Ocean40

La Rochelle to Rochefort:- fascinating

Part1 – getting out in a hurry

Scruffy’s boat

Our next door neighbour, who we shall call Monsieur Scruffy on account of the state of himself and boat, was a genial guy with large frame and beard. Comfortable with being a Mr Scruffy he tells us he is off due to forthcoming lack of water.

Now I’m always wary of boat crews “with all the right gear”. Conversely Scruffy’s well used appearance tells me he knew a thing or two and if he thought he was running out of water then it’s worth checking out.

Filibuster tells me that there is a comfy 1.4m under the keel: my calculations tell me tide had 1.6m to fall. Scruffy was right, time to move on.

A crash brekky and off we go, headed, as is Scruffy, to Rochefort. Ancient one time strategic port of the French Navy..

The tides were on springs (when the levels reach their highest and fall to their lowest). And in particular these were big springs.In fact the second largest of the year: high tide of 6.6m and a low tide of 0.6m above datum.

Why does this matter? Well on the approaches to La Rochelle there are areas where the charted depth is just 0.5m below datum. Add the low tide level of 0.6m gives us only 1.1m of water at low tide.

We left at 1038 with, in theory, 1.9m of water above datum + minimum charted depth of 0.5m = 2.4m. Comfortably above the 2m Filibusters requires.

But it was windy, we dithered getting the boat ready, the tide went out further and by the time we reached the shallow bits it was 1105 and the tide had fallen a further 0.4m

Do the maths: 2.4m – 0.4m = 2.0m Bang on our draught.

Richeleu port mark on the way out: Man fishing. High tide mark 6m above him

The gods looked favourably on us: we didn’t bottom out but it was close….buttock clenchingly close…..especially when the depthometer read 0.00m under keel….

Moral of the story: heed Scruffy.

And the rest of the journey was a delight.

Heed Scruffy, study your charts carefully, don’t wander off the fairway. This shot taken from Fouras on 14th August of a not so lucky skipper

Part 2 – Fort Boyard

This part of the world included strategic ports (including La Rochelle)and Naval Installations (Rochefort) and as such required significant and hugely expensive defences to stop those pesky Brits invading.

Said pesky Brits were at the same time building significant and hugely expensive defences to stop those pesky Frenchies doing the same.

All in all a bit of an arms race and all around the coast of France are to be found massive forts (citadelles) designed to blast to pieces any invading ships.

South of La Rochelle, in a bay protected by Ile D’Oleron to the West is Fort Boyard. Started in  1804 and finished in 1859 (yess 55 years!) it was designed to protect the waters between Ile Doleron to the West and Il D’Aix to the east.

Fort Boyard, Ile D’Oleron shores 1 mile away

These 2 islands, barely 3miles apart have significant defences of their own, but canon capability of the day meant that the centre of the straight was out of range and therefore a weakness.

Cue Fort Boyard. Built at enormous cost (including building the small town of Boyardville) it took 55 years to complete. Essentially it is an island fort with nearly all of its guns facing into the straights between the islands.

taking a good look at Boyard

It was never fully commissioned. In the intervening years naval gunnery range and accuracy improved so much that its initial raison d’etre became obsolete.

Recently it has been used by TV crews from over 20 nations to films the TV game quiz Crystal Maze.

Part 3 up the Charente River to Rochefort

If you like your rivers to look like white coffee, then the Charente is for you – undoubtedly the muddiest river I’ve ever come across.

river – flowing IN !

But if you like pootling up river and admiring the bankside flaura, fauna and things of interest then you won’t like the Charente.

With absolute minimal sail we were sluiced up on the incoming tide at up to 7.4kn. But sail we did for all but a couple of hundred metres when the wind wouldn’t allow it.

Along the banks are many sheds on stilts built for the purpose of catching whatever is swimming around at high tide.

The river winds, this way, then that way, then the other in an enormous loop… past the still fully operational transporter bidge

….with many leading marks to help navigate the twists and turns :

leading lines D-D.

And finally to Rochefort itself, where the first impressive sights, out of many impressive sights, is the Hermione – fully restored ship of the line that will go to sea later this year

More to come from Rochefort in due course – it’s an absolute delight full of history, good food, fine markets and great ambience.

Hermione. Naughty Sailors sent up in the rigging

Hasta la vista Spain. For now.

It’s not what it seems.

I finally publish this wrap up of Spain almost a year on (14 Aug 18): The journey back was demanding and we lost interest in blogging.

Right now we are in Piriac sur Mer heading south, slowly, toward La Rochelle.

Onward from Ribadesella

28 Aug 2017. We’re back in France. We speak the lingo, we know the supermarkets and we are in the comfortable but dull Les Minimes Mega Marina.

To cover the rest of N Spain from Ribadesella onward:

Santander (via St Vincente de la Barquera ) 75nm

On St Vincente the pilot guide basically says don’t bother. We did bother and went in the hope of breaking up an otherwise very long haul to Santander.

St Vincente de la Barquera. The only suitable anchorage for a 2m yacht is in the area to the right of centre.

The guide was right. There is only one place to anchor and it was already full. Press on, it’s going to be a long day.

So we arrive around midnight at Santander. Of the first marina the guide says “it will be fruitless hoping to charge in, hoping for the best” and is again right. At midnight there is a security guard armed with a whistle and he knows how to use it.

It’s more than his jobsworth to let you stay, even though there were spaces clearly available.

Marina Del Cantabrico was all he could say. So orft we went a further 20 minutes away from the town. Marina Del Cantabrico has no guard, plenty of space etc. Crash out at around 1230 after 75nm in about 14 hrs…..

We met Timothy Spall and Shane 2 boats up taking their new boat down to the med.

We noted that it was probably a longer walk inside Gatwick than it was from the marina to the Airport

We slept like a log, but otherwise didn’t do anything but recover.

Laredo (25/29nm)

A massive investment has created a large and empty marina.

From the port office looking South

From the port office looking north. If you count out the pontoons we are on the furthest out (6th) on the left!

The journey here was wind on the nose for most of the way, reaching F6. A lively arrival aided by neighbours to get Filibuster secured.

Bilbao (20nm)

A quick check of the forecast for Bilboa showed rain. Curious, from sunny Laredo that didn’t seem right, and our destination was less than 20nm away.

Until we got the spelling right….

Our chosen marina was full, so we ended up in the outrageously priced (€54 a night) Puerto Getxo. Taking advantage of the free laundry big time seemed to make things better.

Navigator of the Seas by Royal Caribbean. It left after dark and it was impressive to see a whole town on the move.

It don’t think its called Boaty McBoatface, but I could be wrong

Mojo Lost at Sea!

It’s fair to say that after yet another non sail, we were beginning to wonder about Mojo and where it had gone to.

Things were not helped by the Bilbaon B***stard fly. Smaller than a mozzie we woke up before during and after the night being bitten to death. The resulting blisters were “angry”, itchy and bloody….grrr

We didn’t venture into the city….

Next stop Bermeo

Charming and pretty and very much Basque Country. Suddenly we are in another country. The language of which is so alien to Anglo/Spanish/French we can’t understand a word of it.

The old port and old harbour.

4 new finger berths for up to 8 visitors

So the new finger berths look OK, and are OK: water and electricity as normal.

The pilot guide is again out of date and has no mention of the above. Fortunately we have local knowledge from Jerry & Aggie.

And the things we should add to anyone coming this way are:

a) the locals are fishing fanatics

b) at all hours many of the boats in the first photo above head out to fish. Most at a speed that creates a significant wash. And they come back..

c) they all pass by your bow (or stern depending on which way you moored).

A recommendation is to moor stern in. We didn’t and our mojo took another knock that night.

And so farewell to Spain

In Bermeo we looked at the options. Option A was to carry on around the coast then head North along the French coast. Reaching the Gironde in around 10 days. Option B was to regard Bermeo as the closest point to the Gironde and go for it.

B won. We left aiming for Royan well after low tide. Motoring the whole way we got a bit too early for Royan and ended up across the way in peaceful Port Medoc.

Two days later we are in La Rochelle. Familiar places beckon and unless something interesting happens, this will probably be the last post.

Les Minimes. Nice but dull. The end of the adventure

Back to normal. In Spain the bikes were hardly used as most supermarkets are close to the port. In La Rochelle this is the track coming back from the more distant Carrefour

The end of the adventure

By the time the boat is parked both of us will have covered more than 1000nm. Virtually all under motor.

Here’s a summary of what we liked and didn’t like in Spain.

We liked

• The Spanish. Always friendly & helpful with a smile and good sense of humour
• The temperature: generally mid 20s
• Food – excellent seafood in Galica, great quality meats everywhere and never expensive.
• The scenery
• Cleanliness. Seems to be a passion
• No problem with the language. Quite often they don’t do English or French and we don’t do much Spanish. But if you want to buy a loaf of bread they want to sell you a loaf of bread. No problem.
• The scenery: often spectacular / mountainous. In more ways than one it’s like Ireland without the cold & rain.

We didn’t like

• The wind: always in the wrong direction and often on the nose with resultant unpleasant conditions
• Distances between stops can result in tiring days
• The amount spent on diesel: in a good season we can get away with €150, sailing as much as possible. This year, with adverse conditions we spent just under €1000 🙁

Should you be following in our footsteps maybe it’s worth thinking about doing the trip the other way round to get more favourable winds and currents. However the traditional winds will nearly always be on your stern, again uncomfortable 🙁

And will we go back?

With all those pros of course we will. Perhaps not with Filibuster