Birvidik

Captains Log ??" update Tuesday 4th July, Fontan, Northern Spain.

Yup ??" we made it across Biscay. In response to feedback from our many devoted readers, we will attempt to reduce the amount of verbiage. This entry will therefore be in truncated form:

1. Raymarine came up trumps gave us a new unit. Has all sorts of extra goodies. Let?? s hope it runs for more than 35 hours. Watch this space.

2. Lorient to Port Haliguen. We seem to be being followed around Brittany by a series of races & rallies. Note from photographs nice quiet, secluded marina.

3. After one night in Port Haliguen, went to River Vilaine (Locks & sand bars ??" scary). Luckily, not as bad as Bob had feared. Beautiful area as can be seen from the photographs. Very quiet mooring with 2 restaurants and no shops. The main social activity and source of entertainments appears to be watching the antics of the boats in the lock and waiting for something to go wrong ??" it?? s rarely a long wait. La Roche Bernard had been recommended so we decided to walk to it. Gave up after spending 3 hours going deeper & deeper into deserted French Country side. Next day, decided to take the bikes and follow the established routes to it. All went swimmingly until Bob turned round on the way back to find no Liz who, as it later transpired, had stopped to take a photograph and then wandered off down the wrong road at a crossroads.

Bob was worried as Liz had the beer supply in her panniers. He cycled up and down the stretch of road but found no sign of her. Soon after a French family were sitting down to a civilised Lunch in their deserted country house, when they were disturbed by a swivel-eyed English madman ranting away in ??~O?? level French and gesticulating wildly. When they finally twigged he wanted to use their ??~phone, Pere de Famille pointed in the direction of the hall with the poker he?? d been hiding behind his back.

Unfortunately, Bob discovered that he couldn?? t reach Liz?? s mobile from a French phone and so in another flurry of mangled French (and to the relief of all the others present) hi-tailed it down the road on his bike.

Liz, meantime, was blithely cycling gently along what she was convinced was the correct route. This is understandable as all French countryside looks the same. Rolls of hay in fields, deserted farmhouse on the left, half built deserted farmhouse further down on the right and lots of villages with familiar names.

The latter point is particularly confusing. In this part of Brittany, nearly everywhere starts with ??~Ker?? ??" Kernival, Kerperroch, Kerlivan, (you get the picture ??" it?? s easy to get confused). Can you imagine a Breton copy of the A to Z? 4 pages of A ??" J and 4 pages of L-Z sandwiching 852 pages of Ks. However, I digress.

Liz was heading for a village called ??~Mazon?? which seemed to trigger a few synapses in the spatial awareness section of her brain. In fact, this was due to the fact that it had been mentioned on signposts on the way out, but at no point had we actually passed through it.

Liz would like it noted here, that Bob had the map and she was therefore at a disadvantage. Bob would like it noted that this was because he could read it, and her having possession of said map would not have made an iota of difference to her navigational progress.

By the time she got to Marzan, discovered her error and turned back, Bob was frantically pedalling back to the boat at Mach 4 intending to call her mobile from his. He arrived to find, not only his mobile, but Liz?? s nestling lovingly alongside it. He was back on his bike and pedalling vigorously back along the route, mentally working out how he could report her missing to the Gendarmerie without bringing suspicion upon himself, when he met her coming the other way. From now on she has to have her ??~phone & emergency money sewn into her knickers.

4. After 5 nights in the river we locked out and on to Pornichet. This was necessary as the complete absence of shops in the Vilaine made it impossible to stock up for the Biscay crossing. 2 days in Pornichet saw us stocked and watered up and we set off at 7:00 a.m. for NW Spain.

What little wind there was was bang on the nose, so we motored (& rolled) our way across Biscay in 51 hours. The main sensations were (in decreasing order of frequency & duration):

- Boredom

- Irritation at the rolling. (Imagine a grumpy giant picking up your house, turning it on its side at 45 degrees and shaking it vigorously, then turning it over the other way and repeating same at 20 second intervals for 20 hours).

- Joy at watching dolphins cavorting around the boat for hours. This phenomenon was especially striking at night. As they flew through the water they glowed with bioluminescence and looked like marine ghosts.

- Wonder at the expanse and the clarity of the night sky.

- The feeling we were the only people for miles around

5. So, at 10:30 on Wednesday morning, after 337 nautical miles we anchored in Cedeira, one of the Rias Altas ??" flooded inlets, apparently reminiscent of the West coast of Scotland, but warmer. We stayed here at anchor for 5 nights, where we met up with Graham & Katie on Ocean Goose. The scenery was strikingly dramatic, especially after Southern Brittany. By Sunday night we decided we had to move on as we were getting low on water and so made a coastal passage from Cedeira to the Ria Betanzos, near La Coruna. This should have been very picturesque, but with visibility of 2-3 miles we hardly saw any of the coast ??" very disorientating. We intend to deal with 2 weeks of accumulated washing, restock with supplies, water and fuel and then make our way to the Rias de Corme y Large, just North of Cape Finisterre.