Day 31 – Thursday 28th May
Today marked the end of this first chapter of our sailing trip to Europe (sigh). It is so interesting that you can get used to living in a small environment and now we had got used to living onboard and the sailing, it was hard to accept that we were leaving. However, ahead of us, we had a very exciting and adventurous trip home….
Our taxi driver Stephane, arrived punctually at 0750 and drove us to the (mainly commercial) airport at St Nazaire, not far from the Pont de Sainte Nazaire that is an astounding 3.8kms long! We could see this vast bridge, which spans the Loire river in the distance. And then we had a bit of a wait, but the airport was open, so a space for us to relax (and for me to do another lesson on my French Duolingo – I’m now up to day 105).
A good friend of ours, who we had known from our time in Hertfordshire, who also happens to be a pilot and owns a 6-seater Piper, offered to come and collect us from St Nazaire to fly us into Bournemouth! How lucky were we? Nigel now lives on Guernsey and he was delighted to be part of our solution to get us home (so were we!) and this was a very exciting end to our holiday. These days, the availability of technology is quite incredible and Nigel was able to let us know of his progress and what was going on for him in the air.
Everything at St Nazaire airport seemed very quiet and “Marie-Celeste”-like… however, suddenly a team of border-force officials arrived – about 6 or 7 of them! Nigel had very kindly been in touch with the authorities and submitted our paperwork to them, so we were called over and went through the biometrics – that has been 25 days out of our 180 days in Europe (thanks Brexit!).
Nigel texted to say that he was in a holding pattern for landing – but no other plane was apparent. This is like the three buses syndrome – first to land was a massive Airbus transporter plane which takes the Airbus wings from France to Germany – it looks rather like a plane-whale! Next another little plane was taking off and then Nigel landed his plane: N101DW and taxied to the waiting area where he could park
Nigel came into the airport building, flashed his passport at the Douanes and then we were good to go.
Our bags were stowed and we donned lifejackets, which are required by the regulations. I was lucky enough to be in the co-pilot’s seat, next to Nigel and this whole experience was fascinating. Not only was Nigel able to communicate with the various air-traffic controllers (ATC) -there are several different ones en route, as then hand over from one bit of airspace to another, but he was able to explain to us about what was going on and what he was doing.
Several screens and instruments behold upon the dashboard and our own conversations were interrupted as Nigel needed to talk to ATC. After a smooth take-off we ran parallel with the The Loire for a short while, climbing all the time and then gradually turning northwards; we were going to be flying at 9,000 feet! The visibility was a bit hazy, so my photos aren’t brilliant. 
Take off near the Loire River
First landmark of note was Mont St Michel and St Malo
Then we flew up the western edge of the Cherbourg peninsular and could see Carteret really well and then Cherbourg.
After a while we crossed the Channel and could see the Isle of Wight and the Needles; by this time we were already beginning to come down in altitude and we turned towards Poole and over Upton to make our final approaches into Bournemouth airport where we landed and taxi-ed to Bliss Aviation (what a lovely name!) and that was the end of our trip with Nigel.
Approaching Poole and over Upton:
I cannot tell you how fabulous it was, so interesting, so tremendously exciting – something that will live long in my memory – massive thanks to Nigel!
We were greeted by a taxi, which took us home.