Bonjour tout le monde ! Today, we are writing this blog article from the french coast, after having croissants for breakfast… that feels good 🙂
The last 5 months have been for us a time of constant discovery and adventure. Everywhere we went, every new step along the way was something new to us and thus never really felt at home. Although that’s exactly what we signed up for, it is stressful and exhausting over the long run. Reaching for the first time, after 5 months, a home country and moreover, a place we’ve seen and sailed before is truly satisfying, like a feeling of achievement.
To be fair, we really enjoyed the last few days overall. We stayed 4 days in the Gijón marina in Spain, which was the landing and departure point of all sailors crossing the bay of Biscay. We were all docked at the same pontoon and quickly got to know all of our neighbors. Every day, we would say goodbye to the one who left and greet the newcomers arriving after a long and tiring crossing, sharing stories and sailing tips. It was a truly amazing atmosphere!
One thing we got reminded of by interacting so much with other sailors is how misogynistic the sailing world really is. This is a very traditional sport, a male-dominated sport and this gets really felt in the discussions we had with other people and the role distributions on the various crews.
On Sunday, together with two of our neighbors, we set sails toward La Rochelle in France. We couldn’t hope for better conditions with 2 days of stable side winds which allowed us to cover 460km in under 48h! Apart from the pleasure of moving so efficiently, we also got the highlight of catching another Tuna 🙂 After months of unsuccessful fishing, we got the surprise of catching an even bigger fish than last time after only 5 minutes of fishing. Since we wouldn’t have any fridge until the next day (ours must be turned off while sailing), we had to prepare it and cook it while sailing, which turned our boat into a bloody crime scene.
Since we are now in France, at an anchorage near La Rochelle, we will have a lot of visitors over the coming weeks. This will be a logistic challenge, but a pleasant one for sure! In the next 3 days, we will already meet with 2 groups of friends and Louis’s parents, then we will host Sara’s mother and sister for a week, then childhood friends of Sara for a few days, all this while moving slowly toward England. The weather seems to have the classic wind pattern of when there is no important pressure system above Europe: no wind during the day, then North-West winds in the late afternoon caused by land area warming up faster than the sea and North-East winds during the night, caused by land area cooling down faster than the sea. In other words, we will have to travel at night exclusively during the next weeks 🙂
Sailing Misty 