We Are Sailing

Today we have been offered the opportunity to go for a sail in Chichester Harbour, and this we gratefully accepted. The boat was a Southerly 110 and I was almost immediately told to take the helm while the owner did things with the sails. The fairway, as you head towards the sea from Chichester, is fairly narrow. As directed I tacked to and fro and enjoyed the experience. Eventually, as we got nearer to the sea, the request to tack was made a little late and we grounded on a shallow patch of sand. Fortunately, Southerlies have keels that can be raised. It was therefore just a matter of pressing a button, to lift the keel, and we were free and sailing again.

Eventually we reached the sea and more wind. This caused the boat to heal over a little more and Ann to get even more nervous about this sailing lark. We turned around and headed back up the channel. The tide was now against us and the wind behind. The owner therefore ‘goose winged’ the sails and, on an even keel, we headed slowly back into Chichester Harbour. Unusually, the sun shone and the wind was fair. A pleasant afternoon was had by all and we headed back to the mooring with the aid of the boat’s iron sail (motor) to help us on our way.

A Trip to the Pub

One of the pleasures of being moored on a river is that we get chance to drop our little dingy, fire up the outboard engine, and head upstream into shallower waters. The Hamble is a relatively short river and the headroom is restricted by the M27 bridge a couple of miles upstream. However, there are still 4,000 boat moorings in that short stretch of river. It is the largest boat park in the UK. Once we past under the low brides we entered a different world. Here there was an adventure park with a number of people making use of the available canoes. We had deliberately headed upstream with the rising tide so that we were able to get up the right hand channel to the Horse & Jockey public house for lunch. There is a double high tide on the river which means that there is a stand of about two hours. As a result we had plenty of time for lunch and a pint before heading back down river on the ebbing tide.

Hamble River

One of the problems of being within a vast harbour is that you can’t actually find out what the sea state is like until you have spent nearly an hour getting from your mooring out to sea. By which time you may regret having left your mooring in the first place. The forecast for the planned trip to the Solent and the river Hamble was fair with a F3-4 wind. I had timed it so that we got some help from the tide and so that there as sufficient water over the sand bar to make the exit fairly easy. However, as we got closer to the Isle of Wight the wind increased to F5 and the wind screen wipers were required to get the spray off the windows so that I could see to steer and avoid the many ferries and large ships coming in to Southampton.

As we entered the sheltered waters of the Solent the wind dropped a little and we again able to enjoy the journey. The reason for going to the Hamble was so that we could meet our son Jeremy, his wife MJ and our grandson Patrick. It was great to have them on board again and to see Patrick – complete with his two new front teeth.

Chichester Harbour

Chichester Harbour comprises an area of about 27 square miles of navigable water. Once you get over the sand bar, and past the narrow entrance, it opens up into a vast area divided into two channels. We have taken the one towards Chichester and it is most impressive. It is, understandably, very popular with sailors and bird watchers as well as walkers. The village of West Itchenor overlooks the Chichester Channel and the views across the harbour to Chidham, Bosham and Chichester with the Downs behind are excellent. It did of course rain most of the time we were there but it did not stop me from dropping the dinghy an exploring Itchenor on foot. Unfortunately, the weather stopped us from using the cycle path to get to Chichester.

Brighton to Chichester

High winds stranded us for several days in Brighton. There is a high harbour wall around the marina and this offered us protection from the rough seas, spray from which came over the wall at high tide. The marina itself I would describe as adequate. A large supermarket, within walking distance helped but the general noise from the 42 restaurants and bars did not. We were therefore quite pleased to be moving on when the wind dropped just a little.

The forecast was for a F3 and smooth seas. Unfortunately, yet again, they were wrong. It was a F4 when we left but I deliberately set out with the wind and tide together against us because that made for a more comfortable ride. As the miles progressed under our keel, the wind increased to a F5 and a course change meant it was now on our port quarter. We had long since slowed from 18 knots to 12 knots to reduce the slamming but we now began to slide and roll off the bigger waves. This was not a comfortable ride and I had to concentrate on steering around the worst of the waves.

We arrived at Chichester harbour entrance shortly before high tide, as suggested by the almanac, and began to approach the waypoint that I had set up for the approach over the sand bar. Today is a Sunday and, at this point, a fleet of fast sailing dinghys came out of the harbour straight across our bows. I managed to avoid them and, as I was setting myself up for the approach to the entrance, they all rounded a yellow buoy and proceeded to sail straight back at me. I therefore adjusted my speed to the same as theirs and entered the harbour in the middle of the dingy racing fleet. Once clear of them we began navigating from buoy to buoy along the channel towards Chichester. It was a great relief to find a sheltered floating pontoon to moor against for the night.

Back in the U.K.

At last the weather forecast showed signs of improvement and we were able to set off back to England. The chosen destination was Brighton, largely because it was the closest and has a safe harbour with a good marina. The tide goes up and down the English Channel so, because we were going straight across the tidal stream, it was not possible to time our departure to gain any speed advantage. We therefore left at 09:00, which was convenient for us and also meant that we were likely to arrive in Brighton when the tide was suitable for an easy entry to a marina that was new to us. As usual, half way across, you meet the big ship traffic lanes. These are charted passages for large vessels going up and down the Channel – of which there are many. The rules of the sea are that you travel on the right so the first vessels that you meet are heading east. We could see a number of ships on the radar and, because of some fine rain and mist, they appeared on the radar before we were actually able to see them. We then had to carefully time our passage so that we went behind one ship and well in front of the next one. A little while later we met the traffic heading west and played the same game with them. However, between the two was the reassuring site of the Greenwich Light Ship which marks the middle of the lanes at the place we travelled across. I had marked a waypoint on the plotter just to the west of the light ship and it is always reassuring to be able to confirm that you have arrived at the correct spot in the middle of a 70 mile crossing.

At 12:15 we arrived safely at Brighton marina. We then refuelled and, after some discussion about who actually owned Jomima (the previous owner was already registered on their computer) we tied up safely for a few days rest.

Fecamp

As you will no doubt have noticed, I have not included any photos of Le Havre. The town may well be on Unesco’s World Heritage list but the choice of building material – concrete – would not be my choice. However Fecamp, which was once the home of a large fishing fleet that used to fish for cod on the Grand Banks off the east coast of America, was much more to our liking.

One of the highlights was a visit to the Palais Bénédictine. The world famous drink is still distilled in this fantastic Gothic style building. We enjoyed a tour of the ‘factory’ along with being able to view their collection of old works of art, samples of spices and finally an exhibition of modern art – before actually tasting the product. Last night we went out for an excellent meal, in Fecamp, and enjoyed another ‘tasting’.

The Seine to Le Havre

One of the best things about boating is the people that you meet. In Rouen we moored next to Jean-Pierre & Françoise on their beautiful steel boat ‘Maloya’. The last leg of the trip down the Seine involves a ten hour journey with the last hour being at sea. Unfortunately, there is nowhere to moor your boat during the trip so if you have a problem then you would have to try and drop anchor – not a good thing to do in a busy river. Also, predicting what the sea state is going to be like by the time you finally get there is difficult. We were therefore grateful to Jean-Pierre when he offered to travel with us down stream to Le Havre. They had lived on board Maloya for a number of years so they were both well equipped and skilled at reading the weather from a number of sources. Using information gathered from a variety of web sites he predicted, correctly, that Friday would be the best day to go. He timed the tides to perfection and the journey proved to be both relaxing, and economical with the diesel, by making best use of the tides.

Rouen

Back to Rouen today and now on tidal waters again. I had to take on some diesel for the trip down the Seine. The diesel price on the fuel barge, just upstream of Rouen, is the most expensive (1.40 Euros/Litre i.e. approximately £1 per litre compared with 1.08 Euros at the supermarkets) we have encountered during the whole of this trip. I therefore only took on board 200 litres. Fortunately, the fuel consumption at slow speeds on the river has improved from 1 mpg to about 3 mpg.

We spent a couple of days in Rouen so Ann took the opportunity to have a look at some of the places that she missed on our first visit. The building shown in the photograph is the Aitre St-Maclou. These are now the studios of the Regional Art College. However, in the 14th century Rouen’s victims of the Black Death, believed to have numbered 100,000, were placed in a plague pit just in front of the buildings. Fortunately, apart from the carvings on the buildings, there is no sign of them now.

Yet More Rain

It has now rained every day for the past two weeks. The wind screen wipers have had to work so hard that one of them collapsed and flew off onto the cabin roof! Ann is suffering the most because it usually chooses the time that we are just entering a lock to raise its game to an absolute deluge. Unfortunately, Ann has to look after the front rope and is in the most exposed position possible. However, she now dresses for it in her full wet weather gear. Not exactly the latest Paris fashion but certainly practical. We stayed at Poses for the night and, between showers, cycled through the village and saw the preparations for Bastille Day (14 July) celebrations, which would be taking place on the village green.

An Unusual End to The Day

It had been a long day. We were returning to Le Havre, from Paris, down the river Seine. It was a rainy Sunday, so there had been very little traffic on the river, and we had managed three locks and 105 km before we arrived at the small yacht club at Vernonnet. The yacht club’s visitor’s pontoon is situated in a picturesque park near the Vernon Bridge and an old mill. I moored Jomima to the pontoon and noticed a well dressed French family group, standing on the bank, pointing towards the river and looking anxious. As I tiredly went to connect our electricity supply, they approached me and spoke to me in French. I replied, in my best school boy French, by saying, “Parlez-vous anglais?”. They now looked even more anxious and spoke quickly amongst themselves. Mother, dressed in a smart black suit, approached me and said in stilted English, “My father is dead”. Then, after making the internationally recognised sign for sleep by tilting her head onto her two hands placed together, she pointed towards the river. Next she pointed towards my dingy on its davits and said, “You help please?”

I immediately had a vision of her father floating dead in the river but decided that the police would be here, if it was that serious, and called Ann to ask if she could clarify the situation for me. I am always keen to improve Anglo French relations so, after holding up ten fingers and saying, “Dix minutes”, I proceeded to lower the dingy, pump in some more air and prepare the engine for starting. After a few minutes, Ann returned and said that she thought that they wanted to scatter her father’s ashes on the river and wanted me to help them do so. This seemed an unusual request, but not as onerous as looking for his body, so I asked Ann to give three of them life jackets so that they could come with me.

After lowering the dingy, and starting the engine, Ann again approached me but this time with the boat hook in her hand. She then added, “You were nearly right the first time, they have already dropped his ashes in the river and they are now floating slowly downstream in a box. They actually want you to retrieve them so that they can scatter them properly!”
I was joined in the dingy by the lady’s husband, son and daughter. The latter spoke quite good English and explained that one of her grandfather’s last wishes was that his ashes be placed in the river at Vernonnet, which was near where he had been born. The four of us then set off in pursuit of a blue box floating down the river. I managed to retrieve it for them and, with a screw driver they had bought with them for the purpose, they loosened the lid of the box containing grandfather’s ashes. Once we had returned to the chosen site, they tried unsuccessfully to sink the box. As all sailors know, wood floats. It therefore proved impossible to sink the box, complete with the ashes. Various remedies were discussed, including loading the box with stones to make it sink. Finally, the son-in-law unceremoniously removed the ashes from the box and dropped them over the side in their black bag. I return to the river bank, at a funereal pace, and solemnly let them step onto the pontoon. They all carefully shook hands with Ann and me before stepping off the pontoon. After a brief discussion we were asked to pose in front of our boat and dingy for a photograph to be taken. However, before leaving, the daughter said, “Thank you for helping us to retrieve my grandfather. We would not have wanted to leave him floating around like that.” He is probably up there laughing at what happened.

Leaving Paris

Today we headed north to start the journey back, the way we had come, to the Channel. We both enjoyed the sights of Paris, from the river, on our own boat. You somehow feel privileged to be allowed to cruise through such a major city. By 2:00 pm we were moored up in Rueil Malmaison which left us time to visit La Maison Fournaise. It is a familiar place to all art lovers in the world. From its balcony, overhanging the river, Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted The Luncheon of the Boating Party in 1881, now part of the Phillips Collection in Washington.

The building now contains both a Restaurant and a museum dedicated to the ‘guinguettes’ (open-air cafes and dance-halls) which spread out on the river Seine banks in the 1860s. Maison Fournaise was popular with many artists including: Renoir, Degas and many others, used to meet to paint and relax.

Plan B

We are now back in Paris and, after deciding not to head further south on the French canals, we are trying to decide where to head for next. It will take us about 7 days to get to Le Havre. From there we think that we will head east along the French coast and then cross back to the UK at Dover. It would then be possible for us to head north up the east coast of England to the Norfolk Broads – a place that we have not visited on our own boat. We have fond memories of the Broads from when we had our first experience of boating, in a hired cruiser, when we first got married.

It would then be possible for us to move Jomima, by sea or by truck, to Newark on Trent for the winter.

More Rain

For the past few days it has managed to surpass all previous amounts of rain that we have experienced when travelling with Jomima. We have managed to pass through three locks today and it rained heavily in two of them. So heavily in fact that full wet weather gear was required, including boots and hood. Getting through these enormous locks without scraping the boat, or damaging ourselves, is hard enough without this penetrating rain. Unfortunately Ann is suffering the most because she takes the bow rope, on the exposed ‘sharp end’ while I manage the stern rope and work the engines and bow thruster as necessary. High winds, wet ropes and difficult locks. We will be pleased to get out to sea again soon.

Deciding to Turn Back

Yesterday, we travelled to Saint-Mammes which is a barge town that sits at the junction of the river Seine and the river Loing. We also visited Moret-sur-Loing, a picturesque town on the banks of the river Loing. The river Loing has been canalised and heads in the direction that we planned to go. This was our first experience of France’s narrower canals and this proved to be a problem.

Firstly, we discovered that the speed limit for the canal is 6 km/h, which is 3.2 knots. With the engines at tick-over Jomima ‘speeds’ along at 5.5 knots and, even on one engine, she does 4.5 knots. This, not only meant that we were potentially speeding, it also mean that she was a bit lively when taking her 4 m width into the much narrower (5.2m) locks.

Secondly, the bridges are much lower at 3.5 m. To negotiate these much lower bridges we would have to lower the radar arch and remove the canopy. The weight of the arch is such that this meant leaving it down all day. Both yesterday and today it rained very heavily and there is no sign of this weather pattern changing for some time. Jomima would therefore have to be steered and managed, through anything up to 150 locks, from an exterior helm in the rain. Not a prospect that Ann was looking forward to at all. We therefore made the decision to turn Jomima around and head back to Paris and the English Channel.

The Chateau at Fontainebleau

In the heart of a local forest, the chateau of Fontainebleau started life as a hunting lodge. It then became the summer residence for the kings of France, from Francois I to Napoleon III, each one of which made additions and changes to this magnificent building. With its lovely lakes and gardens it is now recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

When we arrived we discovered that, on the first Sunday each month, entrance is free. This has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is obvious but it also meant that it was very busy with tourists from all over the world. However, it is a vast building and with many hectares of gardens we were able to explore without other visitors troubling us greatly. Apart from a coffee machine it is not possible to even get a drink in the chateau itself. So we went into the town for lunch and managed to avoid the worst of the rain showers that arrived, yet again, today.

We now needed to return to the marina, which was about 4 or 5 kms away. Taxis were nowhere to be found so we set of walking back to the boat. This was potentially a problem because Sue and Ian needed to catch a train, back to Paris, later that afternoon. The station was about half way back to the boat so we made a diversion and were able to engage a taxi that was already dropping somebody off to catch a train. The driver agreed to return us to the boat and then take Ian & Sue back to catch their train; which saved a great deal of walking.

All Aboard for Fontainebleau

For three days we have been joined by our friends and neighbours, Ian & Sue. The plan was to spend a couple of days cruising up the Seine from Paris, followed by a trip to the Chateau at Fontainebleau. The Seine, upstream of Paris, proved to be the most delightful part of the river that we have seen so far. Once we got past the industrial suburbs, the banks were lined with forests, and small villages with magnificent houses. This is where the wealthy Parisians have their weekend retreats.

Both Ian and Sue were willing to ‘have a go’ at both taking the helm and also helping with the locks. The locks, as usual, were extremely large and we were regularly joined by the vast French barges. These always have priority and, when they weigh up to 300 tons, you willingly let them go first.

At the end of the second day we moored at the Fontainebleau marina. The Captainaire offered to give us a lift to the chateau the following day which, being Sunday, meant that taxis were likely to be in short supply.