outskirts). The wind has finally dropped off and the swell should be
going down; however, yet again the potential weather window looks to be
closing (our last weather window turned into a Force 8 gale which is why
we are still here) so we have decided to give up on crossing Biscay this
year as apart from anything else it is doubtful that we would be able to
spend much time in the Spanish Rias which is the main thing we wanted to do.
The weather has been so bad that there has a lot of visitors in the
marina so the WiFi connection has not been very good (it seems to
degenerate about the time most teenagers wake up ....) which has meant
we have not got many photos up yet.
The revised plan is to cruise the Vendee and Brittany for a few weeks
and then head back to the Gironde and cross to the Mediterranean via the
French canals. Hopefully the canals will be quieter in September and
October so it will be an easier passage. It should take us about 2
weeks to do the canals, but there are some nice places to visit on the
way so we will probably potter along. However, before we go we have to
sort out licences and things so we will need to get busy.
On Sunday we had a day out in La Rochelle which we really enjoyed,
especially as we found more delicious sorbets to eat. We were glad not
to have moored in the harbour as it was very noisy and busy all around
with the huge number of visitors. There are lovely colonnades to walk
down in the old town and the architecture is very pleasing, nothing
grandiose just easy on the eye.
Today we caught up with laundry, shopping, etc. Tomorrow we will be off
after I have gone up the mast to change the bulb in the mast head light
and the halyard for the mainsail.
Yesterdays excitement was a motor boat getting it wrong in the strong
winds and catching part of our rig in its anchor. This evening we
turned the boat round on the pontoon and discovered that at some point
this afternoon while we were away a boat had hit the bow hard enough to
take a deep chunk out of the hardwood there. Given the standard of
manoeuvring we have seen the risk of damage is real if you have been
given a berth next to the fuel dock, but as this is the 4th time this
year we have been damaged by another boat it can happen anywhere.
Being next to the fuel dock is, however, a good place to view others
behaviour. Most boats are not there very long, but a few 50 plus footers
have also come in and they not only use up all of the dock but they are
there for ages; the worst offender was an arrogant Englishman on a big
American flagged boat who appeared to object to the staff asking him to
move to make room for others to refuel at the same time and made clearly
audiable disparaging remarks as they left (we have found the staff to be
uniformly pleasant, competent and helpful).
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