We have been quiet for long months, so we had to update the news from the blog.
Let's go back a few months earlier.
We landed on 28th August 2020 in Sainte-Marine, Brittany, after a 9 days sailing in some rather harsh conditions from Azores.
Sainte Marine, Finistère
In september, we sailed along the Britanny coast from South Finistere to Morbihan.
From the Odet river which we headed up close to Quimper, we sailed to Glenans islands. We were thrilled by the beauty of their pristine waters and by the magical shift of landscapes with the tides.
Penfret island, Glénans archipelago
This great stopover has been nicely finalized by a pleasant evening with An Amouig crew we met two months earlier in Azores.
A few days later, anchored in front of Concarneau city, the Customs gave us an as unexpected as unpleasant visit. Despite a thorough and intrusive search inside the boat, the customs agents failed in discovering in the middle of my panties the hudge load of cocaÏne we landed a long time ago.
Concarneau walled city
A few miles away in front of the Foret Fouesnant beach, we met our friend Jean-Roc, seven months after he visited us in Cuba. Together we wandered on "Bigouden country".
Jean-Roc in Pont l'Abbé
Then we headed towards Houat island to meet Belissima, our friends Rémi and Sylvie we left two years earlier in Guadeloupe. We were so pleased to see them again and we enjoyed walking around this very nice small island.
Rémi and Mathilde
Sailing dinghy working great (picture taken from Belissima)
Great Beach in Houat Island
Treac'h Salus anchorage, Houat island
Béniguet beach, Houat island
As chance would have it, we were happy to spend two days with our friend Daz, not far from Houat, at the Piriac-sur-mer Harbour.
Last time we met eachother was seven years ago in Phillippines.
Mathilde and Daz, at Piriac-sur-Mer harbour
We continued our journey to Groix island, a real coup de coeur, even if the Saint Nicolas anchoring is not an easy place to drop the anchor because the place is quite exiguous, but it is worthwile.
Port Saint Nicolas, Groix Island, nice weather anchorage
Then we discovered nice places all around Belle Ile island, which are all so beautiful.
Port de Sauzon, Belle-Ile
Pointe des Poulains, Belle-Ile
Le Palais, Belle-Ile
Port Guen, Belle-Ile
Lastly we ventured to the Golf of Morbihan where currents are so strong that there is no place for improvisation. But thanks to Belissima's advices, we enjoyed two great anchorages close to Moines island and Berder Island.
Walk around l'île aux Moines
Oysters farms behind Berder Island
From 1st october, we booked a mooring buoy on the Vilaine river to winter the boat.
We passed through the Arzal lock a few days earlier because wheater forecasts were bad and we wanted to grab our buoy as soon as possible.
Arzal lock
On 1st october, the first night attached to our buoy, the storm Alex crossed Britanny and 50 knots (57,5 mph) intenses winds blew straight over our heads. What a great host committee !
The next days, we prepared Pythéas for a long wintering period.
Pythéas, all naked, on the Vilaine river
Mid-october we left the boat and started our great loop around France by road.
Thanks to the car our friends Laurent and Christelle lent us, we managed for 3 months and a half, beetween curfews and lockdowns, to travel through France from west to east and from North to South. It was a true happiness to see again our friends and relatives.
Of course, we can't deny that the actual sanitary crisis has tarnished our come back. I imagined long time ago this come back to France. But to be afraid to kiss my parents, not to be able to see all my friends together, to wear a mask all the time, not to have freedom of movment, to hear all the time the same topic in the media, to get worked up about conspiracy theories, to be deprived of any cultural activities, to feel ourselves like outlaws about nothing and everything, ... none of all of this was expected.
Nevertheless, we tried to stick to our schedule, namely to haul the boat on february to give her a new youth and launch the boat on march to leave France and sail to the South.
We launched Pythéas on 9th February 2021 in a boatyard close to our mooring buoy.
Refit our boat in february and in Britanny was a bold gamble, as remind us the cold spell which strikes France only two days after leaving the water.
Apart from few whims of our heater and some cold mornings (8-10-°C / 46-50°F on board) it has been only a quick warning and after that, the weather has been very nice and we have been able to do almost all the works we scheduled.
I will spare you the tedious listing of all the works we did for 4 weeks but this will be the subject of a next article, for the most curious or specialist among you.
To sum up, I spent more time than expected to take care of the hull because I had to grind all the old antifouling of the last 5 years before painting the new one (15 days job), while Jean-Luc was making mechanics, electricity, welding, and many other stuff.
We also lowered the mast to check all the rigging and we decided to replace the non-slip cover on the deck.
After bringing back the car to our friends in the North of France, we launched the boat on 23rd March and were ready to sail again...
But as you probably guess it, the global situation is at the moment absolutely not favourable with travelling, especially not in South America where we planed to sail during the 2nd semester 2021 to cross Patagonian canals.
So we decided to adopt a more reasonable approach, to stay in France waiting an improvement of the situation and to delay our departure day.
Waiting this future happy day, we are going to work to refill the "boardcash". I am already working on an archeological dig, as I used to do before leaving France 6 years ago. We both also should work as diving instructors next summer on the french Mediterranean coast.
We try like everybody best to adapt to circumstances and lay low for a while. The most complicated parameter to deal with is the lack of visibility on the future but we hope we will have few more great pages to write on our gorgeous new logbook.
our friend Michel, bookbinder, who made our third logbook