Going to radio silence...

J hijacking 'our' blog to send out a quick thank you to those who have helped make this, the first of many journeys on the Goodbye George, possible...

Now, this is not some tearful Gwyneth at the Oscars type thing, although if you want to imagine me super scrawny in a designer frock, go for your life ;-)

The Family
The Howells did not expect their invite for us to stay while we were looking for our vessel to extend to quite so many months, but we really enjoyed being with you this summer and can't wait to return the favour as soon as possible. And that was after moving to France to do whatever was needed, when it was needed... Thanks for all the hospitality, advice, extra pairs of hands, laundry, the list goes on!

The Greens combined their work with dog sitting, continued their work by making sets of black out curtains, and dropped their work to deliver our van to Lagny at a moments notice, Skyped through every lunch break to keep my head together... Again, not an exhaustive list in any way!

Brother and sisters who are all there to give love and support to us both when we need it, as well as incredibly insightful advice whenever x

Beth - my voice of reason and very dear friend and Godmother x

The Medics
Those officially 'on my case' - Superstars one and all.
Others - Boylands et al - thanks for being there to Skype me down from my ledge etc, one day I will write that thesis on brain tumours, just to impress you!

The Friends
What a support network it was, during the messy, unwell months and beyond! I took down my get well cards just the other day, but I reread them all and I'm so grateful to have you all in my life. What a very lucky girl I am!
And then, only great friends would offer to receive all our mail, scan every page for email - and then keep doing it for 6 months when the offer was only for 3!!! Stares family, we salute you x

A - words escape me; my rock, my best friend, my love...

And so, with this message, we are going to radio silence, until the Goodbye George heads out on the next journey.

Over, but definitely not out!

L'Isle de Porquerolles to Saint Raphael

19/11/2012

The noise of the wind accross the channel down those hollow aluminium masts was similar to blowing accross the neck of a glass bottle, and the clanking of rigging has been no more restful over the last couple of days, so waking up this morning to silence was decidedly eery.

Finally, the wind has calmed down, so all systems go!

Having received an offer af a mooring in Saint Raphael, we have decided to bypass St Tropez and head straight there to check it out. J a bit disappointed to miss out on St Trop - painted toenails especially as sure we'd not have been let in otherwise, but hey-ho!!

Skies are overcast, but the sea is calm.

As we crossed in front of the entrance to Toulon, a large Naval port, we realised we were being shadowed by a rather large Destroyer. We did a double check on the info coming in over the NavTex, about a no go zone where torpedoes were being tested, but we definitely weren't in it!!! Altering course slightly on the auto pilot and pushing up the revs a bit shook the Destroyer off our tail, but he was replaced by a gun-toting chopper in no time; after 3 fly-bys he too let us go without incident.

The rest of the journey passed without incident, and we were met on the quay in Port Santa Lucia by one of the port guys, who helped us moor and then gave us all the info to settle in.

So there we are - in our winter berth. Already we met other live-a-boards on our pontoon and we are really pleased at having found an available spot in such a great place!

The Porquerolles

18-19/11/12

The wind blew an absolute hoolie all through the night, so we were pretty sure we were still not going anywhere today - on the water that is. On land we had an island to explore!

Gorgeous little boat!

Birthday boy x

We're moored on the outer wall

 We strolled up to the military fort, having read about it in the pilot as follows:

Sometime way back the French had a team guarding the island from the fort, but they got a bit forgotten by those on the mainland. The Brits were still trying to take France for themselves, but were roundly beaten. As they slunk off they stopped at the Porquerolles, advising the man in charge that France was lost so no point fighting, come on down to the boat for a cheeky drink and no blood will be shed. The Frenchman, unable to resist a tot, went quietly at which point the Brits burned the fort and sailed off with the Frenchman as hostage.

At the Fort was posted a history:

Way back when, after being humiliated on the mainland the Brits burned the fort after much debauchery acted upon the many virgins living on the island.

I paraphrase, but you catch my drift ;-)

Storming the Bastille!

Sadly we were out of season so many areas of the fort usually open to visitors were closed - sounds like an excuse to return in the summer!

We also checked out the little windmill, renovated beautifully and strolled along white sandy beaches - if you dig under the winter flotsam to find the sand - which Roxy did with much enthusiasm!!

A lovely day out for A's - ahem - 21st with a tasty lunch at one of the open restaurants.

Weather forecast for tommorrow is looking better so we might be off to pastures new!

La Ciotat to l’Ile de Porquerolles

16/11/12

Not quite the early start we wanted (it was a quiet night out by usual standards when catching up with the Gardeners, but fuzzy heads this morning nonetheless!) but we were underway by 10.15 – and as we left the port A peered over the side and lost his spare set of specs into the drink! Oops! Now its the blind leading the blind!!!

Again we’ve got our course programmed into the GPS units and the auto pilot is doing the hard work. With less distance to cover we knocked the engines back to 1300 RPM and were getting a steady 6.4kts.

Surely home to a Bond villain?!

We passed across the bay giving access to Toulon, a large naval base, and had a number of fly-bys from a military aircraft, and we kept well clear of the frigate out on the horizon. There was a huge superyacht out doing sea trials whose profile matched a client of As but we couldn’t read the name to confirm or deny.

Today there was more chop than yesterday, which served to hide a large floating tree trunk until it was too late to take effective avoiding action. It made a horrible noise as it thudded along the underside, but the props and rudders didn’t miss a beat. After mooring A attached the camera to the boat hook and took some film to make sure all was in order down below and gave it the all clear. Despite the chop, Roxy picked a sunny spot on the fly bridge and lounged out for the whole journey!

This time response on the VHF on approach to the port was not only immediate, but they didn’t wait for us to ask for a spot! We identified ourselves to them, and they immediately sent us onto the visitors pontoon – again the moorings are stern-to, but this time its old hat and we were ashore in no time.

Again, not cheap or over endowed with facilities – and the island is a ghost town, with only the tourist office open all day! But the island lifestyle is reminiscent of our time in the Seychelles, and funny little golf buggies seem to be the vehicle of choice (no Mokes, but have seen a Mehari!).

We had a visit from customs again, and they advised if any provisions were needed we should head to the mainland due to the prices, and opening hours out of season! Still, although we only intended to stay a night, strong winds blew up and there was no way we were chancing our luck in 25kt winds so settled in for a roast and a movie, and we’ll see what tomorrow holds, apart from A’s birthday!! 

Port St Louis to La Ciotat

15/11/2012

We were up early and off before 9 – the deck hand bringing in the fenders for the first time in quite a while!!
We had our course programmed into both the onboard GPS navigator and the new hand held, and did the whole trip on the auto pilot, which behaved itself perfectly.

A sad sight...

After the storm which had us holed up in Port St Louis for a few days there were plenty of large logs to steer round, but it was a new experience to not be at the helm all day, even if we were both ‘on watch’. The swell was pretty low, and any chop caused by the low wind had no effect so J was relieved her tummy behaved during the first sea outing, and Roxy took a while to settle but remained calm throughout.

The steadying sail

At a steady 1400 RPM we were making speeds of between 6.3 and 6.9kts so by 3pm we had rounded the Cap de l’Aigle – a rock headland which looks like an eagle’s beak – and now to dodge the various fishing net buoys in order to make it into the port.

No response over the VHF for a spot so we proceeded in anyway; moorings are stern-to with a lazy-line so required quite a lot of faffing before disembarkation was possible: lower tender, boat hook the lazy line (a heavy chain), find a rope to attach lazy line as this one doesn’t have one, untie passerelle and rig it to boom for craning (repeat last when the pulley broke off the boom – lucky we had a choice of spares!). First ever use of the passerelle, and Roxy was straight off the boat without even blinking – quite a feat of bravery for her!

Casualty – A’s favourite specs got caught in the crossfire while installing the passerelle, but may as well have been steamrollered!

The port for little boats in La Ciotat is not cheap (and we’re out of season) and there are very few conveniences, but the town looks very different to when A was working here regularly. The promenade overlooking the basins is being remodelled, and the Eden Theatre – where the first movie was shown – is being restored.

It was great to catch up with friends from a boat over in the big boys yard, and in the morning we wished we’d have tried our luck over in the yacht club as it was pretty rock and roll! Only problem is the quay is so high over there we’d have had even more trouble getting off the boat!

Port St Louis du Rhone

11/11/12 to 14/11/12


We woke on Sunday morning to see the Brit crew still in their berth despite their assurances of yesterday evening that they were off at first light; turns out that although we had exchanged plenty of info, an important element had been overlooked – 11^th November is a bank holiday and the lock was not in operation.
Fortunately it did give them more time to quiz us about the routes, as they had intended to take the Canal du Centre route so we could at least advise them to plan otherwise!

The weather stayed clear and we put up the mast and rigging, and got up to speed on the weather – thanks to some friends in the biz we had access to their weather station info, which showed we weren’t going anywhere for a wee while.

We said our farewells to the boys on Annabelle, and yet the next morning there they were! Now the lock was working, but the river was closed to non commercial vessels as flooding upriver was causing crazy currents! Thank goodness we had decided to put our foot down and get into the sea before the 11^th or who knows where we’d be moored now!

As it is, Port St Louis seems pretty rough on the face of things, but a huge facelift is being carried out around the port, and without fail every local we met was really nice, and we had a great meal out. When we took a hike to the chandlery to get a hand held GPS, the unit didn’t come with the PC cable as advertised in the catalogue, and the guy said if we didn’t have one lying around he’d bring us one from home!

By this time Annabelle’s crew were considering a coastal hop to Sete and taking the Canal du Midi to the Atlantic and delivering the boat that way, so J made a call to the VNF for them to check if it was open. Same old story there, the first person says it’s open, not a problem, but when we said we had seen somewhere it was closed they looked a bit harder and it had been closed for 2 weeks already and would stay that way til after Christmas! Fortunately for the boys the river slowed significantly overnight and on the morning of the 15^th they were gone by the time we surfaced. Bon voyage to Dean and his crew!

Caderousse Lock to Port St Louis du Rhone

10/11/12

6am and there’s a lot of noise outside; a different pusher is there to pick up the double load and off they go! Back to sleep!

Today’s itinerary is fixed in stone, and we need to try to avoid any delays if possible; tomorrow is a bank holiday - no locks will be functional, so we need to get to Port St Louis and the Med!

Just before 8 we see the lock lights go into prep mode so we called the keeper to ask if we could pass with the imminent arrival. It was a slow one this morning but we got through with the barge, and kept up with him without too much effort to the next lock.

Here as we are all ready to move off, nothing happened when the light turned green – the pro was half asleep in front of us, and eventually moved off, with us hot on his tail.

As we approached the last big lock on the Rhone, the barge backed right off so we held back too, and we waited at the canal mouth for a barge to come out before proceeding forward. Here there was another plaisancier moored to the waiting pontoon, but the lock wasn’t ready for us and took a while to prepare, so we were surprised there was no-one coming up when eventually the gates opened. Once the barge was in, we hung back to let the other guy in front, and he eventually moved in – all the while we have an enormous barge breathing down our necks, but he had to wait his turn as we tied on to our last floating bollard of the trip.


Again, the barge driver was caught napping (or lunching?!) when the lights turned green, but eventually moved out. We again followed him easily until he turned off onto the Petit Rhone – all the while chatting on VHF 10 with a guy coming out, about where to moor to get the car off in order to take the kids to school on Monday morning!! Eventually someone asked them to change channel, and silence resumed over the air waves.

By the time we reached the turning into the Canal du Rhone a Fos (commercial vessels only) the huge barge who had been held up behind us at the last lock was looming large in our rear view, so we breathed a sigh of relief when he announced his exit stage left into the canal.

According to our guide book, to French speakers the lock into Port St Louis is open at very specific times, one listed as 16.30 – and we were there at 16.15. The English ‘translation’ states it is open from 5am to 9pm non-stop. The VHF channel listed was also not correct.

Still, when we pulled into the waiting pool the lock began to prepare, and over VHF it was confirmed they were preparing for us; moving into the lock the current was crazy – pushing us away from the side so tying on was tricky, and although there were huge bollards on the side, there were also short sliding rails below so we tied first to a rail, and then we put an extra line on the bollard, in case the current continued to play a part.

We stood around, wondering if the mechanism was broken, when all of a sudden the bridge over the exit gate began to lift. We had dropped all of 15cm – that second line was overkill for sure!!

We motored out into the tranquil pool of Port St Louis - facing down a rather large, bright yellow container ship - and moored side to behind a British flagged sailing yacht – before 5pm, job done!

Whilst we have reached the end of a (big) section of our first journey, it turns out that the boat behind us – crewed by three guys finishing their summer season in the Greek Islands – is about to return to the UK via the same route; it wasn’t the same route at first, but as we could advise them on the closure of the canal du Centre, they quickly re-evaluated their route, and hopefully the list of stops we put their way will be helpful. Good luck guys!

Statistics for this, the first of Goodbye George’s Journeys: more than 1900km and 340 locks!

Now we’ll just settle in and wait for some weather windows before heading out into the sea and making a run for home. Lesson learned from crossing the channel, there’s plenty to do to get the boat ready for the sea, and it will be nice to take it out of stealth mode by putting the mast back up!