la Foret - new home

The weather is off. Can't complain I suppose. It is November - the saddest month, they say hereabouts - but The Promise is settled in her new home for the winter, snug from Biscay's temperamental outbursts in the spacious marina at la Foret. There is a lot of plastic to camouflage our old woodwork but we still get admiring remarks from passers by on the footpath that winds up the river, over the lock sluices, past the golf club and into town. I've been here before but not so late in the year. The estuaries are placid in summer, drying out to flat sandiness and green with weeds, whereas now a dull muddy pallor over paints the landscape. trees are bare, save the pinewoods, and the light is low and shy. There is much to entertain though, restaurants and bars, lots to see and places to visit. I got myself a bike, real roadworthy one as opposed to one of those shiny yachty folding types and consequently can venture a bit further afield. I have to hoik it onboard as the captainerie advises petty theft is not unknown, especially by northern Europeans, Germans and Dutch. Strange when you'd think they had enough of their own. Under a cheap tarp' the bike resides quietly as I await a break in the weather.

It's damp now, 50% chance of rain but not cold. No frost to nip the fingers and harden the halyards. No ice in the lockers either. Cold is a damned thing. Canvas solidifies, as do ropes of all fibres. Handles stick to buckets and anything left in the bucket adheres to it with alacrity. The crew have abandoned me for the time. Off to Paris for the sights, as one has never been and is a bit of an artist. Its hard to recollect them scampering about all tanned as their lanky forms are now swathed in layers of polartech under their la Glazic smocks. The other was a dab hand in the galley too. Her clafoutis was a custardy triumph and my whiskey will miss the cold leftover slices.

Ah me. The boat is mine own for as long as they take, if they return at all. I've given the batteries a charge so I can curl up later with a decent book - Peter Pye's excellent omnibus - and put a little Elgar on the tiny stereo. If I don't end in tears it will be a miracle.

When I was a lad, I was introduced to the classics by an old man on a wandering yacht. It happened to be Grieg's piano concerto but ever since the sound of the open sea and full orchestra have been inseparable. He ended up on a reef in the caribbean but his influence lingers on. Funny how a chance meeting over fifty years ago can make such a difference on your life. Someone said something like give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man. I know many people blessed and cursed by that one. Enough philosophy, the kettle is beginning to hum, lamps need to be lit and distant calls of farewell can be heard about the boatyards. Time for tea.

Call me Ishmael...

"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me."

From Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Don't you just know how he feels...

The lagoon

While we carves a furrow towards The Promise' prospective winter berth, I scan the distant shore out to port. There is a line of surf now and not a place to venture but in the heat of summer, there is a narrow entrance and a sandy lagoon there. Le Letty is a popular spot for locals, warm, shallow and peaceful. High tide it's a race track for windsurfers when the wind is up, but low water, it's a secret world of waders and divers. I spent many happy hours there this year just idling. If you wait for half tide, you can easily wade the estuary from side to side. The current fairly rips out but there's no danger except to odd crab nipping your toes as you go. If'n you're sly, you can crouch in the salty waves and approach on all fours like a hippo. The terns and egrets have no idea and you can sidle up to within feet as they're feeding.

The marshes left uncovered by the receding sea are a different world. The sand bars dry into low lying tropical islands, hot to touch behind the protecting dunes. As the land solidifies across the shallows, isolated sunseekers drag canoes and rubber rafts behind them, knowing that as the sea returns, they will have to row, or make a very lengthy trek around the peninsula. In the evenings, low fires burn in the wilderness like Tuareg camps and the smoke of barbeques drift across the lagoon. Beach parties gather and distant music thumps. These dunes extend as far as Mousterlin on this side, and almost to Beg Meil beyond the point. Miles of pine backed, sandy nothingness and I love it.

I'll come back to this spot but right now, a coffee has materialised from below and we keep an eye on the coastguard station on the point. Once abeam, we'll round up and tighten sheets for the run into the bay.

Laying up maybe...

I've been thinking about the winter. There was a time I thought I'd just sit it out, lay out a new bower and batten down the hatches. The Odet is a beautiful river but lonely and sometimes the idea of having to launch the punt to do anything is daunting. I have the crew to think of too. We had a conference around the saloon table, all low lights and steaming mugs but the vote was, let's semi lay up. Stay afloat but somewhere safe, convenient, with showers and shops and bars. I am a bit anti marina in outlook but am coming around to the idea of being able to walk on and off the deck with dry feet having luxuriated in a hot tub for an hour and not have diluted my JD with a ton of rain.

Now, marinas come in shapes and sizes. Years ago you could moor up on anyones beach, having bargained a reasonable rent over a beer. Not so today. England is just too expensive for an old buccaneer, by-lawed and privatised but France is a more appealing. There are no moorings above the bridge where we've been at anchor for months, and downstream is, frankly, too crowded and you're always on show. Especially as they'd put our cutter, pretty as she is, where every Tom, Dick and Pierre can gawp at us. Not our style. Not after the Robinson Crusoe season we've had upstream, where we'd occasionally raise a hand to passing steamers or visiting birds of passage. Down the coast just a bit, at the head of a deep-set bay, is a modern marina, a hop and skip from the centre ville where moule frites and muscadet are a plenty. I contacted the man at La Foret Fouesnante and decided to give it a go. We can always move on, or come back if we want. Easy in a boat, with no deadlines, commitments or contingencies.

Come the day, as the green tide began to turn the bows upstream, we backed the jib, handed the big hook and swung downstream. I patted the tiller and squinted up the mast. Come on Promise, my girl, I thought, Lets go a roving...

Spring tides, Autumn nights

So, there's another equinox gone south. I expected the associated gales to turn up. Strange phenomenon, no earthly reason but it's often the way. This year fairly quiet though and ever since, on our peaceful mooring, the weather has been quite the indian summer. Trees are a-turning but we've had hot days which has extended our time here and we've made the most. Night time is the thing. On board it gets cold. Soon as the sun dips below the horizon, which is increasingly and substantially earlier now, the temperature drops like a lead from the ratlines. You're soon sent below for another jumper and then a coat, as the breeze chuckles across from the creek opposite. Hot chocolate or thick black coffee becomes the sundowner, laced with whatever is in the galley locker, which today is calvados. We met an old man, a farmer, from some storm jib sized small-holding east of Gouesnache. He had his pigs, geese and chickens but his pride was his orchard. Actually the whole area, from the river here, to Concarneau, is big in apples, pears and sure as nature intended - cider. Our Monsieur was a cider man but had a dispensation, a perk if you prefer, he was allowed to make, that is distill, calvados. The dark golden eau de vie that one, with the aid of a little handed down knowledge and ancient cast iron machinery, can brew from Fouesnant's best cider apples. I'd gone off looking for him after buying some of his bottles from a market stall. I reckoned that a deal could be done for bulk, though his idea of bulk and mine differed. I thought to line the bilges of The Promise, he thought I was from a supermarket. He did however offer me a tipple of the serious stuff, and after another, I thought that this would take up less space on the boat and was a drink worth studying. Sadly for me he wasn't allowed to sell me any, his 'Dispensation' you understand. He did offer me a couple as a gift which was quite legal. Back on the boat, the crew has lit the wood burner and trimmed the wicks. I watched the last rooks flap home and the blue mist creep across the half tide. It'll be a high one again tonight. The full moon and ol' Jupiter will make sure of that. No wind though and a cosy light seeps from the washboards and a wave of warmth

wraps itself about you as you descend the companion way steps. Pass me a glass my girl and shove up.

Browned off...

I believe the term, "Browned off" comes from the process of preserving steelwork with controlled RUST. In centuries past, musketeers and carabiners would take the exposed metal parts of their muzzle loaders and treat them with a rust accelerating compound. This obviously dulls shiney new steel but a soldier or hunter didn't want the sun reflecting off their gun barrels. This actually helps keep metal good and I have a percussion lock musket from the 1800's which testifies. Once browned off, the steel can be oiled or waxed to a lovely deep patina. I say this because there is a glut of stainless and bronze parts available for boats today but I have a friend in Maine who fits his punts out in iron and browns them off in the traditional way. Look great and is easily maintained. Mild steel is workable, long lasting, good looking and CHEAP. Boatmen, you don't have to spend your hard earned Reales on mass produced chrome. Find a gunsmith and get browned off.

Wild life on the Islands

We took The Promise out to sea for fear of her turning into a freshwater vessel, with all the problems and horrors that engenders. Our pastoral anchorage quickly disappeared behind the wooded bends as we followed the channel downstream past chateaux and lush farms, from where munching cows and stalking herons monitored our passing with indifferent silence. Once past the countless modern yachts and enormous multihulls in Benodet, we rode the racing ebb out through the narrows and headed her in order to up sails and bear away towards the Glenan Isles. That whole sweep of bay is some pretty. Once away from the river the sea hisses by and out to port the shining edge of sand stretches to Mousterlin, Beg Meil and on to Concarneau and the south. She heels pleasantly on a starboard tack and slips along in her groove. We, like gulls on her silver deck, can sit occasionally bending the elbow on the helm up to keep her straight, though to be honest, if I eased the mainsheet a touch, she'd sail herself. The joy of the cutter rig, well balanced and easy on the eye. On the horizon the dark line that is the half tide profile of the archipelago, Les Glenans. Passenger steamers carry hoards of visitors to this tempting reef. The water is so clear that pilotage is by eye alone and one can gaze down at familiar rocks and gullies below fathoms of blueness. Tourists are greeted by a land of sand, scrub and low lying boulders. There is little in the way of vegetation and precious little shelter from the summer sun. Not that shelter is sought for as these islands are a mecca for bird watchers and sunbathers. An ironic mix of men in camouflage, rucksacks and binoculars on one hand, and nut brown naturists on the other. They are like dancers on a ballroom floor, each in their own space, each aware of the other while trying to imagine the pristine place is theirs alone. The islands also attract yachtsmen and a famous sailing centre is based there. The only industry apart from the tourism and that can hardly justify the name, as amenities are kept to a minimum. There is no traffic, hardly any buildings - two small restaurants, ancient fortifications - and when the steamers depart for home, the Glenans are quiet save for the gulls and waves breaking on the windward beaches. I was determined to at least circumnavigate the reef and we enjoyed the running and reaching in the warm September breeze after the early start and brisk two hour transit. The Crew however have a different agenda. They are also keen for a run ashore to explore what there is and do some foraging. So it is, we luff up, drop the hook and haul the sails down to the deck. Once the dinghy is deployed they scramble over the side with bucket and net for a spot of hunting. They were after shell fish and prawns, muscles, scallops and unsuspecting shallow sea dwellers, perhaps crab or eel. There's the harpoon too. They mean business.

From the peace of the moorings, except the wind slating in the rigging, I can make out their simple forms like two chess pieces, stalking the tide line and wading deliberately to and fro in the rocky shallows. One dipping low, reaching under a ledge, or one lunging to retrieve the harpoon. Happy as children, primitive as cannibals in the south seas. We've done this for millennia, hunting, and to watch two young hominids about this ancient work is to observe a ritual that begat tool making, planning and man's eventual rise from the swamps. Better drop a bottle of muscadet over to chill on a line. It'll be seafood chowder tonight.