2010 starts here.

Marcita's plan for this year was to start with Ostend - Oostende voor Anker - a huge traditional boat rally, and then wander along the French coast to Brest. But the plan sprung a leak, and we turned back from Ostend, and set off instead for Boulogne. But no blogs appeared from the CSC members on board, and so I pick up the story in St. Malo, where they left her.

St Malo is a delightful town built on a promontory between two beautiful bays, with only a hundred yards between them at the narrowest point. And as this blog is about the delights of sailing in France, I won't dwell on the effects of leaving Marcita for a week unattended - the flat battery, so no bilge pump, so water up to the berth cushions, the two days drying everything out, the tools, the flags, the galley stuff, and will instead tell you the story of Ar Zenith, the 60 ft Dundee which is preserved here under a barn roof.

She was a coastal ferry until 1940, when her crew were the first to respond to General de Gaulle's call for any useful ships to sail to England. With a small company of soldiers, 2 machine guns and a few rifles, she evaded the occupation forces and made her way to Falmouth. She spent the war carrying stuff along the south coast for the war effort, and returned to France in 1946. Her story from then on is a familiar wooden boat tale. She went aground, was badly damaged, and ended up rotting in a mud berth. It is now a local charitable endeavour to get her seaworthy again.

The only other curious fact about St. Malo is that the Malouins were great sailors, and discovered the Falklands, which is why they are properly called Las Malvinas.

We're off to St. Quay Portrieux tomorrow, all being well.