…and 800
miles of navigation later, it’s time to reflect on our first big cruising
experience on Spray.
 |
| The 40 day trip: out (red dots) and back (blue dots). |
Trip Out
(Red Dots) nautical miles
|
Trip Back
(Blue Dots) nautical miles
|
Vannes
Er
Gored 6
NM
Concarneau 59 NM
Camaret 65 NM
Aber Wrac’h 37 NM
Roscoff 28 NM
Morlaix 12 NM
Roscoff 12 NM
Tregieur 56 NM
Guernsey 58 NM
Jersey 28 NM
|
Jersey to St Malo 44 NM
Chausey 17 NM
St Cast 23 NM
Lezardrieux 40 NM
Perros-Gueric 46 NM (storm, rounded 7 islands)
Roscoff 26 NM
Aber Wrac’h 34 NM
Camaret 37 NM
St Hernot 20 NM
St Evette
27 NM
St Marine 34 NM
Glenans 11 NM
Port
Louis 30 NM
Houat 29 NM
Vannes 20 NM
|
1. Mileage and confidence building. This cruise was a HUGE step forward for our
confidence building in so many ways. In an
earlier blog I mentioned that we would be sailing within our comfort
zone this summer, from the southern tip of Brittany to Royan (e.g., the least
challenging contiguous coastline of France).
But a mere 2 weeks before heading off, a more experienced friend
proposed that we follow him and his crew around northern Brittany and up to the
Channel Islands. This was an opportunity
not to be missed.
We had originally
wanted to sail around northern Brittany by ourselves but when I mentioned it to
another sailing friend, his reaction was, “What? You want to sail in the most difficult region
of Europe for your FIRST solo cruise?” to which I said, “North?
Did I say north? No, no, no…my bad
French again. I meant south, of course.” Needless to say, without a safety net to help
us around the scary spots, we never would have tackled this alone. The experience was made even richer when our
friends left the Channel Islands to head home earlier than we wanted and we
made our way home alone. We enjoyed
having friends around on the first half of the trip, but were also quite
pleased to be “alone together” for the return trip. (Note that the mileage in between the blue dots is a whole lot smaller than between the red dots !) The importance of friends merits its own long
blog post. Thank you Daniel and Nelly !
2. Experience living aboard. Before we left, I was telling people we were
heading off for 1-2 months. Patrick told
me to stop telling people that because he couldn’t really imagine that we would
stay on the boat for more than a month without cracking up and heading home for
a spell. As we neared Vannes, neither of
us was ready to come home, and the only reason we stopped (for 1 week) was
because it seemed a bit silly not to drop in and check on the house when Vannes
is on our route south. Even though the
space is somewhat limited on the boat, we have everything we need and are very
comfortable. The scenery changes every
day and we love being on the move.
3. How to leave home. I follow quite a few other blogs about
live-aboard sailors, but I have yet to find one that describes people who sail,
for example, 6-8 months out of the year and then return home when the weather
gets rotten. Leaving a house unattended for
long periods is not so simple. We have
wonderful neighbours who keep an eye on things for us, but the yard is on its
own. Three years ago, I planted an
“eco-grass mix” with micro-clover that is supposed to give you a lawn that
never needs mowing, always stays green and never needs watering. So far, I give it a 5 out of 10 for
success. Thanks to the wonderful hot and
dry weather we’ve been having, the yard was in pretty good shape, although a
bit toast-coloured in spots. We did mow,
but could have left it much longer before it got to be an eye-sore. Four of 7 houseplants placed outside under a
tree died, and will be replaced by the best plastic versions money can buy
(within reason, of course.) The weeds
took over my decorative gravel terrace out front (e.g. where everyone can see
it), so installing a new geo-textile tarp under the gravel will be on my “to
do” list when we come home at the end of the sailing season. (When is that, again ???)
4. Weathering the storms. We had a major educational event in the form
of a surprise gale and two incidents of the motor dying on us. Besides the obvious learning
experiences those sorts of things provoke, Patrick and I had to learn to work
together as a team during these stressful, quasi-emergency situations. Our approaches are 50% complementary and 50% conflicting,
but getting better. In general, he
thinks I’m an overly-cautious, anxiety-riddled maniac, and I think he’s a wilfully
uninformed noodle-brain with his head in the clouds. We’ll keep working on it… During the storm, however, we were 100% in
sync since there was not much we could do but reduce sail and hang on. We gave each other “check-up” looks (Are we okay?) like children who fall
down and look to their parents to know if they’re okay or if they should
cry. It was a good team-building
exercise, to be sure, but it bears repeating:
I NEVER want to do that again.
5. Making new friends. For the first time, we met sailing couples
where both members of the couple take an active role in the sailing and
navigation. In our sailing associations,
most members are either skippers looking for crew or couples where one spouse
is just along for the ride (and guess which spouse that invariably is?). We sailed for a few days in tandem with
another couple like ourselves and really enjoyed their company. We had some great laughs exchanging “couples
at sea” stories and agreed that RAISED VOICES is just part of any co-skippering
program. The important thing is to wipe
the slate clean every single evening (that’s what pre-dinner drinks are for,
right?). We’ve kept in touch with them
and hope we can meet up again soon.
6. Identifing needs. During this first long cruise on Spray, we’ve identified quite a few
needs (okay, most of these are actually wants rather than needs, but
still…). From our gale adventure, we
agreed we needed a smart-phone that would allow us to have internet access and
thus weather information from multiple sources rather than being limited to the
reports from Meteo France on the vhf radio broadcast 3 times per day. On several occasions, our MaxSea software
decided to shut down, so a 2nd computer with MaxSea (wrapped in
plastic and stored away for emergency use only) will be on board next
time. We also realized that our on-board
GPS system (Magellan 324 FX) only has the detailed electronic charts west of
Perros-Gueric and down to Gijon, Spain.
I’m thinking it may be difficult to find these since the model is quite
old now. If we decide to do longer
offshore passages, I want an IOR perch, which is basically a 1.8 meter tall
floating flag pole that you throw in the water to mark the position of a
man-overboard while you manoeuvre the boat to pick him up. I also want a man-overboard rescue sling and
an EPIRB, a small emergency position-indicating radio beacon (gps / satellite-powered).
On a more practical front, we also plan to re-install the black-water
tank (e.g., sewer storage) on Spray. The original one, in stainless steel, was
removed by the previous owners because of a leak and never replaced. All of the plumbing and valves are in place
but we need to have a custom-made tank in plastic. And last but not least, if we head south next
year towards the Med, we’ll need some thick dark curtains to keep out the
sun. Our plexiglass portholes are so
crackled that we don’t have problems with lookie-loos, but the sun does make
the interior quite hot.
In summary,
the last 40 days at sea have saved our sailing project. This winter was a very tough one for us, with
endless repairs, bad weather, and lack of confidence in our own abilities and motivations. We almost decided to give up on the sailing
life. We even posted an announcement to
sell Spray and showed her to a
prospective buyer (who was very interested.)
Now when we talk about selling Spray,
it’s in order to buy a bigger boat that we could really live aboard for half
the year or more. Spray is a great boat, but she’s a bit too physical for us. She’s a high-strung thoroughbred, but what we
need is a draft horse. With only 90
liters of water storage, 60 liters of diesel, and only 4 tonnes of weight to
weather the storms, she’s not really adapted to a program of long-term
vagabondage. I hate to think about
selling her so soon, and REALLY hate to think about all the work that would be
involved in buying and refurbishing a new (used) boat. But neither of us is getting any younger,
either, and the clock is ticking ! Decision pending ! But not before another 40 days at sea.
Next up:
The Route du Vin (the wine route), heading south to the Bordeaux wine
country.
