click on hover buttons top left for 9 other pages. 

2009 after a visit to California for 6 weeks, well, it's warmer out there.

Pictures of the waterfront in San Diego

The nights will be drawing out soon so we will be getting ready for the 2009 season, had my sail refreshed and a new UV strip put on. looking forward

 to the season but the costs have gone up by 30% looking at the exchange rate of today.  Odysseus is tucked up all cosy for the time being.

Back in France getting the boat ready again, it's been a cold winter this year so we are looking forward to some "nice weather" sailing.

 It's always lots of work to get the boat back up together, polished, and looking good, my list of maintenance is tabulated ready to go.

This winter I found a product that deals with black mould spots on textiles and it works, so I have cleaned the canopy and the sprayhood.

Look on the WEB for "HG Hagesan" then textile cleaners for mould. It's a good tip.

All the upholstery covers came off and were washed, they look like new again.

Arrived on the boat Tues 6th, by the end of the day jet washed topside and put sprayhood and canopy on to make life comfortable, the next day it

rained all day so set about getting the engine fired up and run for an hour. All's fine so far.

Thursday was a hard day polishing all of the topside, one side of the hull and the cockpit, boat looks great, put the ropes in bleach to clean them up.

Walked around to friends boats in the marina took photos  so they can see how their boats are going and that they are still looking OK.

Odysseus

All put together and polished ready for the season, weather has been kind to us and we have finished all we started out to do, maintained the bilge pump,

 ran the engine up, and fixed a flat screen TV / DVD, ordered the wine, for taking back with us.

La Roche-Bernard is getting busy already and the camper vans are out in force, 35 parked up in the car park and few in the camp site next to the

marina.

Back out to France

Back In La roche-Bernard, loaded boat with 2 months supplys ready for the season. It's Ascension weekend so holiday in France, We decided to go and see the boat "blessing" at the entrance to the Morbihan, we watched over 1000 boats go through the entrance on their way to Vannes and other towns, It was a spectacular event typical of the French, well supported and organised. The line of boats took 2 hours to pass, square riggers to small fishing boats to a Viking galley under oars.

We have had an offer on the boat and accepted it, which means taking Odysseus round to Amsterdam for the new owner who will take it on to his own port in Sweden.

The next 2 weeks was taken up with organising someone to help me take the boat around and emptying it of our personal stuff after finding a place to put it ashore. David agreed to help and I in return helped him at his French house cutting the grass which was 3 feet high and covered what seemed to be a football pitch. Hard work and very hot, it seamed to go on forever.

The day arrived when we set off for Amsterdam, so it was the last time in the Arzal lock and and we waved good by as we passed through. The trip sarted with a nice sunny day

But the wind on the nose, across to Port Haliguen where we stopped for the night before catching the tide out and up the coast early in the morning. The important things to get right were the "tidal gates" around the headlands, so these set the times of departure or we sail through the night. In the end we did both and covered the 612 miles to Oostende in 7 days. unfortunately at this point we had a total power failure which made it unsafe to proceed. Finding the fault was a major event in itself and and took 3 days to resolve. Having stripped down all of the loom and "belled" out wires we focused on a relay that pulls in the starting solonoid. We then tavelled 24 miles to the Volvo agent who sold us a replacement part. The next day we assy all back together only to find it did not work. Eventually we found the fault, it was one of the earth wires off the alternator ground, but it had fallen down so you could not see it. we found it by noticing that the terminal had a "tab" washer on it but no cable. The new relay turned out to be faulty as well. This is not something I looked forward to telling the new owner. Odysseus had been a very reliable boat, so why is it I get a problem 2 days before the new owner gets here!!!!!!

However on a lighter note the boat performed superbly and we sailed for a greater part of the journey with a sustained 6.5 knots under cruising shoot and poled out genoa, fantastic. The top left instrument is the log recording 7.5 knots boat speed.

Outside of Ile de Groix

Sun sets on Scanmar Odysseus

The start of a new adventure for us with a new boat, Odysseus 11.

Our dawn had started and we have our new boat

-:-

Having recovered from the trip we started looking for another boat, with an open mind on what we wanted apart form more room we phoned up our broker to see what he had got. When we left UK there were lots of 30 to 40 foot boats up for sale but now, not many and the ones that were, were in pretty poor condition.

It was not long before we made an offer on one which happened to be in France, the offer was accepted and we duly signed the contract.

Off sailing at last.

View from the bouys at Bono.

For a change of scenery we decided to go around the back of Ile Aux Moines into a little bay that is just beautiful, anchored and settled down to a lovely evening and dinner under a sunset, I forgot, had to alter the cockpit table so it opened from its upright position.

The weather has been settled for a week now so we took advantage of it and anchored or picked up bouys. Next stop was Port Blanc alway busy and crowded but we were able to find a bouy and had 2 days of chilled out reading, apart from a row ashore to get rid of the rubbish we had accumulated in a week of not putting our feet on dry land. Port Blanc is the ferry terminal for torurists to see the Morbihan.

The gap between the island of Moines and the main land produces a tide of 11 knots at springs and the "ferries have right of way"so there are always "events " going on.

An early start to get the tide up to Vannes which is changing every year we come here, the concorse has been re-done and is looks much better the tourists get a promonade around the boats this brings in revenue for the local restaurants and cafes.

From here we go back to Crouesty for 2 nights then off to Port Haliguen, where we had entertainment in the evening from our next boat who was an accordian player. The weather was still holding and its been a nice summer out here again, after 3 weeks we decide to go back to La Roche-Bernard, we need to get the boat ready for winter lift out in early Sept. I have some maintenance work to do and I have to compound off and "A" glaze the hull.

A picture of the coast below Haliguen looking south, it's also a camping area so lots of tourists. This is the cut through for boats going north and the first of the tidal gates.

When we get back into LRB we meet up with Geoff and Maggy off Grace a "labour of love" wooden boat so had dinner and caught up wth things.

Back in La Roche-Bernard we get the boat ready for lifting out, sails off and winterised, all the ropes are taken off to go back to UK for a good wash, some of them are like "fishing rods" I also have a list of jobs to do back in the UK like an extra hanger for the sail pack to stop it collapsing, make a wheel cover, instrument cover, and refurbish the cockpit table, and lots more.

Things are changing out here now, more boats, costs going up and the pound has not helped. For the first time we are being told that we cannot lift out for the whole winter and a 3 month limit is being imposed, not good as lifting in, in Feb is not a time I would like. The Vannes lock failed and we had a number of boats in the marina damaged, this is the 4th lock to fail along this coast since we have been out there.

Well another great years sailing and a lot of changes for us and in the local community all for the better, La Roche-Bernard is growing and becoming more prosperous, and is now a place the Freach go to on a sunday afternoon, all good for LRB.

Look forward to 2010.

END