The next bit of the adventure begins…
Wednesday 24th – Thursday 25th June
Days 32-33
An evening departure via Brittany Ferries from Portsmouth to St Malo, sailing overnight, was a pretty decent experience to get back to Boni. Certainly nowhere near as personalised as our return trip with Nigel in his wonderful plane, but this was good. We thought that the ship was pretty new; we were onboard within 20 minutes of arriving and we located our cabin (inner, no real porthole, but a picture of one with a view, where the window might have been – clever!).
The ticket included something towards our repast and the restaurant was pleasant and the food good and nicely presented – I chose the lamb:
The ferry didn’t leave on time; which one might think was concerning, due to loading on some gas, but we were assured that we would still arrive at 0815 local time in France. The sun was setting and we still hadn’t departed… I caved in to the tiredness, foregoing watching our departure, which I usually find fascinating.
If you’ve travelled overnight on these ferries, you will know that you are gently woken up by a harpist (not a real one unfortunately!) – music piped into your room at about 0700. After a decent buffet breakfast we could watch our approach into St Malo – it’s quite different seeing it all from height (we are more used to seeing it from Boni’s deck)!
We went to watch the docking, however, noticed that the ship had picked up a fishing buoy and was dragging it along. One of the officers was called to have a look – but he wasn’t very concerned as the ferry has cutters on the propellers to cut it free.
The Entry/Exit System (EES) took about 30 minutes to clear and then we were on the road to La Roche Bernard (fondly known as “LRB”). We stopped off at Ploërmel – an out-of-town shopping area which had loos and a proper café. We arrived in LRB just after 12 noon, which was too late to ask for the Capitainerie to take us out to Boni. We found ourselves a salad lunch and got ourselves acquainted with the place. The temperature was rising, so having a wander around on foot was too hot – it reached a staggering 42˚C, so remaining in our A/C car seemed the best bet.
At 1400 we were able to get a lift out to Boni – the excitement was palpable! Her mooring lines were tangled, but the Capitainerie helped us with this. The cabin was very hot, the deck rather grubby, but we were back on board and the engine started on the button (always a relief) and we took her to the pontoons, via checking on our friends’ boat Jenny Wren – all looking good.
We took our time unloading the car with the help of a trolley (note to self – make sure you have a 2€ coin to use) – all much harder and slower in the intense heat. Then to the supermarket to get stocked up and we treated ourselves to a large bag of ice to help the fridge cool and to add to our drinks. Back on board, the heat was too much, so we launched the dinghy off the back of the boat where it normally resides and jumped into the water. That’s better!
The view from Boni that evening.