The Quarantine

 

The original harbour, at St Quay Portrieux, is also one of the town's three beaches.

A rock breakwater provides shelter to one side. A stone quay to the other.

At low water it dries completely. Moored keel boats all sport legs, to keep them upright.

Today the weekend streets are bustling.

It is a well turned out town, putting its best foot forward for visitors. . .

. . . locals. . .

. . . and second home owners alike.

It passes the 'baguette test,' for being lived in. The artisan, one euro forty, variety are available in the high street. The regular, fifty cent, variety at the supermarket up the hill. 

The semaphore, our first landmark on arrival, watches over town and harbour. A cliff base walk winding along the cliffs beneath it. My route back from the most scenic of supermarket shops.

Whilst I'm Googling directions to the supermarket, I notice that travellers returning from France are now required to quarantine, on reaching the UK. I had been idly contemplating crossing, to the British coast, from Cherbourg, on the way back. That doesn't look like an option now. Our first UK landfall will need to be Chatham. Stargazer's home port and where the house is, if we are to be quarantined.

Crossing from a mainland European port to Chatham, in a single passage, presents a tidal challenge. To have the Thames flood with you into the Medway, it is necessary to be off North Foreland at low water Sheerness. This requires the approach from Europe to be either cross tide, or from the north. That secures the assistance, or at least not the resistance, of the tide for the North Sea crossing. It means coming in from a Belgian port: Nieuwpoort, Oostende, Blankenberge or Zeebrugge. A new dimension to the cruise.

Tomorrow's tidal challenge is more local - to take Stargazer in through Paimpol's lock. At high water, the predictions give us point eight of a metre's clearance in the final approaches.