. We had noticed that our dock was a bombing training ground target for the local gulls.


Le Touquet is a shortish bike ride away and is very pleasant with airfield, equestrian centre and pretty town centre clearly for the rich. Nevertheless a lovely beach and surrounding dunes and woods.



The end of Le Touquet runway. 

On the otherside of this box is a sign that says:
"Si vous ne taken off pas yet puis vous etes dans le merd."

They put a small fence and a large box there just in case you do manage to get off the ground they ensure your under carraige is removed as a lesson.


Etaples at flood



We took the easy option and headed back to Boulogne for the night before setting out early for St Valery Sur Somme. En route I caught the first fish of the trip, an unsuspecting mackerel which we omitted to photograph before throwing him back but very large!

Seven miles of slaloming around red and green cans before you get to this position but well worth it when you get here. Seals,steam trains, cafes, pretty shops and houses and lots of greenery. Very nice place.


Short guys don't bang their heads until they get a boat! Nothing to do with the beer!

Thursday 5 May 2016

Brexit

Well we have finally got away leaving Gillingham lock at 0750 on Sunday 1st May. Granddad saw us off and enjoyed my several attempts to call the lock keeper on the wrong channel then the blank look I gave the lock keeper when he asked for my exit card. We sorted it.



A lovely day but no wind meant that Hermy's engine had to do all the work. We thought we had encountered our first pirate just off the strand but it turned out to be the skipper of Aronele seeing us off in his tender. The flat calm persisted.  Shivering Sands towers, mid Thames Estuary.


The wind picked up as we motored between the coast and the Goodwins but it was on the nose. Arrival in Dover was reasonably uneventful. Monday's weather turned horrible so we set about entertaining ourselves in Dover. Jungle book seemed a good idea but the House only had 73 seats and after 45 minutes queuing we got within ten people from admission when we were turned away. The museum was open so we went in there. Have to say it was really good. We began to like Dover, strangely! Tuesday 3rd saw a beautiful day and having discovered out of date flares in the box we hiked up on to the white cliffs to dispose of them at the Coast Guard station.

Liking Dover even more

A walk to Dover castle via the Bleriot memorial was very pleasant and I entered in to the history of it all.



Dover Castle seemed even more interesting than last time, it must have been the sunshine effect. Despite the run down appearance of the town and the Witherspoon's 10am drinking facility, you get the feeling Dover is ripe for regeneration.
On Wednesday 4th May we slipped our mooring, fuelled up and after a short telling off from Dover Port Control for requesting permission to leave later than we should have, we headed for Boulogne motor sailing. The busiest shipping lane in the world, wasn't all that busy and after slowing down considerably to let a ship pass ahead of us we managed to create a collision course that didn't initially exist. We dodged him and I don't think there was any fist shaking, It could have been a friendly wave!



Boulogne Digue Carnot. A very friendly reception despite the large dredger hiding behind the wall. Boulogne Sur Mer for a couple of days exploring and amusing the locals with my version of French.