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?

More gastronomic success

For some reason the Skipper's Dad Skyped him in the morning and the conversation eventually got round to the evening meal (as it usually does with the Skipper's Dad). Was chatting with the Wicked Stepmother about onion preparation for my up and coming Onion Soup and she pointed out that when she tried to cook onions in the slow cooker with corned beef, that the onions always came out hard. Didn't have the heart to ask her what on earth she was doing feeding my Father corned beef, but took her comments on board.


So, the onions were fried (in the special butter previously mentioned) and then all the secret ingredients added to the slow cooker. Fortunately, my onions weren't rebelling against their close neighbours and this is what happened.


These French are going to have to take a back seat soon..

Well, OK, it doesn't look that good, but it tasted OK.

Latest Life Saving Gadget

We have a lot of safety equipment on board, but this latest addition is just the ticket. A lot of sea-farers worry about man overboard situations.


We struggle a lot more with peg-overboard and flip-flop-overboard traumas. So we bought this:

Quite excitingly, we had to deploy it within 24 hours when the Galley Slave lost a flip-flop overboard whilst getting off the boat one evening. A highly efficient and successful mission with our new flourescent pink fishing net meant that she was soon re-united with her footwear. (lucky that, else the Skipper would probably have had to have gone out and bought her 2 or 3 more pairs to make up).

Always an eye for a bargain

Alcohol prices (along with everything else) seems to have risen enormously in the last couple of years, so when the Skipper found this 5l box of Vieux Papes (affectionately known as Old Paps on board), at the knock down price of 10€ he thought he'd get himself a couple of boxes.

Imagine his delight when he got to the checkout to find that they were on Buy One Get One Free....

Probably the best butter in the world...

This stuff is amazing....

But I'm surprised it doesn't have a health warning attached to it. It's just like normal butter except that has great big lumps of sea salt embedded in it. Not sure if it's available in England and to be honest, it's probably best if it's not. It can't be doing much for my blood pressure.

Yummy though.

Burger & Chips

Can't beat a good burger, chips & peas.

There's nothing like showing the French a thing or two about gastronomy.

Some Piccies of St Valery-en-Caux

Good Wifi, nice toilets and a bar right next to our pontoon, means that we stayed a little longer in St Valery than we originally thought we would. Here are some photos which neatly demonstrate tidal differences in the marina.


High Tide:

Low Tide

etc etc

Balmain Bug causes a stir

Moored up in St Valery, we were sat minding our own business in the cabin and Allister noticed that there were a couple of people on the harbour wall taking photos of the back of our boat. After a few minutes we heard a loud voice speaking French with a heavy English accent:


"Pourquoi vous avez nommé un bateau 'Balmain Bug'?".


The Galley Slave went up on deck and started trying to explain in French. The Skipper informed her that they were English. He was wrong. They were Australian, hailing from Sydney and were impressed that they had found a boat in France that had the name of a widdy little crustacean that only lives in that part of the world.


It made them very happy!

Off to Le Havre

Although Caen is a wonderful place, not only does it not have WiFi, but the electricity supply is extremely limited. We weren't allowed to use more than 300W. So no heater and no kettle. 


Off to Le Havre.


Not a bad sail, but got a bit lumpy at the end.


Le Havre had more electricity, but the WiFi was incredibly unreliable.


It too has a Church, but this one wouldn't be out of place in a Flash Gordan film:

While we were in Le Havre, our friend Allister came to see us.


The WiFi connection was so bad that we had to move on. So we set sail to St Valery en Caux.


We sailed past Etretat, but the light was poor and there was a lot of haze, so I couldn't get any photos of the rocks. But they were most impressive.

A day out in Bayeux

After having looked round the Castle of William the Conqueror in Caen, we thought we ought to get the lowdown on the man who changed the shape of England. So we went to Bayeux for the day. Much fun was had. 

The church is rather grander than the one we're used to:

Couldn't work out what this was on about, but no doubt some highly-qualified French speaker will post a comment with a translation:

These chaps were quite fun:

And I'm sure my clergy friends would feel much more at home in a pulpit like this, rather than the rather lack-lustre affair at St John's.

This chap was doing quite a good trade. I think people thought that there was an entrance charge:

I thought I'd try my hand at organ photography, but I think I'll leave it to the professionals. (note to self, must by a tilt and shift lens).

After the Church, we went to see the tapestry. Which was fantastic, but you aren't allowed to take photos of it. So I didn't.

Made our way back to Caen, but it being a Monday, all the shops were shut. The Galley Slave was a bit fed up that this was the second day on the trot that  had taken her shopping when they were all closed.

Ouistreham to Caen

The canal from Ouistreham to Caen is about 8 miles long and rather fun in a sailing boat. There are three bridges that need to be lifted on the way and the nice man from the marina follows you down in his Renault van and lets you through them in turn.


The first bridge is Pegasus Bridge. It was the first bridge that was captured by the Allies. It wasn't quite as busy (or scary) as we passed through:

On our way, we passed a ferry that was having a rest:

And finally we made it into Caen:

Not sure what this was all about, but it was quite fun!

The landing beaches

On Saturday 28th August, we set sail for Ouistreham. It was a lovely day, but we were so busy sailing, we didn't take any photos.


The wind was coming from pretty much behind us, so we gybed our way down the coast. For a couple of hours we were sailing straight towards Omaha Beach. It was a poignant time, thinking of those who had travelled much the same course 66 years ago.


It took us longer than we thought to get to Ouistreham and we made our first night arrival for a very long time. It was a bit scary, but we were reassured by managing to spot all the navigational lights that guided us in.


Waited for the lock and made our way to the marina. A couple of beers in the outdoor Caribbean style bar, complete with palm trees and sand and then off to bed.

Two weeks in St Vaast

Due to pressures of work, we stayed in St Vaast for 2 weeks. It's a lovely little town though, so we didn't mind at all.


It was at this stage that we realised that none of the marinas on the Calvados coast have WiFi. This presented us with bit of a problem as we had hoped to hop from port to port, Grandcamp Maisy, Carentan, Port en Bessin, Ouistreham, Deauville/Trouville and finally end up at Le Havre.


This plan had to be abandoned as we couldn't spend that long without an internet connection. So as it was the bank holiday weekend we decided to make straight for Ouistreham/Caen.

Faire le Parking

No comment:

St Vaast la Hougue - Saturday 14th August 2010

Saturday was predicted to be a Northerly wind Force 2-4. It was Northerly and mostly 4. We only had one reef in the main, should have had two. But we made quick progress from Cherbourg to St Vaast la Hougue.

For those that don't know, there is a major difference between speed through the water and speed over the ground. On this trip we managed our world record over the ground of 11.9 knots. The tides don't half run past the Pointe de Barfleur.

St Vaast is a port that is somewhat tidally constrained. A few hours after arriving, I took these photos of the channel we had just sailed up.

In this photo, the Seagull is not afloat, but standing on Terra Firma.

But, once again, Bugsy is safely tied up.

 Night night. See you in the morning.

Faire la vaiselle

Washing up is always a tricky business on a boat, especially when the Skipper and Crew are choosing hymns. Fortunately, the Galley Slave has mastered the art of stacking the drying up. 

It's an artform!

Starry, starry night

Well, it was a few days late, but Vincent the engineer finally came through with the goods. And here is the new engine bit, once again modelled by the beautiful Claire, this time, just to balance out the composition, I got a bit of broccoli in the picture as well (for the purists, both Claire and the Broccoli were meant to be out of focus).

Once installed, it seemed to work perfectly. No water in the bilges and no oil under the engine pan. Perfect.


Now the toilet is leaking. Oh well, that's boats for you.

BP's oil leak has nothing on us.....

We had been noticing a bit of an oil leak from the engine since we left Dover. Mick our friendly (and ever optimistic) engineer assured us over the phone that everything would be fine.

In Gosport, we had changed the oil filter again thinking that the leak might have come from there. It still leaked.

The Galley Slave noticed that it was coming from something that was screwed into the engine block just above and behind the filter. We phoned Mick, our friendly (and ever optimistic) engineer who said "Oh just tighten it up a bit, it'll be fine". We tightened it up. It leaked a bit less.

On the trip over the channel, we checked and it was once again leaking quite badly. The Skipper tightened up the bolt again, it stemmed the leak for a while.

Next morning we decided we'd take the whole thing out (and identified it as the oil pressure sensor widget) and put some PTFE tape around the bolt and refix it to see if this fixed the problem. The Galley Slave elected to tighten it back up. "How tight should this go?", she asked. "Fairly tight", replied the Skipper. "It's getting tighter", she said, "Oh, it's gone all loose!" Damn thing had sheared off, leaving part of it stuck in the engine

So, now we had a hole in the top of the engine that needed fixing before we could go anywhere.

Off to the local engineer. Eventually he came and had a look and after much sucking of air through teeth, he told us that he would have to take the engine out, take it to his workshop, take the bit out and then refit the engine. Probably in the region of 700 Euros.

That evening, we were invited for drinks and food onto the boat next door, a German flagged Beneteau First 40.7. The skipper, called Geoff, was English, his delightful wife, Karin, was German.

After a lot of pork and even more wine, we mentioned our plight. "Oh, I could get that out in 10 minutes", said Geoff.

So what do you do? Qualified engineer, or drunken Englishman who has made Germany his home?

Next morning Geoff came round and had a look. Went back to his boat and sawed off the end of a file, shoved it in the hole and 10 minutes later the bit was out. We bought him a bottle of wine. Net saving 697 Euros!

Here's Geoff and his lovely wife:

And here are the bits (modelled by the beautiful Claire), this is the bit that was stuck in the engine:

And this was the bit that it was previously attached to:

All's well that ends well.

Off to France

After two weeks in Weymouth (and much merriment at Finns pub - recommended to all), we decided it was time to set sail across the channel. Once again, our faithful crew, Claire, came along to help us.

On Saturday we de-camped to Portland Marina so that we could get an early start on Sunday. A fine, new, marina which has been built to host the sailing bit of the 2012 Olympics. Let's hope they build some shops before that happens.

It was also a jolly long walk to the Gents.

At 5am we were rudely awakened by the alarm clock and after a cup of tea, set off on a course of 150 degrees, bound for Cherbourg. All was going well until the skipper failed to notice a lobster pot marker until the very last moment and wrongly decided to try and pass it on the uptide side. We stopped. We couldn't use the engine to try and free ourselves, for fear of getting the rope wrapped around the propeller but fortunately with a bit of backwards and sideways sailing finally managed to free ourselves. Claire slept through all of this. But then she woke up and demanded breakfast.

After what seemed like a lifetime, but was in fact only 14 hours, Claire reminded the Skipper that, as we were finally in French waters, we should hoist the courtesy ensign. 

The Galley Slave was allowed off duty just long enough to get the mainsail down in the dying embers of sunlight:

and after 15 hours, we finally arrived in Cherbourg.

Encore une fois, en France.