Les Douaniers

So, today, we had a visit from the Customs guys. 
Four of them turned up and with a cheery "Hello" and came aboard.
They were very polite and jokey, that is until the Galley Slave pointed out that the last French Customs guys that visited us were much better looking.
Can't take her anywhere....


Photos coming soon. Technical issues to do with SD cards.

And we're off.....

On Saturday 14th May (only 2 weeks late), the Skipper, Galley Slave and the Squatter all set off to Dover to get things ready for the big off, kipped on the boat overnight and then studied the weather forecast.


It said it was going to be blowing a bit, so we set off tentatively with a jib and 2 reefs in the main.


Had a cracking sail and reached Boulogne in world record time.


The skipper got out his laptop to check emails and stuff and noticed that the WiFi that was here last time had mysteriously vanished. Went to check with the Marina staff. "Oh yes, we're not using them anymore, we're putting in some free stuff, but that won't be here for a while." 


Doh!


Next morning we all set off to get a couple of PAYG USB Modems. They were quite easily purchased and although a little expensive, didn't seem like too bad a deal.


Got back to the boat to try them out.


They didn't work. Went back to the shop., "You need to wait for 3 hours for them to be activated". We waited three hours and they still didn't work.


At this point the Squatter was bored of spending her weekend in a mobile phone shop and decided it was time to go back to Blighty. So we saw her onto the train and bid her au revoir.


Then it was back to the shop. "Oh your SIM cards expired at the end of April, we'll need to get those reset, wait an hour and come back here and we'll try them out again".


Went back in an hour and they still weren't working. We were told that they would work in about 30 minutes. So we went back to to the boat and tried again.


YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They worked.


For 10 minutes. Then they were saying our credit had run out, but by this time it was six o'clock, the sun was very definitely over the yard arm and there were more important things to attend to.


Tuesday morning, we went back to the shop and they got them topped up with some credit. 


Finally we could do some work.

Big Adventure 2011

So, 2011 is here and we're setting off again very shortly. We still have the guest bedroom to sort out so we are a little delayed!

and so, back to Dover

With some sadness, on the morning of 29th September (coincidentally, the Skipper's daughter's 18th Birthday), we set sail from Eastbourne to Dover. 45 miles.


We had a lovely sail and reminisced about all the things that had happened over the last 5 months. A brilliant summer and we'll be doing it again next year.


The question is, will it be on Balmain Bug or Boat Two?


Currently, it's leaning towards Bugsy. She's a beautiful boat and sails wonderfully. Watch this space.


Total distance run this summer 920 Nautical Miles.

Brighton to Eastbourne 28/9/2010

And so we started to make our way back. We motored all the way to Eastbourne as there was no wind. 


We were rather disappointed on our arrival to find that the "eat as much as you want" Chinese had closed down.


But the showers were just as good as we remembered them.

Fecamp to Brighton

So, on the Monday we finally set off to Brighton. And what a sail!


Most of the way we were doing between 6.5 and 7 knots and the whole journey of 68miles took 10 1/2 hours, and average of just under 6.5knots and we only used the engine to get us into and out of the marina at either end a total of 30 minutes in all.


The funeral was attended and old times relived and then we spent a few days in Brighton. The Galley Slave even managed to persuade the Skipper to visit 2 vegetarian restaurants in one day.

Latest update

We were planning to sail up the French coast to Dieppe/Boulogne/Calais on our final run back to Dover.


Unfortunately, an old friend of the Skipper's died last week and his funeral is in Nottingham on Wednesday, so we changed our plan (once again). On Saturday we sailed from St Valery en Caux to Fecamp. this morning (Sunday 19th) we were rudely awoken by our alarm clock at 5:30am with the intention of sailing to Brighton, so that we could make our way home and onwards to the funeral.


The trip is 65 miles and in our little boat would take somewhere between 13-15 hours. So we were more interested than usual in the weather forecast as we would be out in it for sometime and quite a long way from land.


With dreary eyes, we scanned all the weather forecasts we could find.

• XC Weather said SW F4 sometimes F5.

• Meteo (for the local French area) said SW F3-4 sea state moderate.

• Shipping Forecast said SW F5-7 sea state moderate to rough.

We have never really sailed in much more than a F5 sea state moderate and have no real wish to try out anything heavier in a boat as light as Bugsy.


What was slightly more frustrating, was that at the time, the sun was shining and there was just a gentle breeze blowing. We were even hailed by a froggie French man on a Beneteau 31.7 who asked us if we wanted to go out racing with them. We didn't, we went back to bed.


All eyes today will be on the actual observations from the Greenwich light ship to see which forecast was correct. Results will be posted below:

As it happened:

06:00 W    F5 (18Knots) Wave Height 0.2M
07:00 W    F5 (20Knots) Wave Height 0.2M
08:00 SW  F5 (17Knots) Wave Height 0.3M
09:00 W    F5 (19Knots) Wave Height 0.3M
10:00 SW  F6 (22Knots) Wave Height 0.4M
11:00 SW  F6 (23Knots) Wave Height 0.5M
12:00 SW  F5 (18Knots) Wave Height 0.8M
13:00 SW  F4 (15Knots) Wave Height 1.0M
14:00 SW  F5 (20Knots) Wave Height 0.8M
15:00 SW  F5 (20Knots) Wave Height 0.5M
16:00 SW  F5 (19Knots) Wave Height 0.5M
17:00 SW  F5 (18Knots) Wave Height 0.5M




Now that's what I call F5-6 and moderate, I've seen more rough in a Woking nightclub. Oh well, let's see what the forecast is tomorrow. Apparently, at the moment they're forecasting the same, should we stay or should we go?


Who knows?