Paul Ward - Stardust Circumnavigation/Week 4

The long journey south begins. After a calm respite in Cornwall, we had appointments in Lorient, France, for some more warranty work on the boat. Some people allude to living and traveling on board a boat as being a full-time job, and I can certainly see how. It’s almost every day that one thing or another breaks and needs repaired, and the general to-do list is always full to the brim. Just the other morning, we discovered the anchor bridle to be completely tangled around the rode, necessitating that we go through multiple rounds of trial-and-error to get it cleared, ending with unshackling the bridle from the bow and manually undoing the knotted twists. A good half hour later, we were finally good to go.

We left for France Wednesday afternoon as planned, and good winds made the passage just 22 hours short as we crossed the busy English Channel into Brittany. Arriving late morning meant we could use the rest of the day to recover with the sleep night watch kept from us before our inevitable continuation south. As many things do, plans changed and our warranty work at the shipyard was pushed back by two weeks, meaning we would continue the extra 100 miles to Les Sables-d’Olonne where we had plans to dock up for a week and visit with friends and family. Although we could have gone straight there in about two days of sailing, opting to instead do short hops during the day and anchoring at night meant a much more enjoyable and restful trip. As I write, we are anchored in Belle Île and plan on sailing two more days.

The Atlantic coast of France harbors an impressive military presence, with French warships patrolling the waters a dime a dozen. The impressively effective grey camouflage and the purposeful lack of transmitting its location to nearby boaters (as everyone else, be it pleasure craft like us or cargo ships, does via AIS, or Automatic Identification System) means they would creep up almost unseen until they were almost too close for comfort. One such incident occurred on Sunday, where the French warship Kermorvan came out of a foggy haze on a direct collision course with us, with less than a minute until we would certainly be bobbing in its wake with nothing left to our name. An urgent hail over the radio to alter course to port was met with hilariously French-accented broken English, telling us to hold course as they would come around us. What seemed to be a momentous relief of an incident averted turned into a several minute interrogation by the French, asking about the vessel, her crew, and our intentions. Now satisfied with the answers provided, the warship disappeared just as quickly as it came, and on a complete different course from the one that almost brought us to collision. Maybe this wasn’t just pure coincidence and they really were coming specifically for us….