After arriving at Saint-Malo, we decided to go exploring in the town. Saint-Malo has a reputation as a haven for privateers, as the governor of the city gave out letters of permission for captains of ships that sailed from there to plunder non-French ships and seek refuge there. The tides and the fortifications of the city made it an easy place to defend. As a result, it became a very wealthy town.
Approaching Saint-Malo from the water feels like going back in time. The skyline from the sea is beautiful.
We are approaching the 'sill' at the marina entrance. The sill keeps the water at a minimum depth. The sign shows that the water level right now is still 5.31 metres ABOVE the sill!
Wow, the tides must wildly vary here.
Yes, they do. 9 metre tides. Crazy.
Big tides means every twelve hours it is easy to dry your boat out for a coat of bottom paint.
Here I am.
Street art, too!
Emma tied up to the city wall. Thank goodness for her high freeboard.
Emma is parked right outside the old city gate.
One of the city gates
Tromping around the ramparts of the city fortifications
After being pummelled in World War II, much of the city was rebuilt to a museum-quality example of a 18th century port town. It is gorgeous here.
Statue of Jacques Cartier, one of the first Europeans travel across the Atlantic and start trading with the First Nations of North America
A beach that vanishes twice a day when the tide comes in.
Logs provide additional protection from crashing surf along the seawall. Storms can be frighteningly awesome here.
This is why the logs are there.
Look, the Australian blokes aren't the only ones who like a 'ute.
In France, it is important to read the labels carefully when buying milk.
A view down at one of the beaches outside the ramparts
Same beach, different angle
A beautiful beach that gets well-used. The tide is approaching in this photo, so it is almost empty.
Sunset from the ramparts
The city's emblem, a ferret wearing a cape, in the cobbles. We are on our way to find some dinner.
Interesting fact: Saint-Malo is the only French city that flies their city flag ABOVE the French tricolour. If you ask a resident of the city why this is so, they will likely reply,
Wow, that was a big week. We are exhausted. ... and smitten! Monday was a paperwork day, but aboard Chinook. We went over the contract, item by item, to ensure that everything the contract stated would be delivered. There were a few things missing or incomplete (mixups in ordering, vendor delivery timing issues) but they were noted with written assurances that they would be delivered, changed out or corrected. This all needed to be clearly stated before we transfer the lion's share of the purchase amount to Garcia. Signing and double-checking the contract Anything that wasn't in place, was incomplete or not working properly would be dealt with by the warranty team. There was no refuting that they had delivered A boat. We had no idea how she sailed and there was no way that a single day of inspection would allow anyone to check every bit of the more-than-5000-person-hours of labour that went into this sleek looking vessel. The "Grin and Grab" p
Yep, you read correctly. Our plans have changed, as plans often do and our 2024 is looking somewhat different from what we wrote in a previous post - A Rough Plan for 2024 . Chinook will be left safe and sound at Port Chantereyne Marina - with her Garcia friends! We still plan to head to the UK and Ireland after Easter and will spend until mid-June cruising around, exploring the area and putting Chinook through her paces. Our plan is to sail to Alderney, just off the coast of Normandy, on Easter Monday or Tuesday. It is a short hop but has some major tides that can run up to 10kn so we need to time our departure well. We bought the "Aurigny' (Alderney to the English-speakers) courtesy flag from the local chandlers here in Cherbourg We will then cross the English Channel to Portsmouth and work our way west along the coast of England to Wales and Scotland before heading south along the eastern Irish coast. We need to be back in Cherbourg by mid-June for the 3-month warran
When we rocked up to the Garcia office for our Monday morning meeting, we couldn't help but notice that a mast-less Exploration 45 was parked outside the shed door where we had previously seen our hull parked. Could this be o-u-r boat? Nice boat. Could it be ours??? Marie, our project manager, confirmed that it was our boat! Although we had come to the yard to put the Boat Show goodies that we had acquired into Garcia-provided storage, we were meeting with Christophe, the after-sales guy to go over spare parts and after-delivery emergency equipment that we were putting on our order. We would not be getting a look ON BOARD this marvellous aluminium creature. We would just be admiring through the meeting room window. Our boat tour was tomorrow. The next day, we had mistakenly thought that the meeting was at 11 am, rather than the scheduled 10 am. at 10:15 we received a text message from a puzzled Marie. "Are you coming for the meeting? Don't you want to
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