Dover

We stayed in Dover quite a bit longer than we had planned.  6 days, to be exact, and it was a good rest.  Kitties seem to have gotten over the trauma of the ferry ride, and we have been playing tourist all over the region, by train, bus, and on foot.  The first afternoon we wandered thru the Dover shopping district – the “High Street” area – and were a bit surprised to find that the shops closed promptly at 5:00PM.  All of them, including M&S.  It seems like the small shop mentality is even more strict here than in France, where you can at least find a boulangerie open at 6-7PM (maybe almost out of bread, but still open).  Wonder if this is associated with earlier dining hours here than in France.

Fog in Channel - Continent Cut Off!

That's Calais back there somewhere

6:15 came eventually, and the cell phone alarm went off.  Just in time for us to turn on BBC4 and hear the shipping forecast, which included “Fog Patches” in the Dover Straits.  A look out the window revealed grey everywhere, but it was possible to see all the ships and the harbor.  More weather reports later, in French and in English, talked of areas of fog and low visibility.  But none of the reports said definitely that the fog had gotten so dense that the continent was now cut off from Britain.

Calais, and the Douane...

The early start the next day  from Fecamp was to try to make sure that we got a push along the coast from the currents.  Our original idea was to head towards some other port before Calais, but there are not very many on this stretch of coast that do not dry out, so after considering options, we decided to push all the way to Calais, which is 94 miles from Fecamp.  It would be a long day, but with a good push in the later stages from the tide, and with the great summertime weather, it was worth it.

As we headed NE, we edged closer and closer to the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) that is used to keep the ships in the Manche (English Channel) moving without congestion or accidents.  We had to stay outside the TSS, because we are so small.  Just about 10 miles from Cap Gris Nez, as we just about kissed the edge of the TSS, we noticed a gray military-looking vessel heading out, probably from Boulogne-sur-mer.  They were privileged, so we edged a bit to the right to let them pass ahead, which caused them to head far to their port, so we returned to our original course to let them pass astern.  No good.  This just caused them to head straight for us.

Ahhh… 

At first we had safety concerns, but then we realized that we were about to be controlled by the Douane (French customs).  Sure enough, they started to call us on the radio, and we had a nice chat for about 10 minutes about our last ports, our next ports, our hailing ports, etc.  They then asked us to slow down to 5 kts and prepare to be boarded for an inspection.

Fiscalite

Just like in Ireland, they dropped a RIB into the water, and 5 guys came aboard while we sailed towards Calais.  Their leader was very polite, spoke impeccable English (at first), and asked all sorts of detailed questions about us and the boat.  We started to talk in French to him, and after the initial introductions, we did the entire interview in French.  He complimented us(!) on our ability to speak French.  The sequence is one we have been though before, and we have all the papers needed to address the issues.  This time, we were asked for the bill-of-sale for the boat, as well, which we have.  We even presented him with the paperwork from the initial boarding at the mouth of the Gironde in 2008.  Two fellows did a search of the boat, opening lockers and drawers until one of them was startled by a large red cat streaking by.  Then they decided they had seen enough inside.

C'est la vie!

The commander of the team complimented us on having all of our papers in order, and following the prescribed procedures (and paying the required taxes).  He explained that they had seen us because of the AIS, and the prospect of controlling an American boat caused them to come out.  They do not see many US-flagged boats up here.  He explained that he had a quota of inspections that had to be done during the summer, and normally he does tax, safety, and licensing inspections, but with a US boat, he can only inspect for tax compliance (liberté, fraternité, egalité, fiscalité!).  This is one big reason we will not document this boat in the EU – we would have to change out a big bunch of hardware and get licenses.

One good thing about this event was that it showed that the AIS we had installed does actually work – other people can see us as well as we can see them.  The downside, of course, is that every douane in Europe can now see the potential American financial target and zero in on it. Luckily, all of our papers are in order…

Once the Douane left, we cranked it up and headed to Calais.  This is a big ferry port, with ships coming and going at all hours.  We had to stop at the entrance and mill-about smartly for 15 minutes while we waiting for a large ferry to leave, and then we got permission to enter, only to have to wait for another 20 minutes for the bridge that guards the marina basin to open.  Once in, we quickly found a spot, a few slips down from a Brit-flagged boat named Philadelphia.  This turned out to be owned by a Brit/US couple who live in the UK, and she is from the eastern PA area.  Very nice people in town as part of a Calais Rally with their yacht club.

Calais and the Kitties

Next day was one for figuring out how to deal with kitties.  We slept in, checked into the marina, and headed out on foot for the enormous ferry terminal across the inlet.  This terminal really looks like a prison camp, with double rows of high (4 meter, probably) fencing, some topped with razor wire.  There seem to be a large number of people in this part of France who really, really, really want to get to the UK, and need to be strongly discouraged from trying to sneak aboard a ship.  Our walk took us to the parking lot entrance, which is the normal way for pietons to enter the ferry terminal, but it was closed because of maintenance work, so we were allowed to enter a side gate by a special guard.  

We then crossed about 15 lanes of traffic(!) to get to the terminal.  We discussed the process with the nice P&O people, and even bought a ticket for jlm and the kitties.  Then the fun started…

Since we didn’t enter via the normal pathway (which was closed), no one in the terminal wanted to let us back out the way that we had come in.  It seems that normally, people like us take either the P&O shuttle from the train station, or else the city bus.  NO ONE WALKS.  Or, at least no one had walked for such a long time that they didn’t know how to get us out, except thru the pathway that the maintenance people had blocked off.  So, of course, the security people in the terminal failed open, and said that we would have to walk “that way” (far NE) for along way to get to the car entrance to the terminal, to leave.  They could not contact the special guard that their own security service had stationed at the normal entrance, to see what could be done.  A typical security issue..

We got tired of this, and just then a taxi showed up to drop off some passengers, so we got in and paid €10.00 to go back to town for some snacks and last minute French shopping.  It was also fortuitous, because it gave us the number of a taxi guy to pick up jlm and the kitties the next day.  We spent the rest of the day getting prepared for the kitty trip and the single-handed Calais-Dover trip, and cleaning the boat.  We also got concerned because the gorgeous summer weather had disappeared as we walked thru town.  A thick layer of fog descended and we wandered thru a cold, grey fog bank, listening to the horns from ships and lighthouses.  None of us slept well, thinking about how one person would take the boat across the most trafficked body of water, in the fog, alone…

Cherbourg to Fecamp– Slogging up the Channel

We finally made it to Dover, with both cats legally entered into the UK.  The trip from Cherbourg was all motoring or motor-sailing, which is not very pleasant, but at least the seas were not rough.

Cherbourg

We waited in Cherbourg for four days for a break in the weather.  A stubborn  set of systems over the continent generated strong easterly winds in the channel for 3 days, and associated large swells, so we decided to see the wonders of Cherbourg, of which there are really not many. Although the commercial aspects of the harbor have been significant in the past, only the ferry traffic to the UK is left for passenger service, and the mainstay seems to be the large shipyard.  They are also trying to do a lot with a maritime museum, which we did not visit, and there have been big Titanic anniversary  events going on.  We did a fair amount of walking, and had two good market days in town, but did not take any meals out.  With the good produce that was available, it was more fun to sit on the boat and watch the various tourist-sailors arriving from the UK, and the students at the sailing school learn how to sail dinghys, Lasers, and other similar boats.   We also did a number of boat chores that have been waiting for a while, and we now have our netting back in place, and complete, to catch any wayward kitties (or boat objects) who might slide towards the gunwales…

Kids having fun

The sailing school seems to be quite large, and the younger students must be receiving encouragement from their educational institutions, because they were sailing during the school week.  We wondered whether it was part of their physical education program. In the morning, the instructors would tow long lines of dinghies out to the rade behind a RIB, and turn the really young children (maybe 6-9 years old) loose to have fun and sail back.  The older ones in the lasers had to sail themselves out the channel, doing short tacks all the way.  They invariably came back around 11:30 to have lunch (this is France, after all), and then back in the afternoon for more fun.

The Brits have been descending en masse.  Cherbourg is only about 65 miles from the Solent,  so a long day or a relatively short overnight trip is easy to do.  And with te east wind we had, it must have been a blast.  There were a lot of groups associated with sailing clubs in the UK.  One guy would be designated Commodore of the cruise, and they would all tie up next to one another and party together.  Then, they all left together, either back to the UK or further west to the more exotic parts of France. 

Fecamp

This was the last holiday weekend (of four(!)) in May for the French, so we knew that town would be quiet on Sunday and Monday, so on Sunday the weather appeared to be quite calm and we decided to try to make it further east.  Our first goal was Ouistreham, which is the port for the large city of Caen.  As we motored east with a large push from the current, we got ambitious, and decided to try for Le Havre, at the mouth of the Seine.  We often talk about heading up to Paris with the boat for a winter, so we thought we would check out the facilities in Le Havre, which is where many boat take down their masts.  Supposedly, demasting boats is a real industry there, and it is possible (and even inexpensive(!)) to have the mast shipped to the Med if you decide to take the canal route instead of the Spain-Portugal-Gibralter route.

However, as we approached Le Havre, we realized that it was really just another large French city, of which we know quite a few, and we really wanted to make some distance to the north.  So, looking at the charts, we decided to head to Fecamp, a former fishing village further along the coast.  This meant a bit longer day, and in the end we did about 74 miles.  A lot of this was motor-sailing.  For non-sailors, this means that we ran the engine with the sails up.  If you have weak winds from the right direction, you can use the motor to generate better winds for the sails so that you travel faster than you would if you just ran the engine or used just the sails.  We can pick up 1-1.5 knots this way.

When do we get to go ashore and party?

We arrived in a town that was partying because it was one of the first holidays of the season, and the fishing has been supplemented by tourism.  The marina is large, and we just managed to grab one o the last spots on the end of a hammerhead behind a visiting French boat, and next to some Dutch.  They were nice enough to help with lines, and could not get enough of the great red cat who wanted to explore the pier. 

We asked whether the marina office was open, and they said that of course, being a Sunday night, it was not.  And, malhureausement, they did not know the code to the sanitaires.  We explained that we just wanted to know  so that we could go pay for the night, and they gave the French laugh that says “Oh, why would anyone want to pay for use of a few cleats for the night?”.  So, we didn’t worry about it, and left early the next day without seeing the harbormaster at all.  We did this once before, at Treburden last year, and we have noticed a number of boats that seem to arrive late in the evening after the capitainerie is closed, but then leave early the next morning before it opens again.  The prices that are paid seem to level themselves out, somehow…

The White Cliffs of France

We walked around town, admiring the architecture.  This is the “Alabaster Coast” of France, with high chalk cliffs that also contain strata of flint and other stones, and the people of Fecamp have made good use of these stones to decorate their houses.  We also walked along the shingle beach and collected a few interesting stones there.