Birvidik

Currently stuck in Trebeurden for the 7th day & it looks as if we'll be here for a further 3 days at least. The Weather Gods have finally cottoned on to the fact that we've left three months earlier than usual and have hit us with The Curse of Trebeurden in spades.

We left St. Quay on Thursday 11th May. It was supposed to be a relaxing trip to Paimpol, leaving at the civilised hour of about 2 p.m. local time. Liz found this difficult to believe as, historically, the tides conspire to demand that we get up at 4 in the morning and grope around in the cold and dark (and usually wet) preparing for sea.

So, we rose at about 9 & pottered about getting ready. Bob then nipped down to the Capitainerie to pay for the previous night, only to find that the French fishermen were about to blockade the port in protest at the extortionate price they were expected to pay for diesel (just under 20p a litre - it's 56p a litre duty free in Jersey and God knows how much in the UK and in France for everyone else). The thought of being stuck in St. Quay was enough to put us into overdrive. Stuff flew in all directions as cushions, rugs, lamps and all the paraphernalia of harbour life were hastily (We were going to say 'stowed' but that implies some degree of order and organisation) stuffed below. After such a record-breaking preparation for sea, Birvidik shot out through the pier heads like a cork from a bottle, with her crew nervously looking over the stern for hordes of irate fishermen. Luckily, we think they were still having Lunch, which is an institution in France (see footnote 1).

Just as well we left early as it turns out, there being virtually no wind, so we ghosted along in beautiful weather on a glassy sea at about 2� knots, 2.4985 knots of which was due to the tide. Even so we arrived early. Paimpol is in the Eastern end of a large expanse of mud (see photo in 'Paimpol' gallery) which covers with enough water to stop us from bumping into the ground for about 2 hours either side of high water. As we arrived about 3� hours before HW we sniffed our way into about 2 metres of water and dropped our lovely new, shiny, expensive and sodding heavy anchor. All was going swimmingly until the chain jammed in the locker. This is normally a reasonably simple problem to solve. All that is required is to go into the forepeak, lift the cushion and the wooden cover to the chain locker and give it a yank in the right direction. Of course the forepeak looked like a jumble sale stall after an attack by a horde of old ladies. There was much swearing & cursing as stuff was hurled aside in an attempt to un-jam the chain.

After Lunch and a sufficient rise of tide we negotiated the lock into Paimpol without incident (there's a first). Paimpol is an old working port with has slid into the present day with apparently effortless �lan. It still has a sense of history and continuity but also an over-riding sense of fun. There is almost always something musical, artistic or cultural going on, but without anyone seeming to take themselves too seriously. The old harbour has been modified into a marina and lies right at the heart of things. Even in May, when a lot of France is still in a state of hibernation, there's lots going on (see photos in the 'Paimpol' gallery).

Sunday May 14th, the alarm went off at 05:30 (which is 4:30 BST and 3:30 real time) and we groped around in the cold and dark preparing for sea. (Back to normal). It was a beautiful still morning once you could see. We made our way into the lock where the autopilot promptly packed in. After hand steering down the approach channel the autopilot suddenly decided to spring to life again. This was just as well as the visibility gradually decreased until by the time we were in the channel between Les Sept Isles and the mainland it was down to 500 metres. We were very grateful to have the chartplotter and, especially, the radar. This enabled us to see one lunatic Frenchman in a motor boat who came hacking out of the fog on our port bow at about 20 knots. This was just as well as he had no radar. As we had picked him up on ours we were able to take evasive action, otherwise there was a very real risk of collision. It must have given him a bit of a shock to see us looming out of the fog as he actually slowed down (how long for is another matter).

We arrived off Trebeurden about 2 hours before the gate opened, and so popped round the corner and anchored for Lunch, sun-bathe & snooze while we waited. How civilised. Apart, that is, from the fact that the autopilot packed up again, and stayed packed up.

Trebeurden is similar and different from our usual visits in August. Different in that it's very quiet and there are lots of free spaces on the pontoon and the launderette's not packed out with other yotties, similar in that the weather's crap. Which is why we're now on our seventh day here and look like being here for another 3 days or so.

Despite our longer than wanted stay in Trebeurden (I was going to say 'expected' but that's not strictly true) we're not bored. We had left Jersey with loads of jobs still to do, and acquired a few more on the way, such as persuading the autopilot to do as it's told (sorted - bad connection where the data wire passed near the Morse control wires for the engine). We are, however looking forward to leaving as soon as the weather clears. There are a number of other boats stuck here as well, so it'll be like the start of the Indianapolis 500 when the weather finally clears and the gate opens. (There you are Ray - I bet you didn't believe I even knew such a thing existed).

FOOTNOTES:

1) Lunch in France:

This is an institution in France which seems alien to British eyes but, once you get used to it, has a lot to recommend it. It also has knock-on effects on other aspects of life, such as shopping (see note 2).

In contrast to the British habit of grabbing a sandwich at the desk, the French take Lunch very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that we believe that whilst in France, one should always mentally capitalise the word. Nevertheless, the concept of a Lunch hour (20 minutes in Britain) would be met with amazement by a Frenchman. Only an hour? It's usually at least 2 hours and we've seen as long as 3� hours. At around 12:30 a strange transformation occurs as streets gradually take on the aspect of a ghost town; people mysteriously disappear, shops which were bustling with activity one minute are closed, empty and dark the next time you turn round. I've tried to catch them at it by suddenly turning round unexpectedly but to no avail. They're open one second and desolate the next, but you can never actually catch them closing.

The only exceptions to this are, of course restaurants which undergo the reverse metamorphosis. Getting a table between the hours of 12:30 & 2:30 is akin to getting a straight answer out of Tony Blair - It's damned near impossible, and if you think you have done it you've probably been conned into accepting something you don't want and still have to pay over the odds for it. Before 12:15 and after 2:45 though, the kitchens are closed, so the knack of not dying of starvation in France is to get into the restaurant at 12:15 on the dot. Even then most of the tables are pre-booked.

As there are fractionally more French than there are seats in restaurants, all of those not in restaurants Lunch en famille. As the hapless and famished tourist wanders the streets in search of sustenance in any form, his senses are assailed by the smells of food and the sound of clinking glasses and animated conversation from the open windows of the houses he passes. Bastards.

2) Shopping in France

This is, in general, a far more agreeable and civilised experience than its equivalent in U.K. or Jersey (even for blokes). This is mainly because it is primarily about buying food (see 'Lunch' above). There are still many independent shops, specialising in specific areas, such as fishmongers, delicatessens, patisseries, bakers etc. There is also at least one market somewhere in the area every day of the week.

They do have supermarkets (usually Intermarche) but even these seem less ruthlessly designed to use all the revelations of modern psychological research to surgically remove the contents of your bank account as efficiently and un-noticeably as possible than are their UK counterparts. (Yes, Jan - I know it's a split infinitive).

There are four aspects of French shopping, however, that need getting used to, one, of course, is Lunch. It is damn nigh impossible to buy absolutely anything, anywhere in France between the hours of 12:30 & 3:00. As it usually takes us until 11:45 to get ourselves organised, and then we have to walk the 2 miles uphill to where French shops are always situated (aspect 2), we always arrive just at Lunch time. We used to do the same in Jersey, but whereas that always meant that the shops (especially M&S) were always heaving with queues stretching past the fresh(?) veg and down to the frozen food section, in France the converse is true.

It is the universal French trick of always siting shops on the highest point available that has led to our shopping trolley coming into its own. One of the defining characteristics of being a boat bum is that wherever one arrives, it is invariably at sea level. It is always, therefore, about 2 miles uphill to the shops and 2 miles downhill back, fully laden. Whilst this is the right way round, it's still a bind carrying the 4 crates of beer, 8 bottles of wine, 3 bottles of fizzy water, 2 slices of fish terrine and a baguette all the way back to the boat. We don't mind the quizzical and pitying looks we get. Have trolley, will shop. Anyway, we prefer 'interestingly eccentric' to 'sad gits'.

The third aspect of French shopping is that, although everywhere is blessed with a multitude of different food shops, there is a notable scarcity of others such as electrical shops, ironmongers, stationers and the like. There is one exception to this rule and that is hairdressers. If the French attitude to Lunch means that the word should always be capitalised, then the same must also be true of 'Coiffure'. There are probably more hairdressers in France than there are restaurants, about three per capita at a rough guess. We reckon that it must be an accepted principle that every able bodied adult must go to the hairdressers on an at least daily basis and to spread their custom around as many different hairdressers as is reasonably possible. Failure to do this almost certainly results in social ostracism and the removal of the individual's genes from the gene pool. Hairdressers therefore become a sexually selected aspect of the environment.

The fourth and, you'll be glad to hear, final aspect of French shopping is related to aspect three, and that is the difficulty of buying anything you might need other than food or a quick trim & blow-dry. Liz keeps a handwritten journal and Bob handwrites the ship's log every day at sea. These were nearly full so we traipsed happily, innocently and confidently to the shops to buy replacements. We had even worked out the French if we got stuck.

Several stationers later we were stymied. The French have lots of exercise books, but they seem to have trouble writing in a regular pattern as they are all marked out in little 4mm squares. Either that or they're marked out for double entry book-keeping or as address books. No lined books. Anywhere.

So, when we were approached by a helpful and unsuspecting assistant we tried our (t)rusty French on her.

Assistante: "Bonjour M'sieu-Dame, je peut vous aider?"
Bob: "Oui, s'il vous plait, nous voudrons un cahier"
A: "Bien sur M'sieu, les cahiers sont la-bas"
B: "Oui, je sais, mais nous voudrons un cahier avec des lignes,
pas des carres."
A (surprised): "Avec des lignes? Pas des carres? Pourquoi?
B: "Oui avec des lignes. Pour ecrire un journal"
A: (Convinced we're mad): "Les cahiers avec des lignes? Les cahiers de ce genre n'existent
pas."
B: "Ils bloody do existe. Nous avon loads sur le bateau, mais ils sont
tous full up."

At this point she started to look slightly alarmed and began backing slowly toward the telephone so we decided to call it a day. We were tempted to go and pick up our lined books, go back and wave them in the window at her shouting "Regardez! - Ils sodding do existent!" But it was a long way up the hill again and anyway it was nearly Lunch.


3) Weather - The Curse of Trebeurden.

One definition of stupidity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting something different to happen. Five times we've been to Trebeurden, in July or August and always the same thing happens: We arrive in beautiful weather, moor up and nip up to the restaurant at the top of the marina and have moules frites and a bottle of muscadet al fresco. 'This is nice' we think 'we'll stay here a couple of days and then move on to L'AberWrac'h. On the third day, just as we're preparing to leave, the weather turns vile and stays that way for about ten days. I reckon you can guess where this is going. Right first time.

We didn't go to L'AberWrac'h on the Sunday because the visibility was forecast to drop to under 500 metres and it's not the sort of approach one wants to make unless one knows exactly where one is - too many sharp pointy hard things poking out of the sea. Monday brought a combination of force 6-7 SW winds (right on the nose) and poor visibility. Things got progressively worse from then on, rising to force 7, then 8 and culminating with its piece de resistance on Saturday morning with a top end of force nine gusting top end of force 10 (80 km/h gusting 100 km/h).

The noise didn't move Bob from his slumbers. Nor did the boat leaning over at 35 degrees and pushing the pontoon down into the water. Nor the sound of fenders being squashed almost flat. What finally did the trick was the gunshot sound of a furling genoa cracking unfurled in the wind and starting to flog itself to tatters. Luckily there were no innocent passers by on the pontoon to witness the unedifying sight of a naked, dishevelled Newbury shooting into the cockpit, hair awry and eyes swivelling in apprehension. Luckily (for us) it wasn't our nice new �1300 genoa, but one on a boat two pontoons away, closely followed by the genoas on three other boats.

Things continue very much in the same vein. The synopsis shows a line of high pressure systems above the channel and another below it, making a nice little corridor between them over the channel. Along this corridor trot a series of depressions (4 at the last count) all dutifully following each other right over the top of us like a row of nodding ducklings.

However, the synopsis today (Sunday 21st May), although predicting more of the same until Thursday, does show a couple of high pressure systems joining together in the Atlantic and heading this way. So with a bit of luck we'll be out of here by the weekend and around the Pointe de Bretagne into Southern Brittany.

Supplementary:

Tue 23rd May and still here. Looks like it could be the 27th before we get off. some friends of ours were anchored off near us and they snapped their anchor snubber, their wind generator self-destructed and their anchor dragged in 60+ knots of wind.


Supplementary 2:

The photo galleries for Paimpol & St. Quay will be added lqter when we find a faster internet connection.