La Hirondelle 6

 

In France, as in the UK, a bank holiday adds a day to this weekend. With another to follow next weekend. A canny week in which to invest a working person's precious holiday allowance, in messing about in boats.

A trip to the coast beckons, for city dwellers.

Boats are in from Dieppe, Fecamp and Ouistreham. As well as a passage maker from Finland. They quickly fill the newly reassembled finger berths. No wonder the marina work crew had set about their task with such a will.

And it is as well that they did. For, in the small hours of the morning, an English race fleet ghosted in on faint zephyrs. After an eighteen hour passage from Cowes. The first boats home occupied the few remaining fingers.

The following pack, found what space they could around the port. Whether they were venerable varnished head turners. . . . .

. . . . Or the the latest wave skimming flying machines. Their futuristic form dictated by function.

Crews busily tend to their charges, in the mid morning sun. Having tumbled below, on arrival. Sails lightly lashed, mooring lines all ahoo. Sleep their priority.

Tomorrow's forecast is for the breeze to fill in, from the west. A headwind. But the Baie de la Seine is broad (for tacking) and a fair tide should be our friend, for much of the day. As Stargazer seeks to flip the face, of the French coin, from its architecturally most modern to its most traditional.

La Hirondelle 5

 

The broad, cherry blossom garlanded, boulevards, threaded with busy cycle ways, put me in mind of Den Haag.

An impression reinforced by the trams. Gliding through canyons of rectilinear concrete. Silent save for the chime of their bells, which announce their stops and starts.

Le Havre is a thoroughly modern city. Rebuilt from the ruins of war, to a grand design conceived by Auguste Perret.

It is certainly European, in appearance. If not quintessentially French, to this tourist's eye. 

Today, billows of sea fog stray in from the docks. Roaming through the streets, like lost sailors on a shore run. Milling about St Joseph's high cross, one moment.

Replaced by bright pools of sunshine, the next. 

Off the pier head, the ever active Oppies gather. Waiting until the coast is clear.

As a world-girdling container ship, decks stacked high with boxes, steams sedately by. To be quickly swallowed by the haze, beyond the sea wall.

La Hirondelle 4

 

Oppies (Optimist dinghies), expertly handled by their youthful helms, career about the harbour. Riding the gusts, which spill down from its walls, with aplomb. Reading the tell tale ripples on the water.

In truth, Stargazer is moored in a wind raked spot. Out on the far end of the visitors' pontoon. On arrival, it was our only choice. The inner fingers loosely lashed, into a raft, awaiting attachment to the main walkway. Today, a crew are busily bolting them in place. Ready for summer's arrivals. 

It is Stargazer's first visit to Le Havre. As I find my bearings (a good baguette shop and a source of fresh fruit and vegetables,) the clouds clear from around St Joseph's head. And I realise that this morning, for the first time since leaving Chatham, I have not felt a need to run the cabin heater.

La Hirondelle 3

 

The 'red eye' ferry sails half an hour behind Stargazer. The rising sun searing a molten slit, through low grey cloud. Clambering atop the tall cliffs to announce the dawning of a new day.

Glinting off the sharply creased buttresses, of the chalk. Casting deep shadows in the crevices. As it climbs higher. Burning away the early morning murk.

As the villages, sheltering in the, abruptly curtailed, hanging valleys awake. Nestled amongst wind break trees. Looking out to sea across rolling green pasture.

Stargazer flies west. Reaching in sixteen to twenty one knots of southerly breeze. A favourable tide beneath her. Tucking reefs in and out, to stay on her feet. The breeze sometimes funneling through the valleys. Other times spilling from the cliff tops.

Sweeping close inshore, for a better view. . . . . .

. . . . .of the sharp pointed stacks, and lofty arches, sculpted by the sea.

 The Channel tide is about to turn east. But around Cap d'Antifer a new fair tide awaits. The flood of the Seine. Stargazer hardens up onto a beat, around the point. Shoulder down, making seven knots over the ground. Two reefs in the main.

Sweeping into Le Havre. After a brief radio conversation, with Port Control. To discover whether the red traffic control lights, in the port entrance, apply to leisure craft. Answer: "Non. Mais tirez a nord." 

As Stargazer berths, the morning murk returns. Swallowing the cross, on the lighthouse-inspired bell tower of St Joseph's Church.

 

La Hirondelle 2

 

The delights of Dieppe; a working port where seafarers, of every calling, mingle companionably.

Where a warm, four storey, ochre painted facade tops the lichen-grown stone walls of the quay.

City life slows its pace, lighten its step a little, as it reaches the waterfront.

Salt stained trawlers scurry about their business. Day and night. With always a tide to catch, nets to shoot and to haul.

That each boat's smartly named stall (sign written in the style of the mother ship) might be kept fully stocked. For the eagerly waiting market goers. In a nation, in which, wriggling fresh seafood is a way of life.

The Newhaven to Dieppe ferry steams into the outer harbour. Dwarfing the pier head. Sounding a resonant blast upon her horn.

To seaward, beyond the storm mounded shingle beach, a dredger is shepherded in by the Dieppe Pilot.

The eagle eyed Port Control coordinating manoeuvres, from their cliff top eerie.

Until both vessels are berthed. A diminutive aluminium workboat (far right) carrying out mooring lines, to secure Seven Sisters to the shore. Whilst, the scarlet sided, Duzgit Harmony, after craning two giant fenders over the side, employs the aid of the stiff north breeze (blowing from left to right), to lay her neatly alongside the ferry .

Stargazer maintains the working ethos, of the port, by drying the past week's hand washing. Streaming from lines strung in her foretriangle. Proud to count herself a part of this diverse fellowship of the sea. Preparing to catch the morning tide.

La Hirondelle

 By sunrise, Stargazer is midway across the west bound shipping lane. Locking out of Eastbourne before daybreak. Beachy Head merely a more substantial blur of grey, within the shadows of twilight, as we reached south, to clear of the Royal Sovereign shoals.

Before easing sheets, steering south south east. Skipping lightly across the swell. Making seven knots, under full main and jib. Sixteen knots of north west breeze on the starboard quarter.

The shipping lanes seem busy today. Perhaps there is a maritime Monday morning rush hour effect, in the Straits of Dover?

Stargazer crosses astern of a cluster of ships bound down Channel. All passing a mile clear. (The closest one wants to pass one of these, none too maneuverable, juggernauts of the deep). Or perhaps their watch officers made it easy for us. For, crossing this lane, Stargazer is 'stand on vessel,' with right of way. Although this is not something a recreational sailing yacht may presume upon, when in the presence of large commercial craft.

 Ahead, the traffic headed up Channel musters, three abreast. In this lane Stargazer is 'give way' vessel. One ship (foreground, with the green slash forward) is in a hurry. Pulling out to overtake two others. Putting her on a constant bearing (collision course) with Stargazer. I harden up, letting the west going tide carry us astern of her, by the regulation mile. Before resuming Stargazer's course.

On the horizon I sight, what I take to be, a very large tanker a long way off (as opposed to a regular sized tanker too close for comfort). It is difficult to decide whether it is safe to cross ahead of her. But the AIS software, on our new B&G Zeus plotter, calculates that the Closest Point of Approach (CPA) will be the magical mile. Indicating that the watch officer has already minutely adjusted course to go astern of us. 

It is an anxious half hour, never the less, as Stargazer crosses the leviathan's bow. The view, in my binoculars, is filled by the bulbous bow 'ram.' Both sides of the ship equally visible.The ship's angle never seeming to change. Coming for us, head on.

Slowly but surely, though, more and more of her starboard side is revealed. I celebrate with a pot of coffee, when it becomes clear that Stargazer has safely crossed ahead.

Stargazer romps south. Reveling in the conditions. Surfing on the building swell, as the breeze rises, backing west. A sluicing east going tide adding further to our speed.

Stargazer carves a foaming white wake across a sparkling blue seas. Through the morning and on into the afternoon. In a joyous carefree sleigh ride.

The French coast becomes a smudge on the skyline. Our courtesy, and customs pratique, flags are hoisted ready for landfall.

Like the first migratory Swallow (in French: Hirondelle) of summer, Stargazer has followed the fair breeze and sunshine south. To alight in Dieppe. Her shakedown excursion now become the cruise proper.

Spring Chicken 11

 

Spring is enduring a troubled adolescence. Teetering theatrically between today's weeping wintry skies; as the Eastbourne Lifeboat puts to sea, for Sunday crew training.

And the beaming summery smiles, of yesterday's sunshine. When barely a ripple came ashore, on the shingle beach, and paddlers drifted dreamily beyond the bleached wooden groynes.

Tomorrow, a passage making breeze is forecast. Eighteen to twenty knots from the west. Placing Chichester directly in the eye of the wind. But offering the prospect of a broad reach into Dieppe. 

Spring Chicken 10

 

"Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh." A clinker built pot boat genially circulates the harbour. Fresh caught shellfish on offer to visiting sailors. 

Stargazer slipped out of Dover before the dawn. Riding west on the new turned tide and fourteen knots of north east breeze. The residual swell, from the three day blow, gently rolling through beneath her. Dawn breaks hesitantly. Lowering black skies to landward. Brighter to seaward.

Dark wins over light. The wind swings easterly (still fair). Rain falls, hard and determinedly. The spring tide reaches peak flow. Sluicing Stargazer westward, ever quicker.

Past the desolate shingle spit, of Dungeness. With its blocky power stations, tended by handmaiden pylons.

Then, Stargazer hangs stationary. Rising and falling on the swell. Deserted by the wind, the tide an hour from changing, contemplating the light tower. Which blinks determinedly, in an effort return our gaze, through the murk.

Abruptly, the wind swings north. Stargazer heels then accelerates. Romping westward once more.

Autopilot, braving the rain, at the helm.

Whilst I stand watch, from the shelter of the companionway. A perpetual pot of coffee propped upright in the sink ; and a simmering pan of hot sweet rice pudding on the stove. To provide inner warmth and cheer.

Stargazer hugs the shore, of Hastings Bay. Seeking the shallows. The better to cheat the adverse tide. Still making between four and five knots over the ground. The skies clearing as we pass the town.

Beachy Head now visible on the horizon (to the left of the jib). The sun breaks through, whilst I rig fenders for the lock. 

Stargazer has arrived in Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne. Beneath blue skies.