Nous Sommes Arrivee!

We have arrived in France! Landfall was on June 27, 2008, and we received a personal escort by the French government into the Gironde. Following is the log for the last leg.

June 17, 2008

The day started grey and damp, but it looked like it would eventually brighten up, so after taking a last-minute look at the weather, we decided to leave today. There was a brief discussion between the owners representative and the leader of the operational team, and it was agreed that we would try to avoid heavy weather during this leg of the trip. The original plans for this leg included heading NNE to 45N, and then along the parallel to Bordeaux, in order to have plenty of room to deal with north winds in the Bay of Biscay. However, both the Passageweather site and the NWS agreed that there will be a low right at the spot we had picked, when we had planned to be there, so we are now heading more NW, towards 43N 15E. AS cleared us out before lunch, and the FBs left around noon, so we spent an hour bringing the dinghy onboard, and disconnecting from shorepower, and then had lunch before leaving the jetty at 2 PM.

On the way out of the harbor, we noticed that the autopilot was curiously showing us moving backwards – the heading seems to be 180 degrees off. This prompted some desperate searching through user manuals to try to figure out what was going on, and we eventually discovered that the autopilot, which includes the heading compass, needed to be “swung” to determine its deviation, and then aligned with the steering compass. As we were doing this, it dawned on us that it was probably due to the reset that we applied to the depth/speed instrument to get the depth readings back. For some reason, when one instrument in a Seatalk network (the proprietary network sold by Raymarine) is reset, it evidently sends out a signal on the net to the others instruments to reset themselves, too. So all of the Seatalk instruments that were online at that time reverted back to their original factory configurations.

This caused us to have to spend some time in the harbor at Horta doing slow circles, and then when we got out into the ocean we found that the autopilot could not hold a course very well. This was caused by the autopilot being reset to the default control settings for a displacement boat (e.g., a trawler), rather than a sailboat. So we had to go thru the entire dealer configuration menu for the autopilot and reset the boat type, rudder gain, counter-rudder, sensitivity, wind-trim, and other control parameters for this boat. Later, we realized that the calibration for the speed instrument was also reset, so we did a temporary calibration against the GPS, with the hope that the current was not too strong. We will probably not be able to fix this till we get to France. We anticipate that we will find a few more settings that need to be calibrated before we are done.

Our initial heading was NNE between Faial and Pico, but we decided to head east between Graciosa and Sao Jorge islands to try to take advantage of the wind. Sao Jorge is a very high island, at least at the western tip, and it was tricky getting around the tip with strong gusty winds coming down off the top of the island. Eventually we cleared the island, and set sail at about 080M for our waypoint, sailing pretty much downwind at about 5 kts.

June 18, 2008

The wind pretty much died during the mid-watch, so we started the engine, leaving the mainsail out to try to benefit somewhat from whatever wind there is. The mid-watch saw one fishing boat, but the morning watch saw nothing, nothing, except the moon, some small swells, and gulls waking up. The morning watch saw a large pod of porpoises, and then we had eggs and chili for brunch. With our watch schedule, we have more “brunch” than breakfast, because the mid and 3-6 watch-standers usually sleep till about 10, and even the morning watch tries to take a nap before noon. So chili and eggs make a good menu for this meal. We also started to make some water, even though we filled up in Horta, because we are already down by about 125l. We took farewell showers before leaving Horta, and since we are running the engine, it is a good idea to top off the tanks. We also made a gal of water to a jug, to use for making coffee and tea, because some were able to detect a “metallic” taste in the watermaker water from the tanks. One gallon made in 9 minutes – 6.5 gal/hr, which is close to the spec for the watermaker. It will be pickled once we get to France, and that should restore it to its original efficiency (7 gal/hr).

Started sailing again at 2 PM, downwind at about 4 kts. Winds are ~10kts, dead astern, but skies are sunny with cumulus clouds, and the sea-state is quite tame, with swells less than about one foot. We saw a nice turtle about 4. It was hanging over a school of small fish. We circled it for a while, and it didn’t seem to mind us, as long as we stayed far enough away and didn’t appear to threaten it. The top of its shell had some brilliant red patches, which was surprising, because I had thought that they were green or brown.

We have altered course to the north to try to get some better speed, and maybe some better winds to the north. But the afternoon WEFAX says there is a low moving to the east, NW of us, so we will not try to go too far north. Better to take it slow down here – we have lots of food on board.

After seeing the WEFAXes, we decided to go back to the rhumb line, and started motoring towards 43N15E. Not enough wind to sail.

June 19, 2008

The winds started to pick up during the mid-watch, so we let out the sail, and it turned into a glorious night. The winds kept building, and at the end of the mid-watch we were doing a steady 6.5 kts straight for Bordeaux. The morning watch noted a slight windshift and took in a small reef on the jib, but we otherwise stayed on the stbd tack, at speeds between 5-7 kts over the ground, and thru the water, all day. The sunny morning eventually clouded up, and a few sprinkles hit us, but nothing serious. Seas built up to about 2-3 feet of gentle swells.

About 9 AM, however, we had a serious plumbing problem. The main head did not want to empty. It would suck in water, but not expel it. This was a serious problem, and it required about 4 hours of work to fix, involving removal of most of the hoses from the toilet, unbolting it from the deck, and removal of the macerator unit from the bottom of the bowl. Inspection of the macerator unit revealed some plastic-like material around the chopper blade, and on the pump impeller behind that. Re-installation of the macerator unit, however, did not solve the problem, so we proceeded to the really ugly part of the job, involving the discharge hoses. The heads on this boat have a joker valve on the toilet itself, but Jeanneau also decided to install an additional, separate one in the line to the holding tank. Luckily, the hose is not too elevated from the toilet to the tank, but it sure was nasty when we took the valve out of the line. We found that the discharge line was blocked significantly with salt deposits, and the separate joker valve was completely clogged. This is likely due to the chemical reaction between urea and seawater, which is known to create such deposits. We had been treating for this with vinegar, but evidently not frequently enough. We had to clean the joker valve by hand, and try to scrape out as much salt as possible with a screwdriver. The toilet then went back together and it works fine.

We had seen a precursor for this problem about 4 weeks ago, and we dealt with it by throttling the inlet valve, but this, in hindsight, was exactly the wrong thing to do, because it cut down on the flushing of the lines, allowing the urea/SW mix to stand in them and crystallize. In the future, we will flush vigorously and long, to try to get the urea out of the line into the holding tank. It looks like the hoses will need to be removed in Bordeaux and mechanically cleaned, or alternatively chemically cleaned, if that is possible. We treated the both heads with the remainder of the vinegar that we had on board, in the hope that it will prevent this problem from showing up in the next 10 days. More research will also be needed to figure out how to prevent this in the future. Crossing our fingers…

Needless-to-say, the head got a thorough cleaning after this event, with fresh water and bleach, and the engineer who took it all apart got a nice hot shower.

The winds died around 4 PM, so we started the engine again, and motored till about 7:30, when the winds picked back up, so that we are making about 5 kts to the NE. The WEFAXs say that we should be avoiding the low to the NW, if we stay on this course, and we should see winds pick up to ~10 kts in a day or so. The forecast for the weekend is not so pleasant, but involves a high passing overhead and taking all the wind, so we may have to motor for a while on Sunday into Monday. Not pleasant, but mush preferable to slogging into the 35 kts E winds to the north of us.

Evening meal was ratatouille with rice, using fresh veggies from Horta. We also opened one of the cans of chipotle peppers, and they added an additional element of complexity to the dish. We are also eating salads each day, for lunch, so we are getting plenty of veggies, and have little risk of scurvy.

The winds continued to increase thru the evening, and by the mid-watch they were up to 20 kts, with seas rising to about 3-5 ft (1-2m). The boat speed picked up to 6.5-7.5 kts, with occasional bursts to 8 kts.

June 20, 2008

The morning watch reefed-down the mainsail, because we were humping along at hull-speed, and didn’t need the additional drive that just caused us to yaw around. The boat sat up better and still went fast. The 6-10 watch saw the sun come up and the day begin with sunshine and clear skies, but the clouds eventually appeared. Rain started to come down on the 10-2 watch, and the jib was reefed down when the winds reached a steady 25 kts. Boat speed is still at 6.5-7.5 kts, with bursts to 9.3 surfing down some waves, but the boat is in good control, and the motion is not bad. The daily run was 160 miles, a record for this trip, and it looks like we will continue like this for at least 2 more days. We are down to less than 850 miles to go to the sea-buoy in Bordeaux, and have advanced the waypoint from 43N15W, to the waypoint at the mouth of the Gironde. The original waypoint was close enough to the direct rhumb line to Bordeaux that we decided to just go for it. We will come about 75 miles close to the NW coast of Spain, and there are plenty of harbors there to run into, if we need to, because of weather or to pick up fuel. If we keep up this pace, we will arrive in Bordeaux on the 27th…

The first WEFAXes of the day, from the UK and NOAA, seem to show that the low to the NW will continue to track to the NE, in parallel to our course, which means that we should see this weather continue, which is a good thing. SW winds continuing at 15-25 kts would be just about perfect for us. It is interesting that we have been essentially on a stbd tack for nearly 6 weeks straight. It has caused some of the interior joinery in the boat to become distorted – doors do not quite close, and the top for the fridge has been displaced so that it is really tight to close. Hopefully the boat will eventually re-arrange itself and the doors will close properly. The hatch for the fridge will probably need some help…

The wind started to die during the start of the 6-9 watch, so we shook out the reefs in both the main and the jib, but the wind also shifted more to the west, so the jib is flogging a bit. Still managing 6 kts, but just barely.

June 21, 2008

Reefed down the main and job on mid-watch, but then wind started to drop off again, so morning watch let out reef in main, and speed went back to 6 kts. 6-10 watch let out reef in jib, and speed went back to 6.5-7.5 kts, with little flogging of jib. Just a little bit better angle on the jib produces some very nice speed and boat motion, even in these seas, which are now running 3-6 feet. If we can get the speed up, we have a grand sail down the front of the swells, and everyone can sleep well.

The radar started to act up again on the mid-watch, and was put to sleep on the 3-6 watch. At 11, we noticed that the batteries are down quite a bit, so we decided to run the engine to charge batteries. Even a good solar system struggles when the winds are not consistently above 20 kts, and the sun don’t shine. Today, we have bright sun, and winds of 15-20, but that is still barely enough to keep up with our demand, much less recharge deeply charged batteries, and make water. Once we started the engine and brought the voltage up above 12.5, the radar lit off without a hitch, and works fine, even staying on when we flush the toilet. It seems that it doesn’t like low voltage, and may be a good precursor signal that the batteries need to be recharged. We also started the watermaker while we are charging batteries.

The 1200 UK WEFAX shows a large low way to the north that is trailing a front behind it. Our position is just behind the front, which should be giving us NW winds, but we are consistently seeing WSW, so we wonder what this is all about. Maybe the front has not yet passed over, but it looks like really nice weather astern. Oh, well. Che sera, sera.

5 PM winds still west at 10-15, and we are still motoring, making water and charging batteries, doing about 6.5 kts.

June 22, 2008

Kept motoring thru the night, but the wind shifted just before midnight, when a front came thru, to the north. We kept the main up for a while, and then about 1 AM the mid-watch thought we could motor-sail, so the jib came out a bit and the boat speed increased significantly. So, the motor was throttled down a bit, and we motor-sailed thru the night at about 6 kts. It was tricky, though, because we could just barely head directly towards Bordeaux, losing a tiny bit of ground to leeward. The wind shifted a bit more to the north during the 6-10 watch, which caused the jib to flap, so it was rolled in and we continued to motor-sail with just the main.

We shifted 5 jerry cans of fuel into the main engine tank around noon, because the gage showed us down to 1/3 tank. 5 tanks is about 25 gal, and we should have been able to put in another 1 or 2 cans, but the gage read full after 5, so we stopped. We now have a barely full tank, and 8 full jerry cans on deck. If we can sail for a few days, we will eventually get to the point where we have enough fuel to motor the rest of the way, if necessary.

In reaction/response to our refueling, the weather gods started to smile on us, with some shifting of the winds towards the north, so that around 1 PM we let out the reefs in both the main and jib, and started to sail close-hauled directly towards Bordeaux at about 5-6 kts over the ground. We also turned off the engine. The winds are holding around 10-15 kts true, and the seas are running less than 3 feet, so the motion is not bad. The constant heel is an irritant, but much preferred to corkscrewing and slamming off the tops of 12 foot waves. We also appreciate the quiet of not having the engine running.

Lunch was tomato, onion, and artichoke salad, with several different cheeses and cold cuts from Horta. A nice meal, well appreciated. NL is trying to get AS ready for France, with the plethora of cheeses. He is quite adventurous about this…

We are starting to have a hard time picking up the US WEFAX transmissions now, because of the poor propagation conditions. Normally, there should be lots of sunspots right now, causing good ionization in the ionosphere, which should give good reflections of radio waves, but this year the sun is silent. So, the SW radio propagation is bad. We heard Herb talk about this a lot, when he was trying to communicate with boats east of the Azores. But at least we have the UK WEFAX to fall back on. They are closer, but we have noticed that they use pretty fine lines in their weather charts, and these have a tendency to get lost in the noise. We will post a few sample WEFAX charts on the photo page so that you can see what we are depending on for weather out here.

Pasta carbonara for dinner with some smoked ham that we purchased in Horta. Just right.
The evening watches went well, with the wind reasonably steady in the NNE, at about 10-12 kts. We reefed down for the evening meal, and then let it all out again once things were cleaned up. Boat speed rose to about 5.5-6 kts after dinner and stayed there for the nite. The wind wandered about a little bit, around about midnite, but the mid-watch and the morning watch had quiet night. We are starting to see more ship traffic, as we get close to the coast. The moon was quite gorgeous when it rose tonight, big and bright (but past full).

June 23, 2008

Bright sunshiney day today, at least at the beginning. There is a bank of clouds off towards Spain and Portugal, about 150 miles away, and we are wondering whether there is some rain over there in Spain, maybe on a plain somewhere. The winds freshened during the 6-10 watch, and the boat speed go up to 7 kts over ground, 8 thru the water (this value cannot be relied on too much, because the knotmeter lost calibration in Horta, and was only very roughly re-calibrated). If we can keep up a 5 kt averge, which is very reasonable, we should arrive at the Bordeaux entrance bouy on Friday. If we can do 6 kts, we will get there in the evening on Thursday, which would probably not be a good idea. Low tide is in the early AM on both days, which gives a good flood tide to enter during the morning.

We are probably at the point now that we could motor the rest of the way to Bordeaux, just using the fuel on-board. This is a relief, in that we don’t have to worry about ducking into somewhere in Spain to refuel. We were a little bit concerned at the end of last week, after we had spent so much time motoring, early in this leg, but the wind gods have smiled on us, and we are doing well with sail-power.

Sailed most of the day till about 5, when we realized that we needed to charge batteries, so we started the engine and motor-sailed till about 8 PM, when we had Chinese stir-fry for dinner. We stopped the engine to make the motion easier for dinner. The seas are down quite small, but the swells do tend to make eating a bit harder, especially when we are running faster and occasionally fall off of one.

The evening watch sailed at a nice pace, but the wind eventually came on the nose, so we started the engine again on the 9-12 watch.

June 24, 2008

This night was the first to see significant amounts of shipping, and they were truly significant tonite, because we were passing right through the N-S route from the Channel down to the Med, and to Africa. LOTS of ships, moving in both directions, LOTS of LARGE ships, and even some fishermen running in circles, causing everyone to wonder where they were going to head next. We also saw a large pod of dolphins swimming around the boat as the sun broke the horizon, and the boat was barely making way under sail – it was quite amazing.

The wind eventually came back on to the beam around 5, so we tried to sail, but could only make 3 knots, which may have been acceptable in the past, but now everyone has fixed it in their mind that we will arrive on Friday morning. This means that we have to maintain about 5.5 kts between now and then, so we will do some motor-sailing to get the speed up, if necessary. Also, thinking about tales we have heard about the douane, it would be a good idea to have all of the fuel in the jerry cans down in the tanks, so that they don’t decide to tax us on it, because it is the red/untaxed variety, mostly still from Stuart. So we will do some more motor-sailing to get there in a reasonable amount of time, and to remove temptation from the French officials. We still don’t know what is going to happen when we get there, from the point of view of the douane. Hopefully jlm will be there with all the info.

Moved clocks ahead one hour today.

We also figured out how to receive NAVTEX messages, now that we are in the land of NAVTEX, which is not very common in the US. After fiddling around a while, and waiting, we finally made contact with the NAVTEX station at Coruna, Spain, and received 4 messages warning about NATO naval exercises, hydrological studies, and power line work off the north coast of Spain. No weather. We will listen to the French station when we get closer, and also keep an eye out for weather info. We also noted that we can pick up BBC Radio 4 on long wave with the SSB receiver. The AM-FM-LW receiver can’t pick it up yet, but there is still hope. Radio 4 will be good for receiving the Shipping Forecast(e.g., “There are gales in the Hebrides and NE Iceland tonight.”).

Changed engine oil, filter, and transmission oil this afternoon, and shifted 3 more jerry-cans of fuel to the main tank. Making water while motoring towards Bordeaux.
Land Ho! At about 3 PM, we sighted land – the NW tip of Spain. So, we can officially declare that we have crossed the Atlantic from one continent to another. Now we just have to make it up Biscay Bay to the Gironde.

Received another set of NAVEX messages at 5:30 local time, including many that were not broadcast at 1:30 PM. Messages about fishing limits, more NATO exercises, and one about firing exercises in France, south of the Gironde. This is a military training area for the French, and they are evidently doing some training this week. You would think that with the summer holidays coming up they would be winding down, but I guess not – you never know when Nelson may come back, or the Germans…

We also heard a Spanish weather forecast for the north coast – force 3-4 winds today and tonite, with calm seas. They put out a warning message on channel 16, and then read the weather forecast, in English and Spanish, on channel 10, every four hours. We think there are similar announcements in Portugal and further east along the Spanish coast. We looked for something similar in France, and we eventually found it. The Europeans seem to broadcast weather info about 3-4 times/day, at fixed times, unlike in the US, where it is sent out continuously on its own set of frequencies. Weather is also supposed to be included in NAVTEX broadcasts, but we have yet to find any such messages. It also appears that the French also provide marine weather info to people who pay for it, by some sort of subscription. You can then get the info by cell phone or internet connection. It is interesting that the most socialistic country in Europe has a very capitalistic setup for weather info. I had heard that the current US administration wanted to go a similar route in the US, to have the govt weather people gather the data, but then let private organizations “analyze it”, and then disseminate it to the public, for a fee, but that seems to have died. Probably a LOT of farmers complained about having to pay to find out whether it was going to rain, and other people complained about the need to pay for warnings for events like tornadoes or hurricanes. The administration probably figured that it would be enough to publish such warnings in the Federal Register…

With the NAVTEX capability, it is clear that it really is essential these days to cruise with a computer that can do all the sort of chores that would otherwise be provided by dedicated pieces of equipment, printing out piles of paper – the WEFAX, NAVTEX messages, logs, email messages, documentation of all sorts for the stuff on the boat, inventories of the boat supplies. I wonder if anyone has put this all together into one package, at a reasonable price, for the cruiser. I think there might be a market for it, if it was priced correctly. It might be a good idea to include some way to carry the computer, and protect it from all the water, from whatever sources, on board.

The first WEFAXes of the day seem to indicate more of the same weather – 10-15 kts from the W-NW-N, with nothing interesting to provide us with a good shove. Not bad, we will NOT complain, and we will plan to get into the Gironde early Friday morning.
One last item. We had been hearing a low rumbling sound when the steering wheel turned, and investigation revealed that the sound was coming out of the linear actuator for the autopilot. It appears to be a noise coming out of the gear train in the actuator itself. AS commented that he had learned (when his unit failed) that these units need to be serviced every 2 years, and upon looking in the manual, we found exactly that advice. So, we have another item to fix when we get in. Hopefully it will last 3 more days – we don’t want to hand-steer for even one day.
Dinner was paella again, with some baccala thrown in. NL will be making brandade de morue tomorrow, but she decided to throw some into the paella. Tasty, but salty. Some of us drank a LOT of water, and used the head quite a bit.

June 25, 2008

Night watches were quite pleasant. Motored till about 2:30 AM, when the wind shifted to the beam, so we put out all sails and sailed on a beam reach, at 5-6 kts, for rest of night. Wind gradually shifted again to NE, so 10-2 watch had to harden up, sailing closehauled, till about 1:00 PM, when we decided we were making too much easting, and started to motor-sail towards Bordeaux.

Saw one sailboat on the 10-2 watch that was headed in the opposite direction, and it was interesting how poor a radar target it presented. Sometimes there, sometimes not, until it was within 2 miles. A fisherman that followed presented a similar radar target.

From about 11:30 am to 12:30 PM we took on another passenger – a homing pigeon that landed on deck, and proceeded to gradually make his way into the cockpit. He was quite tame, and had bands on both legs, so he was obviously on a mission. But the sight of a good resting place was too much, so he decided to stop and chat. When he started to make motions in the direction of taking a berth down below, however, we drew the line. He was tame enough to allow himself to be picked up, and launched on the next leg of his journey. Bon voyage!

Thar she blows! At 1:30 ch spotted two whales spouting off the beam. We could not see the whales themselves, but their spouts were quite distinctive.

Brandade de morue for lunch, with mashed potatoes on the side and green beans – French comfort food!

We finally raised the French NAVTEX site, and received their messages in both English and French. It looks like we will not be near the area where they are conducting live-fire exercises, but we will listen to the voice broadcast this evening to make sure.

Could not receive the voice messages for the firing range. Don’t know why, but we won’t be anywhere near them, so we won’t worry about it.

Pasta with tomato sauce for dinner. We also used the last of the parmegian cheese.

June 26, 2008

Motored thru the night, with the wind dead on the nose, at about 10-15 kts true. We are on track to arrive at the mouth of the Gironde around 4 AM, just when the tide starts to change. The seas have grown quite lumpy overnite. The large swell from the NW is still with us, but there is also a bit of cross-swell, with a short period, from the NE, probably driven by this headwind. It is not large, but it is short, so the motion has gotten bad again. It is a lot like the sort of waves we saw on the Chesapeake – short and square, and unpleasant. The UK weather FAXes are still showing us with N-NW winds, at about 10, but we are seeing NE. We heard a weather forecast in French on Ch 79 at 7:45 French time, but it was a bit crackly, and we could not really understand it. We will have to get closer to be able to make out the French forecasts.
We have a list of stuff to do on the way into the marina, and then in the marina, to put the boat away once we arrive. At the top of the list is pickling the watermaker, which we will do later today. We will also transfer the rest of the fuel from the jerry cans into the main tank – finally all of the Stuart fuel will be in the tanks.

Productive and entertaining day so far. We did transfer the fuel from the cans, so we are pretty well topped up. We motored till about 5:30, when the wind backed, so we are now sailing nicely, and it looks like we may sail thru the night. We have a deeply reefed main and a slightly reefed job out, and are making 5.5-6 kts SOG, and 7 thru the water, which is plenty to get us to our waypoint in the Gironde early tomorrow AM. We don’t want to be too early, and have to fight the current, and in any case, we don’t need to heel over any more to make more speed, so this is much more comfortable.

The watermaker was successfully pickled. We all took showers so as to be more presentable on arrival, thereby using up all of the Stuart water, and starting to consume the Horta water, as well. We should be fine for another day, at least.

We were mightily entertained by a large pod of porpoises that came alongside and played with us for nearly 2 hours. They jumped out of the water all around the boat, under the boat, and alongside the bow. Supposedly, they like to play in the bow wave that the boat generates. We got a number of video clips, which will be put up on the FLIKR site.

June 27, 2008

Last night at sea. The wind backed, and we headed east towards the mouth of the Gironde, trying not to arrive too early in the AM, so that we could catch the tide. As we got closer, the VHF traffic increased, and we started to hear call from the French coastal guard (CROSS) about boats in distress, SE of us. It sounded like they were having breakdown troubles, not life-endangering type of troubles, so we pressed on. About 5:45 AM, while we were looking for the Bordeaux sea-buoy, we spotted something that, with the sunlight behind it, looked like it might be the light, but it seemed to be placed on some sort of rock-pile. Checking the charts showed that the buoy should be floating, not fixed, and just as we were starting to digest this, the “buoy” turned on a set of running lights and headed straight for us.(!)

A few minutes of observations confirmed that this vessel was going to intercept us, and it did, coming up astern, shining a spotlight into the cockpit, and just sitting there for several minutes while they checked us out. They were the French Douane(!), guarding the coast from potential intruders. We held up the microphone for the VHF, so that they could see that we wanted to make contact, but nothing was heard on Channel 16. By now, AS and NL were up, and on deck, along with ch, and we decided to call them up. NL was a bit shy, so rxc called them (in English), and they responded (in English(!!)), that they were the Douane, and they wanted us to slow down so that they could board and inspect.

So, the sailing stopped, we started the engine, and we rolled in both sails. The revenue boat, probably about 100 ft long (30 m), lowered an inflatable and sent a crew of four agents over to see us. They came aboard easily, and we started to talk. We explained that we were on a delivery trip to France, that rxc was the owner, and AS was the captain. We provided them with the boat’s papers, our passports, the papers from the shipment of the household goods to France, the inventory that we had provided to the shippers and French customs, and the papers that certified that we had changed residence to France in September.

They then asked if they could search the boat, to which we said of course, so two agents descended into the cabin with rxc, where they searched the forward cabin, looked into some lockers in the middle cabin, and also looked into lockers and personal effects in the aft cabin. All the while, the agents on deck were talking to their boat, and to shore-side people about our situation. Given that this was happening at 6 AM, everyone realized that it would not be possible to contact our shipping agent till they opened, so they decided at about 7 AM that we would be going into Royan instead of Port Medoc, and they would accompany us. One agent went back to the boat while three others stayed on-board, and we had a formal escort into the Gironde.

The winds were blowing as we passed the Banc de Mauvaise, and the surf was up, so it was nice to have local knowledge to help us into the estuary. It was also lucky for us that the tide was coming in, so that we had plenty of water into the harbor at Royan, which is just across the Gironde from Port Medoc. As we came up the channel we chatted with the agents, who at one point asked us how we were going to pay the TVa on the boat. rxc then pulled out his printouts of the Douane web pages that explicitly state that personal effects are exempt from TVA when they accompany a move into France, and explicitly list “bateau de plaisance” (pleasure craft) as an exempt item. This pulled them up short, and prompted additional discussions over the radio, while they considered it.

About 10:30 AM we arrived in Royan, and tied up alongside the customs vessel that had preceded us. They told us that we could go ashore while they contacted our agents and their main offices to figure out what to do, so AS and NL went off to check emails, while rxc and ch stayed on-board to answer any questions. We also started to get the boat ready for moving over to Port Medoc. Soon after AS and NL went ashore, the head of the local customs office came aboard and explained that they had gotten into contact with our agent, and they were satisfied that we were not trying to do anything “creative”. However, they explained that they did not normally do “demenagements de bateaux”, and were not experts in this process, so they were going to document their boarding and inspection, and the discussions with our agent, and let us go if we promised to get the proper paperwork and send it to them. They wrote this down in a long document (in French), which rxc signed, and which was then signed by all 4 (!) of the agents who participated in the boarding and inspection, and their management.

AS and NL came back to the boat, and we talked about what to do next, and since they had planned to take the ferry to Royan from Port Medoc, it seemed best to say au revoir to them there, and let rxc and ch take the boat over to Port Medoc. So, they packed their bags and headed off for some nice meals up the coast, and eventually in Paris.

At about 1:30 PM, rxc and ch cast off from the douane boat and headed SW towards Port Medoc. The tidal currents in the Gironde were fierce, but our powerful motor propelled us to the entrance to the marina, where two lovely ladies stood on the pier waving us in. We docked the boat in our slip, the ladies helped with the lines, and the good ship Pétillant finally made its arrival in its new home port in France. We celebrated our arrival with a quite tasty lunch at the restaurant in the marina, where rxc and ch finally got to drink some nice red wine again, and ch became acquainted with andouilette.

Then it was back to the boat for the afternoon, and the process of unloading the “stuff” started. The four of us took as much as would fit onto the pickup off of the boat, and this was enough to open it up so that it could dry out a bit after 7 weeks at sea. Everything was damp, and lots of places were wet. It seems that we need to do some serious waterproofing in the bow, and the port chain-plate needs to be re-bedded. We did not get to wash the boat, though, because we did not have a hose connector. Then, it was off to the house in the truck, looking like a maritime version of the Beverly Hillbillies.