Off again, heading for the sun

Moondance spent the winter on the hard at Northshore in Chichester where she was built 10 years ago. I took her to get some work done on her rudders which turned into rather more than I had bargained for! When the boat was out of the water the yard noticed a wobble in the lifting keel which turned out to be a worn bearing in the keel lifting mechanism. The fix -  remove the entire keel mechanism  to replace one bearing and put it all back together again, a pretty major job! It all took a lot longer than expected and it became touch and go whether she would be ready for departure day. Still, after a bit of stress and a big hole in my pocket she was ready for launch day at the beginning of May.

It did allow for the opportunity of a couple of good photos of the keel mechanism, with the keel down and on the right the keel raised.

 













Melanie and I had a lovely long weekend with Tim and his girlfriend Lucy sailing on the Solent.

I planned to head south this year , over to Brittany , down the french coast and on to Spain and Portugal. Melanie is joining me for most of the adventure this year but my friend and becoming long standing sailing partner Mike is joining me for at the first stretch.

Mike and I left Chichester on a beautiful sunny evening on Monday 23 May for the 70 mile crossing to Cherbourg on the Normandy peninsular of France. It was an uneventful crossing; light winds at times meant motoring for about 2/3rds of the trip but we did get to Cherbourg in time for croissants for breakfast! However, there was one thing Mike just had to do before getting the croissant – test the pleasures a quick dip in Cherbourg harbour! It is a big step down from the boat to the marina pontoon and in his enthusiasm to get to the boulangerie he stumbled as he stepped down, fell forward, executed a perfect roll and plopped into the drink on the far side of the pontoon! Torn between looking after the boat whilst rolling around laughing and leaving the boat unsecured to help Mike, Mike won the day and I leapt down to help hoik him out, somewhat bedraggled but no worse for wear. Being Mike he was soon laughing about it!

After drying Mike out we spent the day exploring Cherbourg and doing some investigation into the next adventure, a trip to the Normandy beaches. We found the railway station and went to buy the tickets for tomorrows trip. We tackled an automatic ticket machine, muddling through with our school boy french only to find that the train we wanted, whilst on the screen, didn't seem for sale. The ticket office solved our problem – of course, this is France, the trains were on strike! They strike so often that there is a law insisting they provide a minimal service when on strike so the country doesn't regularly grind to a halt so we got the only train available, somewhat earlier.

Wednesday dawned a sunny windy day for an early start to catch the train, an hour to Bayeaux of tapestry fame. What a beautiful town, lovely old cobbled streets and a spectacular cathedral. Then of course I had to see the tapestry (Mike had visited some years earlier). The tapestry is 70 metres long (and about 1/2m high). Made in England shortly after the battle , it depicts the Norman invasion by William conqueror. King Edward  of England who was getting on a bit, wanted to name his cousin William, Duke of Normandy as his successor. Edward sent his brother in law Harold to tell William. There were a few shenanigans on the way but Harold did his stuff and returned to England. Edward soon died but rather than wave the Frenchie in through the gates of London Harold decided he fancied the top job and crowned himself king of England in stead. William took umbrage at this and put a force together in France to claim his rightful place on the thrown of England. Over they came and had the well known punch up at Hastings in the summer of 1066 where Harold was famously killed by an arrow in his eye. The whole story is beautifully told in simple Loweryesque (is that a word?) style in the tapestry. At sometime a century or two after its manufacture the tapestry found its way to Bayeaux, lucky for the frogs who now charge £6 a look from a huge line of visitors throughout the year!

Touristy bit done we jumped on our bikes and headed North to Aramanche and Sword beach, the western most of the 3 beaches stormed by the British on D Day.

Today it is just a beach, not awfully big, about half a mile long. Huge concrete pontoons built in England were floated across the channel to build a big semi circular harbour known as a Mulberry harbour. Although now resting on the bottom, these still stand testament to man's ability to fashion nature to meet his needs. If you look out across the bay you can just make out the remaining pontoons forming a semi circle; one of them settled much closer to shore.

We cannot begin to understand the horrors faced by the 10,000 young men who stormed that beach all those years ago but close your eyes and you can imagine a vast array of ships large and small and the beach covered in ant like figures fighting their way up the beach. The Germans built what was known as the Atlantic Wall from Norway to Spain, a line of concrete and guns to defend against this day. Much of the concrete has been removed but there are many war artifacts dotted around to help imagine the scene.

From Sword beach we headed west the 10 miles to Omaha, the first of the American beaches. There are of course a lot of museums and artifacts but the beach lies still and undisturbed today, the only sign of what happened 70 years ago being a monument to the young Americans who died here rising out of the sand.



Their bodies lie a mile or so along the coast in a beautifully kept cemetery – some corner of a foreign field that is forever….

It was a fabulously successful invasion, meticulously planned over many months. Even the death toll was regarded as a success. The Americans copped it worst; 70,000 men landed on D Day with 6,500 casualties (killed and wounded). Of the 81,000 Brits and Canadians who landed there was only an incredible 3,300 casualties.

Back on the bikes for a few more miles to the station home where we sank a cold beer to congratulate ourselves on clocking nearly 50 miles and a train back to the boat.

More sun and more wind (unexpectedly behind us joy of joys!), on Thursday we headed for Alderney, the northern most of the Channel Islands. In the pub when we got in we met a potting fisherman for an interesting chat and the promise of some crab if we met him tomorrow.

The island is one huge fortress; forts that we guessed are from the Napoleonic wars dot the coast line interspersed with vast numbers of concrete German bunkers and gun emplacements. One in particular rises from a hill to be a terrible blot on the landscape. I am surprised that the locals have not removed these continual reminders of a bad part of island history. Alderney was evacuated in 1940 a week before it was invaded by Germany. 3000 civilian prisoners brought over from Europe built all the defences, 700 of them died.

All this German concrete and a tough environment for anything to grow well gives the island a rather drab feel. We did have a nice and somewhat unusual bike ride round the island, a grand total of 11 miles (its not a very big island), partly along the coastal path!

We met up with our fisherman friend and got 4 fine looking crabs, still live and kicking. A couple of mackerel caught on the trip south to the island of Sark made for a wonderfully fish dinner.