Snork Maiden redux

Sorry no picture but I returned to SM yesterday to find 4 customs blokes (1 female bloke) crowding out our little boat. Apparently they wanted to know if we had any 'soporificants'. No - not even any medicinal brandy. they were impressed with our papers, though, in a nice plastic wallet! But here's the scary bit - they were in a plain clothes launch, not a marked customs boat. Never seen that before! Our theory is that they can't afford to run the real thing, although they are clearly keeping themselves in business by going after innocent pleasure yachties 4 at a time! We have a good forecast up until Thursday night when it all goes pear-shaped with a NW 5-6. But we should be able to get 120 M under our keel before then. Where will that get us? Not completely sure - could be Ile de Groix or Glenans. Next big challenge Raz du Sein. BFN shipmates.

Boyardville Mon August 23, 2010 Inside the boat, after lunch. The temperature is around 28ºC, wind 10Kn from the South and expected to increase later, and it’s raining. It’s likely (more than) that we won’t get away until Wednesday morning. There are gales in Biscay and we have to wait for them to pass through. Unfortunately the winds are in the right direction for us, just too much of them! When it lessens in force, it will also swing against us. C’est la vie du marin! Al’s playing guitar and I’m doing this & trying to get my programme proposals ready for Sheffield Docfest. Al thinks we look very serious in the pix. We are having a good time - promise! We had our first big fight after an impeccable entry into La Rochelle. All stupid stuff and amounts to feeling mis-understood. Not helped by Al being deaf in one ear and my voice squeaking to panic octaves when all I am doing is trying to make myself heard. He thinks: why is she screaming at me? She thinks: why isn't h...

21 August Boyardville, Plage des Salmonettes Great beach with sun umbrellas, beach bat 'n ball, bodies of all shapes sizes and colours from black to lobster red, to delicate white with shell pink patches.

Boyardville, Ile d'Oleron, France We arrived in France on Tuesday 17 and managed to leave our 'home' port of Marans on Thursday - fastest ever take-off for us. Things mo0stly working except perhaps for engine everheat alarm, so will have to be vigilant about this. We made straight for La Rochelle, Minimes - had a bit of technology shoppinbg to do after failure to pack XD card for camera (this camera this is so accident prone, I sometimes thing we shouldn't do it!) La R busy as usual. We hire yellow bikes, complete our mission and decide to leave the next day for Oleron. Weather forecasts a bit mixed but generally we are looking at thunderstorms ( last night ), North westerlies (wrong direction) or South westerlies ( right direction but a tad too strong). Boyardville is a cut holiday destination, very busy, rafted to 4 other boats yesterday but many will leave today. We are going to the beach, reading, relaxing, Al catching up on a huge sleep defecit. Tonight ...

A Meditation on servicing Winches Well hi there, shipmates. I’m not quite sure what a literary meditation should look like (or read like?) but here’s what I thought when I was servicing the starboard sheet winch. What’s a winch, I hear? It’s a big hunk of metal full of moving parts, large and small – an assembly of cogs, shafts and bearings, and tiny bits called er, I forget what they’re called but they are extremely important! Wait a minute, I’ll look it up – yeah, ‘pawls’. And what does it do? It is a modern day replacement for block and tackle. It’s shaped like an old-fashioned cotton reel, with flanges top and bottom. You wrap a rope around it 3 times, clockwise, put a pull on it so there’s some tension, pop a handle thingy in the hope at the top and wind away. As if by magic, sails are lifted, jibs sheeted. Ours even go at 2 speeds (different amounts of mechanical advantage, like bike gears). And once a year they need servicing. W...