Some impressions I got the last weeks in random order while living in St Nazaire...

Driving down the honda from Bredene to the Daphne, 1005km in one day, avoiding the highway and enjoying the Normandie and Breton countryside. A special stop at the circuit of Le Mans where the superbike race is going on. I could hear the race way before I could even see the circuit. With the screaming hi-revs of the Hayabusa’s still in my ears arriving at St Nazaire at the dock and a first meet with the Dock’s Bar, located in the 2^nd world war submarine bunker in the center of the city, a lot more will follow...

Les Machines de l’ile, a magnificent exhibition with all kinds of serious heavy duty functional art in the old shipyard in Nantes. Small example: a 12m high elephant capable of carrying 40 passengers and a metal tree/garden who sizes 30m across and 20m high. Even for me (not particular into art) this is definitly worth a visit.

Meet Dieter, our “neighbour”. Let me say first that he has more than a loose screw. He has a wooden, 10m long, 40years old fishing boat with he bought in St Nazaire after his other boat sunk and is docked behind the bridge close to us in the shadow of a big, confiscated freight carrier. He is on his way to Fiji to marry his 34 years old girlfriend and wants to arrive there next year. Not only is he close to 70, his planned route crosses the Gulf of Aden, world famous for it’s pirates and as his boat has a fuelrange of only 350nm, he has to go to port in the Gulf.

Driving down the coastline to the Golf de Morbihan, searching in the pittoreske towns for the freshest seafood you can get your hands on, ending up walking on the beach and collecting ‘des huitres’ ourselves on the beaches of Carnac.

The unbelievable incompetance of the average employee of any metalshop, Leroy Merlin, carshop,... in France. If you work in a plumming supply shop and you don’t have high-pressure valves I don’t mind, but do not tell me they don’t exist.

One morning we drove up to the Mt Saint Michel. It frightens me how commercially exploited they made the whole thing. It’s still impressive but it is implemented in it’s own little Las Vegas. Complete with the St Michel casino and ready-when-you-wait paintings. Borderline sad...

The first preformance of Bart Peeters in France ever, free and with maximum 250 people at the scene and still, from the 2^nd song he got the public on his hand, great party, great night.

I was sorting the stuff in the front peak when a deep bariton voice was holding a serenade on the dock where we are moared. Beeing alone on the ship at that moment I go outside and meet a 60 years old Scottish viking with the Latourette syndrom who was a Atlantic king crab fisher during his life. He invites us for dinner the next day. An evening filled with good Scottish food, cursing the French and Chanti songs was the enjoyable result.

Of course we return the favor and the day after tomorrow they are our guests on the boat, promising...

And the fridge still looks really familiar

24-10-2011 om 22:07 geschreven door Gibbon  

We left the Ostend harbour at early dawn, the quiet sea and almost wind-still weather created the perfect circumstances to learn the basics of navigation at sea.

Our (in the meanwhile late) Decca radar likes me and in a few hours I got the ancient (1960’) machine doing what I want. The transas navigation software looks similar to what we had on the Belgica so that looks quite familiar as well. After the first watch Henning and I make a good bridge team.

Henning, maybe a little bit of explanation…  In short, Norwegian Vikings alike, in tribute to his forefathers, he came to Belgium by boat, drank some good beer, grabbed a local woman along and took off again.
I had the luck of meeting him in my local pub “the jolly sailor” He works on the Daphne as the ships engineer since a couple of months and ended up in Ostend for a 2 months summer break. After sharing a couple of drinks on a couple of nights he asks if I don’t want to work as crew on the Daphne and join on the world tour. Hmm… So it is due to him and the jolly sailor that I got introduced to the life afloat!

Our course sets to St. Malo, along the famous “race of Alderney” on which we manage to squeeze 16kns out of the Daphne without changing anything to the normal 10kns cruising speed settings, it sure does give a good feeling!

On arrival in St. Malo we try out the new dinghy the man bought for us, a nice, semi-rigid with a 9.9hp outboard. Perfect for planing with 2 and even for passenger transport of 4. We enjoy ourselves by test riding our toy between the little fort-infested islands in the harbor approach.


After 2 days, and filling up a harbour litter bin with at least 200kg of garbage out of the front peak (old tools and electronics from the 1960) we start the next leg to Brest. Only a couple of hours into the journey the Decca goes blank and a nasty burned smell spreads on the bridge.
The coast of Brittany is not the best place to navigate without radar so we run in to the closest harbour, St-Quay-Portrieux. On approach the ship decided to test us… Going in on a blank radar suddenly the bridge door jams, 2 min later, all of our 4 GPS-systems go down (later we learn that local French fisherman think it’s funny to block GPS-signals).
So I get a first lesson on chart and visual approach of a harbour. Tricky business when you don’t expect it… We stay just long enough to get the backup radar working and buy a supply of food and wine (after all, we’re in France).

For the second time, we set to Brest. It seems a very hard place to reach, because in Lesardieux we stop again. Nice little town but the only thing open is a “white-yacht”-club. This is a difficult thing to describe but in general it is a club with people who buy a yacht to place it in the marina and show off the extra 3 foot in length to their neighbors but hardly ever take it out on a trip. They really don’t like 2 guys in working clothes, having a drink in their place, and living on a boat at least twice as big as theirs...

We already tried to get to Brest twice and didn’t succeed so in the early morning we aim for La Rochelle, a sturdy head on wind and the famous Biscay waves makes the inclinometer go wild and we do an easy 55° both ways. My breakfast hates me and returns to the point of entry while I try to secure some ropes on the deck. Around noon even The Man thinks this is too much of the good stuff and resets the course to Roscoff so we get a decent night sleep in the harbour.
La Rochelle here we come, the wave plough works perfect, the sound off hundreds liters of water rattling on the window bridges makes Eva jump from time to time. Deeper into the bay we get our first “ocean swell”, horizoning waves on the bridge (bridge height is about 6m).




La Rochelle itself feels like a genuine southern France town when you enter as long as you ignore the heroin addicts in the streets. On the other hand, we do manage to find a place where they sell decent beer, “the beer library”.
They sell 10 brands of beer and serve Orvall in a Leffe glass… We are in France…
On the other side of the dock is the France 1, a former ship of the president and now a museum and somehow, it got attention from Henning and me…

Today it got clear that we cannot stay in La Rochelle,
there is simply not enough space for the race on Monday, so we move again, to Saint-Nazere this time, close to Nantes. This time for 6 weeks, the first 2 I go back to Belgium, the next I get the ship ready for the next leg… Up to the Mediterranean…

14-09-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Gibbon  

Until yesterday, I was one of the grey, biggest concern of the day is what to eat tonight, getting up at 7.30, getting home around 17.00. Now I’m trying to shut down this life with all comes with it in just 4 days, packing my life down to 1 big case and a backpack.
As you can guess, I made it through the interview and I’m leaving for the open sea on Tuesday. I even got my own cabin assigned, quite a luxury for a crewmember on a private yacht.

And what a yacht it is… A Danish ‘60 ice breaking class, ex fisheries control ship. Smooth lines and ready to take a heavy beating. She survived Katrina in 2005, so I’m quite sure she’s a worthy ship.
But as I’m going to spend a couple of years on the Daphne, I’m going to get to know her a whole lot better in the future.

Back to this life for a couple of days. I have a house, a car and a whole lot of furniture to sell in 4 days. Not sure how to handle that but I’ll figure out something :)  

26-08-2011 om 11:14 geschreven door Gibbon  

Tomorrow will become a big turning point in my life, whatever the result of the interview might be. I decided to change my way of living and at least try to achieve a kind of a nomadic lifestyle. I’ve tasted it a couple of times in the past and every time I got back it became harder to adjust to the monotonic life in this crazy little country.
But now the bullet is shot, my house is for sale and I have a job interview to work on a private yacht and sail the world for a couple of years.
There’s a whole lot to arrange but when everything goes right, I can be out of here in 2-3 weeks.

If it goes wrong, then I go for a winter in the French Alps. I have an interview on October 4 in Rotterdam for that but I hope I have to cancel that one. As snowboarding is becoming a big passion of mine I wouldn’t mind going to the Alps, but hey, sailing the world has the pole position…

Tomorrow I’ll know more, in a couple of day’s you’ll know too

23-08-2011 om 17:22 geschreven door Gibbon