Season Wrap-up 2017: What worked, what didn't

We have declared our first year of sailing the Med a success : despite some rather unpleasant glitches, we had a wonderful time and are eager to return.

Some basic statistics 

Days on boat : 174

Distance covered : 1175 nautical miles

Countries / Islands visited : Gibraltar (UK), Spain, Balearic islands (Spain), Sardinia (Italy), Corsica (France)

Nights at anchor vs. nights in port : 43 % anchor : 57 % port

Average cost : 18 Euros / night (total of all nights including free nights at anchor)

Motor hours : 182

Sailing : approximately 45 % of time

How did we keep costs so low ? Lots of free anchorages or cheap(er) mooring buoys (29 Euros, with trash pick-up and water-taxi service to shore), and liberal use of the municipal port system in the Balearic islands : 43 euros / night if you reserve in advance using their on-line system.

How did we manage to sail 45 % of the time in the Med in the summer ? We had no schedule and could choose when to sail. We also don’t mind coasting along at 3 knots if we have the time. The Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 379 is a light, slippery boat designed for light-wind sailing and, with our genakker for longer passages, we managed to maintain a respectable sailing-to-motor ratio. We often motor-sailed, with the motor at 1200 rpms, just to keep the speed up and make it into port before sundown, but most of the propulsion was by sail. Our diesel consumption on average was about 1.3 L / hour thanks to the sails.

Highlights

The weather, the warm turquoise waters, the cobalt blue of offshore waters, pin-scented mountains that plunge into the sea, perched villages, labyrinths of old stone streets, ancient civilizations...in short, the Mediterranean !

Meeting up with old friends and making new ones

Certain areas of the Balearics (tainted by over-crowding)

Sardinia and Corsica...SOOO looking forward to exploring these two Mediterranean jewels next year.

Lowlights

The diesel tank leak caused by the Jeanneau technician “repairing” our gas gauge 

The spaghetti of chains and anchors that ensued when a 51-foot yacht dragged its anchor onto us

The over-crowding in the Balearic islands in July and August (that was just stupid… but mostly unavoidable with our schedule)

A few nights of extremely hot weather: 35° C / 95° F at 3 a.m. !

Plastic pollution around the Balearics, even in marine reserves

Patrick’s too-close encounter with a jellyfish. Nearly 6 months later, he still has a scar.

What worked

Lifting keel. People often say that a lifting keel boat is useless in the Mediterranean because the tides are so small. But we found our lifting keel to be extremely useful on several occasions and even allowed us to sit out a blow at anchor when everyone else had to leave. Several ports around the Med have silting problems and all have space limitations. If you tell the port agents that your draft is only 1.3 meters / 4.3 feet (1.1 limit but we don’t like to tell them that), you have more possibilities to squeeze in for the night. A lifting keel allows you to anchor closer to the beach or, more importantly, further into narrow calas and behind protective headlands in more sheltered areas.

Anchoring. This season we anchored more than ever and in many different circumstances, including 30+ knot gusts. Early in the season, our anchor dragged a couple of meters...no big deal but it taught us that a 4:1 scope is not enough. An excellent technical description of anchoring is available (in french) from our friend Pierre’s site, and points out that your anchor is not fully effective with less than a 5:1 scope. Now we believe.  

Heat management. This is critical in the Med in the summer. A few necessities: 1) a bimini. In the Med, a bimini is a basic life-support system. We learned to sail with it this year, even taking in and letting out reefs with it in place. We need side panels, however, and I’m going to have something made this winter that will be a little bit classier than a series of towels I hung out this year. 2) A wind scoop. These things are little miracles that catch even the slightest breeze and make it seem like a fan has been turned on high in the boat. I hope to get a second one for next year. 3) Good planning, as in planning to be at anchor where you can swim when it’s hottest rather than being stuck in an airless port.

Tying up stern-to-quay. Patrick perfected his stern-to maneuvers this year while I perfected my acrobatics of jumping to the quay and handling the lines. We were even able to back in and tie up with the dinghy hanging from the back davits (hoisted up as high as possible). Our dual rudders cause some nervous moments as we have to be perfectly lined up with the berth to avoid snagging our neighbor’s tailed line in the water. If the conditions were too dicey with cross winds, we just pulled in bows-to and used a plank to get ashore. Our plank techniques changed over the season and we finally have a set up that is safe(ish) and easy to install.

Internet communication. In the early part of the season, we used a Spanish service called Wifi Away that gave us 20 GB of high-speed internet for about $30 and was easily renewable via internet. In mid June, Europe eliminated roaming charges so we could go back to using our french telephone and internet service. We have never been so well connected.

Weather prediction. Although the weather in the Med can be capricious, we were pleasantly surprised at how well the weather services predicted sometimes crazy wind patterns. We used:

• JCOMM Global Maritime Distress and Safety System 24-hour forecasts for Metarea 3 
• Grib files (Zygrib and OpenSkiron / WRF files)
• Predictwind for longer passages
• Wind guru for coastal details

Laser rangefinder. This is one of the best gadgets we’ve ever bought. The range finder helps you to choose a good mooring spot (those rocks are actually further away than you think) and to verify that you aren’t dragging; it helps to keep an eye on neighboring boats to see if they are dragging; and we suspect we will be using it in the next year or two to know when we are 3 boat-lengths away from the dock, indicating where to drop our own anchor for stern-to mooring when no tailing lines are available.

What didn’t work

FlopperStopper. We tested out a new system to prevent excessive rolling at anchor developed by a friend of ours, which I’ve described before. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to get the system to work on our boat. The hull shape made the poles stick out at angles rather than hanging vertically, and because the blades are not perfectly flat, the upward motion caused a torque that twisted the poles and makes the attachment weak. After one rather rolly night, we found the blades lying at the bottom of the cove. We retrieved them but packed up the system to send back for further modifications and testing.

Tripline. This winter I discussed how I intended to use a sunken trip line to allow us to recover the anchor if it became stuck. I can’t say that this didn’t work, but I never actually used it. In water shallower than 6-7 meters, I can free dive if needed. In almost all of the areas where we dropped anchor this summer, the water was so clear you could see if there were any obstacles, and we always dove around just after arriving to make sure there was nothing in our swing radius that might cause problems. Once, we did get the chain snagged under a flat rock, but the water was clear enough that we could see which way to maneuver the boat to pull the chain free. And in general, we had so many choices for anchoring that we never chose to anchor in areas where the nautical guide suggested using a trip line.

The Balearics in July and August. The over-crowding and stupidity made for some very disagreeable anchorages. Even if you found a cala with good room to anchor, you could be sure that you would be surrounded by morons anchoring too close or attempting to put their anchor on top of yours before the afternoon was out. In general, the crowds thinned out at sunset but the days could be very stressful. Many of the boats are day rentals with “no permit needed” and clearly with no instructions on how to anchor provided. For 4 meters of water, these credit card skippers would put out 6 meters of chain and wonder why you were staring nervously at them all afternoon. The good news was that most of the renters never left the boat, so at least you could yell at them when their anchors dragged. We had anticipated that this would be a problem and had even thought of putting Mareda in a port from 15 July to 15 August and just visiting the island by land, but the costs of that were prohibitive. Instead, we used the municipal port system (PortsIB) and reserved one week stays at 3 different marinas, with several days in between for getting to the next port and anchoring out to remind ourselves of why we wanted to be in port. Like magic, around the 15^th of August, the crowds evaporated and we could begin enjoying anchoring again.

Wrap-up

Neither of us has ever been so eager to resume cruising. Last year there was a bit of trepidation about starting our first year in the Med: the capricious weather, the Balearics in the summer and over-crowding in general, learning new “Med techniques” of anchoring and port maneuvers. With those initial “getting-to-know-you” jitters behind us and having already had a preview of things to come next year for a tour of Corsica and Sardinia, we’re counting the days until our return !

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Last Legs in Corsica

From the Lavezzi and Cavallo islands south of Corsica, we made our way ever-so slowly up the coast to Rondianra, Porto Vecchio, San Ciprianu, Pinarellu, Solenzara and, for the last leg of the season, a 30-mile sail mostly under genakker to our winter port of Taverna.

Rondinara

San Ciprianu

The ports were crowded because everyone was already hunkered down for the winter and the ports had rented out their usual visitor’s berths. That, and the increasing condensation at night with raindrops in our cabin, told us it was time to wind down the season. In many of the anchorages we were completely alone with miles of beach and turquoise waters to ourselves.

Solenzara

We were impressed with the Port of Taverna and feel comfortable leaving Mareda there for the winter. The port is in the middle of nowhere, but well-protected from winds. The week we were there packing up, a gale moved through and we prepared ourselves for high winds (got the sails down just in time!). Bastia, just 20 miles north of us, saw 47 knots. We only got 15 in gusts. The surrounding mountains protect Taverna from the predominant W to NW winds in the winter. The hard-standing area seemed well-sheltered, with good materials, security, and professional staff.

Taverna :  the calm blue patch...

The perched village of Cervione overlooking Taverna

Taverna in the well-protected middle of nowhere...

We took the bus to Bastia and the plane from Bastia to our home in Brittany. We had not expected to enjoy Bastia so much … what a gorgeous town ! We took the time to visit the port area and check out prices for next season. The daily price for the port in town is high (50 euros) but the harbor master said he could give us a berth for the week at 200 euros, making it reasonable for the Med.

Port of Bastia

Visitor's berths, Bastia

Charming Bastia

From Taverna we could see the island of Montecristo and as we moved up the coast to Bastia, the other Tuscan islands came into view. We hadn’t thought much about cruising the Tuscan islands but after seeing them so close and talking to other sailors in the area, they will definitely be on our schedule for next year. It’s a wonderful thing to close down a season and to be so enthusiastic to start up again next year.

One of the Tuscan islands peeking out behind Bastia's old town.

And now, back to land life and cool, grey, rainy months of hibernation (...and cruise planning!)  

Happy Halloween !

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Lavezzi and Cavallo

After 2 years we are finally back on French soil, sort of.  After a lovely few days in Sainta Theresa, Sardinia, we headed for Lavezzi island and Cavallo island, two jumbles of boulders sitting off the Corsican coast.  The rocky scenery reminded us of northern Brittany (but with warmer waters).  We are ahead of schedule and in a delightfully calm period so we decided to spend several days on each island.

Lavezzi with La Semillante shipwreck memorial upper left.

Lavezzi

Panorama of Cavallo (click on photo for larger version).  Cliffs of Bonifacio upper left.

Lavezzi

Trying to hide my frog green crocs...

Had to hoist the telephone up the mast to get reception.

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Countdown to the Crossing

Wednesday morning (tomorrow!) we’ll leave Vannes by the 9:30 bridge and head out of the Morbihan gulf, out of the Quiberon bay and into the Bay of Biscay for a 350 mile crossing to La Coruna, Spain.  ETA at 5 knots is around 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning.  The weather looks very calm (very very calm) and sunny, with no potential storm activity (CAPE and CIN zero).  We’ll make good use of our gennaker with light winds all the way down and will undoubtedly have long periods of motoring (motor-sailing-fishing).

For those who played along in the betting pool, the winner is Patrick’s pension papers, the last thing to arrive.  They have not and will not arrive before we leave but he was able to get a derogation.  The bike situation was a disaster – the guy couldn’t deliver on time so we canceled.  The gas crisis in France seems to have been resolved, and the Iroko hand railing miraculously arrived the week after it was ordered.  A new problem showed up during our last shakedown cruise.  One of the B&G Triton instrument panels has a button that seems to have a bad connection.  With the Jeanneau guarantee, they’ve decided to replace it but the part won’t arrive until Tuesday.  We had hoped to leave Tuesday with friends heading in the same direction, but we had too many delays.  Besides, Patrick wants to take advantage of the farmer’s market in town on Wednesday morning to get the last of the fresh fruits, veggies, and bread before we go.

The last days are nervous affairs of getting the house ready for abandonment and the boat ready for 6 months of sailing and 5 years away from home port.  We have to think about the stuff we’ll need for the cruise, but also stuff we’ll need for winterizing the boat and winterizing our clothes and other stuff we leave behind from November to April.  But since the boat is only a 5-minute bike from home, we’ve been able to get a lot of work done at a slow steady pace so we’re far from frantic.  With the promise of a very calm crossing, we’re really looking forward to heading off !  Hasta Luego !

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Passage Planning for Biscay

In comparison to what other long-distance cruisers do, a 3 or 4-day passage is peanuts.  It’s not even enough time to get used to a watch schedule or to ease naturally into the rhythms of life at sea.  By the time the first 24 hours of novelty are over, you’ve only got 1 day before you start planning for the actual arrival (“Is the course to steer still good?  Can we make our initial port or do we need to choose a Plan B port?  Are we going to arrive in daylight?  Do we need to slow down for a daytime arrival?  Can we get there before we have to resort to another dinner of spaghetti?”) 

Quiberon Bay to Coruna.  Winds aren't cooperating for a departure before 7 or 8 June.

The Bay of Biscay is a tricky area, but if you get the weather right, it can still be a pleasant ride.  We’ll need to have a good, clear 5-day forecast before heading off, meaning that at least 2 forecast models agree and that the weather forecasted hasn’t changed over the last week.  I’m currently looking at raw grib files (ZyGrib), Passage Weather, Predict Wind, and our local Meteo France offshore forecasts.  Of course, we prefer to have a broad reach (winds a-beam or slightly behind perpendicular to the boat) and I don’t like anything more than 20 knots.  Waiting for all of these conditions to be met early in the season can be nerve-wracking and time-consuming. 

Once we get more than 25 miles off the coast, we won’t have weather updates until we arrive.  We could spring for a satellite phone to get internet, but a $1000+ investment for only a 4-day crossing is a bit much.  Once we’re on the coast, we’ll have access to weather info, and we won’t be doing another multi-night crossing for a while.  If we get surprised with bad weather along the way, we can cut the cruise short by 1 day or so by heading to a closer port and then making our way along the coast as weather permits.

Our crossing strategy for the approximately 350 nautical miles:

Depart as early as the current will permit after sunrise.  Maintaining an average 5 knots of speed means we’ll be sailing about 70 hours and should put us at our destination early in the morning.  I prefer to aim for early morning arrivals, knowing that we will likely have course changes and sailing speeds under 5 knots that will slow us down along the way anyway, which gives us 12 hours of cushion before the sun sets on arrival day.

We have 130 liters of fuel on board plus 2 jerry cans of 20 liters each.  With a fuel consumption of about 2 liters / hour, we have 65 hours of motoring possible with just the on-board fuel.  65 hours at 5 knots (about 2000 rpms) is 325 miles before we have to break open the jerry cans.  If we’re motoring even half that long, we’ve really misread the weather forecast!

We put a reef in the mail sail every night before sundown, even if the weather is calm.  This slows us down, but makes for a smoother and more relaxed ride for the night in case the wind picks up unexpectedly.

Once we are on our initial trajectory, we set a waypoint on the GPS and watch the evolution of our cross-track error.  Depending on the conditions, we’ll allow a 3 to 5- mile error before altering course.  Any course changes at night that require a tack or jibe are done at the change of the watch to avoid waking anyone up needlessly.

For a 3 to 4-day passage, we do not use the refrigerator in order to save on battery power.  We use it as an ice box, with pre-prepared frozen meals serving as blocks of ice.

Our watch system, of course, depends on how many people we have on board.  When it’s just Patrick and me, we use a 2-hour watch system, with the off-watch person sleeping in the saloon berth in view of the person on watch.  The off-watch person stays clothed with appropriate gear at hand to be ready to rush out on deck in case of an emergency.  If conditions are difficult, we go down to 1-hour watches.  (In those situations, no one is sleeping anyway…).  During the day, watches are more relaxed and variable, depending on when someone feels like napping, preparing meals, etc.

Lifejackets are worn at all times while in the cockpit or deck, and tethers are also used from sundown to sunrise.

With the pilot steering, the person on watch can sit behind or underneath the dodger to get out of the wind.  Reading is okay if you’re disciplined enough to look around every 10-15 minutes (look for lights of other ships or land, check sails, check bearing occasionally, make a log entry every hour).  Headphones or anything that affects hearing is frowned upon.

Meals:  we tend to make one-pot meals that can be heated up and served with rice, pasta, or mashed potatoes (here in France, we have wonderful instant mashed potatoes…). Most meals are eaten in the cockpit out of bowls unless the weather is extremely calm.

The draft meal planning looks like this:

Breakfast: Krisp Rolls and/or toast, yogurt, fruit, cereal / muesli, coffee or tea. Eggs if anyone feels like making them.

Lunches:  Quiche (ham, spinach, feta) with salad; sausages with mashed potatoes; Chicken stew with egg noodles; Grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and fruit salad. 

Dinners: Hamburger stroganoff with egg noodles; pork coconut curry with rice; chicken and lamb sausage couscous; spaghetti bolognaise (hoping we’ve arrived by this time…).

Midnight snacks (prepared before sundown or with fixings easily reached):  sandwich roll-ups, hard-boiled eggs, soups, cereal bars, yogurt, fruit, nuts, cookies.

Patrick usually makes his deadly melted chocolate brownie cake served with English cream; I usually make cookies.  Since Patrick is French, cheese is always plentiful.  We tend not to drink any alcohol while we’re sailing. It’s hard on the stomach and dehydration is always an issue anyway.  But oh, that first beer when you reach your destination!

All of this food talk has got me excited to hit the tapas bars in Spain !  

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Shakedown 2016: Intentional Grounding

Unlike in American football, intentional grounding in Brittany boating is a good thing.  In fact, it is a very good thing that saved us a lot of headaches this week.  Shakedown 2016 got off to a bad start.  We chose to leave the river by the lock on Thursday at high tide…as did more than 50 other boaters.  This was a long holiday weekend in France and the weather was beautiful.  Boats were crammed into every conceivable patch of water in the lock and there was much crunching and cursing heard from our safe distance outside the lock.  The lock keeper finally signaled that it wasn’t possible to fit us all in, so we returned to our slip to come up with a Plan B. 

There was another lock 2 hours later, but with the falling tide we would not have had enough water to make it out of the river.  We opted for the lock the following morning at 8 a.m. and calculated that we could a) make it out of the river with enough water under the keel and b) sail 38 miles to Sauzon, a drying harbour on Belle Ile, with enough water to enter the drying harbour while it was still wet. 

Sauzon Harbour, Belle Ile en Mer, Brittany, France.

Sauzon harbour entrance from the inside at low tide.

Sauzon up river.

Staying the night in Arzal was not such a bad thing, and I remembered my own advice from last year: make sure your first night on the boat is in your home port because you WILL forget things.  Patrick hopped in the car and dashed off to retrieve a few essentials we had inadvertently left behind. Freshly armed with all we needed, now including the tv remote and the salad spinner, we were ready for adventure!

Friday:  8 a.m. lock passage, few boats, no problems.  No wind but strong current in the river, making 7 knots with only 1500 rpms on the motor.  Hoisted the mainsail for the first time since rigging it.  All well.  Exited river, tested vhf radio at its longest distance (about 25 miles): loud and clear. After 2 hours, wind picked up to 20 knots with gusts on a beam reach.  Put a reef in the sail and rolled the genoa 1/4^th.  Reef points along leech down to the boom were a little bit too far forward, leaving a small pocket in the sail.  Note: move those back asap. Light rain, swell 1-2 meters on the beam.  Pull out rain clothes, cool weather gear.  Rigged boom brake. Things tossed around inside boat.  Museum putty things back into place.  Lunchtime: cooking at an angle, clamps in place.  Tested new “Mareda” embossed thermos mugs for hot soup.  (Thanks Mel!)  Boat is too damn fast!  Ahead of schedule and not enough water in the drying harbour to enter.  Practice tacking and jibing for 30 minutes while the tide rises.  Hailed port office on the vhf: clear to enter.  Lifted keel and entered drying harbour.  Tied up to fore and aft mooring buoys next to friends from Vannes: “Welcome to Paradise!”  Club atmosphere among lifting keel boaters; sundowners with friends as the sun and tide set.  Touchdown at 9 p.m., very gentle, only slight creaking as Mareda settles on the hard sand for the night.  A quick look at the deep-draft boats in the outer harbour, rafted up 4 and 5 deep, their masts like windshield wipers sweeping back and forth… we feel snug and smug as we prepare for a quiet night.

High and dry, ready for a calm night.

Saturday:  learn that clam digging has been banned for the week all around Belle Ile because of 7 cases of hepatitis. Walk (!) over to the bar at low tide for a coffee and to obtain the wireless internet code.  Walk back to boat and test wireless antenna. (excellent signal strength). Cool rainy day, took the bus to the center of the island to our favourite all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant to console ourselves for the lack of clams.  Hitchhike back to port. (thank you, nice young man working at a local creperie for the summer…).  Work on the boat: move the reef points back, tie-wrap all shackles to avoid the pins backing out with strain and vibration, wash hull at low tide.  Whiskey, left-over paella for dinner, reading, early to bed.   

Morning coffee in the drying harbour, Sauzon.

Sunday:  saved dinghy from certain violent death.  We had been warned but were surprised at how fast the tide rises here.  As the water comes back into a drying harbour, dinghies tied up behind boats ALWAYS find their way under the boat.  As the water rises, the dinghy gets trapped under the boat and will eventually explode from the pressure.  Patrick was in charge of keeping an eye on it, but the internet worked so well, he was completely absorbed.  I was taking a nap, but awoke to the lilting “plook plook plook” of water lapping against the hull.  “Pat, has the tide risen already?” “Um… yes.” “And is the dinghy okay?” “Um…I don’t see it…”.  It was stuck BUT GOOD.  The water was waist deep.  Neither of us had swimsuits on board so early in the season.  I remembered we had our shorty wetsuits and quickly pulled one on and jumped in the water. I thought I would simply slip my hand into the dinghy and let out some of the air, but it was so tightly pressed against the hull that I couldn’t get my hand in.  I gave several adrenaline-inspired tugs and it finally popped out, half-full of water.  Next time, we’ll tie it up on the dinghy davits even when the tide is out. 

No, the water wasn't THAT cold... he's just holding up his pants.

At high tide late in the afternoon, we headed out of Sauzon to try our luck with a spot in the tiny port of Hoedic Island (5 boat slips).  The wind was stiff and on a close reach; impossible to make the passage through the islands without quick-tacking among the rocks.  As we approached, the wind died down and the current was stronger than the wind, making sailing in the area a bit precarious.  The Hoedic harbour master gave us one of the local fishermen’s slips for the night.  More local sailing friends showed up and we enjoyed drinks together on Mareda. We hadn’t been to Hoedic in over a year because there is never enough space for everyone.  To our happy surprise, we noticed that they have now added a series of mooring buoys in a small area of the beach that will now be a “drying harbour” for lifting keels!  We’ll be back. 

The last ones to go.

Monday: Our lifting keel allowed us to leave Hoedic at low tide so that we could make it back into our home river with the rising tide and a lock that was not too late in the evening.  We had a fabulous 18-mile sail back to the river, with winds of 18 knots on a beam reach with a large swell that allowed us to surf at more than 8 knots.

Things we did not test:  reef points 2 and 3, and the anchor.  We’ve got around 20 more days before we start looking for a weather window for the 3-day crossing to Spain, and I’m hoping to get some good sailing days in before we go.  We’ve got some small repairs to be carried out by the boat yard and some family commitments to deal with, so the timing is starting to get tight.  Stay tuned !

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Paris by the Sea, Take II

And before we close this chapter of symbols and images of the sea in Paris, here are some scenes from the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the new contemporary art museum designed by Frank Gehry rising out of the Bois de Boulogne in the west of Paris.  It's meant to resemble a sailing vessel with 12 large sails.

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Paris by the Sea

Ocean scenes and symbols are not what one typically associates with the city of Paris, but if you can focus your eyes beyond the glitz and glamour, you’ll find the sea all around you.   A river runs through it, and the official seal of this important river trading post features a sailing barque with the motto “Fluctuat Nec Mergitur” or Tossed by the Waves but Never Sunk.  You will find this seal on official government buildings, monuments, museums, metro stations, street drain covers, libraries, swimming pools...in fact, once you start looking for it, you’ll see it everywhere you turn.  After the terrorist attacks in 2015, the seal and motto showed up in graffiti as a mark of the city’s resilience.

Graffiti in Paris after the November 2015 terrorist attacks.  Photo from wikipedia.

Lurking among the ever-present sailboat emblems are other sea creatures, used to decorate bridges, buildings, and lamp posts. Paris even boasts a (very expensive) port for motor boats or de-masted sail boats at the Port de l’Arsenal near the Bastille.  

Along with Paris' "permanent exhibits" of ocean culture, the Seine often plays host to temporary expositions worthy of any sea port. Currently docked along the river is the 3-masted sailing goelette La Boudeuse, which is the only vessel of its kind still capable of long expeditions on all oceans.  La Boudeuse is flanked by a life-sized blue whale as part of an educational exhibit along the banks of the Seine.

Paris even boasts a (very expensive) port for motor boats or de-masted sail boats at the Port de l’Arsenal near the Bastille.  

I wonder how many tourists notice the sea around them in Paris?  Oh, okay… I couldn’t write a post about Paris without at least one photo of the Eiffel Tower.  Nice lighthouse, eh?

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Cruising Stats 2015

We’ve been home for 5 days now and I have just managed to dig a path through the mountain of laundry and sailing gear to my computer.  With a well-deserved rest period at hand, I started looking at our cruising data in the log book and piecing together some statistics, highlights and lowlights of our 2015 maiden voyage on Mareda.

Mareda in Derrible Bay, Sark.

Nautical miles covered: 1430

Number of days at sea: 149

Number of those days actually sailing: 67

Number of hours motoring: 162

Number of different ports or moorings visited: 51

Number of friends sailing with us at various times: 9

Highlights: 

• Friends who joined us, ranging from 2 days to 2.5 weeks. (ALL are welcomed back !)
• Our first intentional beaching and full dry-out (Batz island). 
• The Channel Islands, especially Sark, which was new to us. 
• Brittany north coast: Ploumanac’h, Tregastel, Batz island, Brehat island.
• Learning to filet mackerel for sushi
• Discovering Mareda – stable, secure, fast, comfortable, and the lifting keel is priceless !
• No surprise storms for the first time in 2 years !!  Either we’re getting smarter, or luckier, or it’s simply that having a bigger heavier boat dampens out a lot of the rough stuff we experienced with Spray.

Lowlights:

• Emergency return home for Patrick to have a strange carcinoma-like growth removed from his leg.  All is well but he has to have check-ups every 6 months for the next 5 years.  Not easy for vagabonds...
• Family health problems that made us feel like we were marooned on the dark side of the moon.
• Bad weather in northern France and our subsequent decision to abandon the Cornish coast and the Scilly Islands. 
• Very poor internet in most ports. I think this is owing to the fact that more people are accessing the wireless internet from their boats and the signal strength can't keep up with demand.

Sunrise on the mud, Batz island.

Things that broke / needed adjustment

Genoa furler: impossible to furl by hand in rough winds.  We eliminated one of the guides for the furler line leading back to the cockpit, which reduced the angle of the line and makes it possible to furl easily by hand in calm winds.  When the wind is rough, we still have to use the winch, though.  Other SO 379 owners tell us they do the same.

One of the genoa sheet travelers had to be replaced after a mysterious thumb-sized pit developed.

The mainsail developed several small rips and tears around the battens, which weren’t tightened down appropriately by the shipyard. 

The mainsheet downhaul was located too far aft on the boom and rubbed a hole in the cockpit dodger when we were close-hauled. We re-positioned the traveler sheet and used black Gorilla tape to cover the worn spot.

The spinnaker pole end fittings froze up (corrosion).

One of the latches on the swim platform broke.  Now that it’s fixed, the swim platform in the up-and-locked position pushes too tightly on the cover to the life raft compartment and has rubbed some nasty streaks in the gel coat.

The wireless internet antenna brackets rusted.

The steering wheel pinion system was misaligned (made “clunk” noises in two places). 

One of the solar panels stopped working after a soldered connection broke free.

We have a mystery leak in the refrigerator.  When we defrost, the water ends up under the sink floorboards instead of being led away to the bilges. 

One of the saloon cushions developed a tear on the underside because the Velcro pads are badly aligned.

Patrick has almost perfected his gel coat repair techniques after patching a very embarrassing and deep scratch along the hull.

Having dove under the boat to check things out from time to time, I know there is a golf-ball sized chunk missing from the leading edge of the keel from where we banged into the sill leaving the port of Guernsey.  The lights were green indicating 2 meters of water. “No problem” I thought.  It was only after the bang that I remembered that our draft is 2.25 meters with the keel fully down.  The keel did its job:  it lifted and we slid on by, but not without leaving a chunk behind.  The keel is some sort of composite material and we’ll have the boatyard fix this once Mareda is pulled out of the water this winter.  

We’re waiting for a sunny windless day to remove the sails, but as such days are few and far between, we’ll have to tackle the job come –what-may in the next week or two.  I’ll be happy for it to be done but I still am having a hard time accepting that we’re really done for the season !

  

Dangling Dinghy.

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Homeward Bound 2015

Sailing from Oleron was like being the ball in a pinball machine as the winds turned every day to a different cardinal point.  Our options were to zigzag with the prevailing winds or wait stubbornly until a steady wind from a good direction blew our way.  As the season draws to a close and we have to start paying attention to the calendar, we decided to make a series of small hops from Oleron to Bourgenay and then almost due west to Yeu island flying the gennaker.

 

A sunset sail to Bourgenay, arriving 1 hour after dark. The deck lights work well !

The spinnaker halyard got away from us leaving Oleron.  The only thing we could do was turn around in the water a few times to get it to wrap itself around the backstay.  It held up under 2 meter swells and 20 knot winds.

Yeu island is one of our favourite spots on the French Atlantic coast and we had it entirely to ourselves… not a single other visiting yacht in port the day we arrived !  We rented bikes and enjoyed stretching our legs along the south coast and the old chateau.

A favorite picnic spot on the south coast of Yeu.

The chateau from the sunny side.

After two days on the island the winds and tides made it possible for us to make a 43 mile trek to Piriac, the last port in the Quiberon bay before heading into the Vilaine river and our home port of Arzal.

Heading to Arzal in the cold rain.  Time to call it quits.

Morning raindrops in our cabin.  Really time to call it quits...

Over the last few weeks, the cooler weather has led to condensation in the mornings and a feeling that all our clothes and bedsheets are wet.  We have 2 heating systems (one hot / dry air fan and one oil-bath radiator) and they keep things cozy, but they’re just no good at drying out clothes folded and closed up in cabinets or closets.  On our last morning in Piriac, we were woken up by cold drops of condensation raining down on us, convincing us that it was really time to call it quits for the year and head home.

Mareda is tied up on an offshore floating dock in the Vilaine river, waiting for the sails, dodger and bimini to be removed before really snuggling down for the winter.  We’ll pull her out of the water from mid-January to mid-April.  I guess the good news is that I’m too exhausted to be sad after the last 2 days of moving.  The house is littered with bags and boxes of damp clothes and equipment needing to be washed, dried, and stored, so we’ll stay busy for quite awhile.  And tomorrow we head out to our local boat show to see if we can buy even more boat stuff at good prices, so we don’t feel too land-bound just yet.

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