Piriac-sur-Mer – Le Roche Bernard – Cherbourg & Home Sigh….
Days 56 – 58
Tuesday 21st July – Thursday 24th July
Farewell to Piriac
By Tuesday morning the wind had abated a bit – NE still (not great as this was the basic direction of our travel) but still 16 – 25knts. Forget the sails, we’ll motor, but it took a while, although at least we could go directly to the mouth of the River Vilaine (it’s interesting to see how Marine Traffic interpreted our track!)
It was a bright, still breezy day, but as we left at 0755, for the first time all holiday, we both donned jackets under our lifejackets. We ploughed along at around 4.5knts – not a great speed; however the sun was shining and we got up to the river mouth in about 1¾ hours, then just over an hour to the lock, arriving at 1055 – 5 minutes before our booked time of 1100.
Entering the Vilaine River
Luckily we were able to go straight in and all told, there were only 6 of us in there, including a very wide catamaran. A last minute little yacht (about 8m long) suddenly arrived… watching other people arrive/leave places can be very entertaining and this was no exception. We watched the owner of the little yacht throw a line to the eclusier (lock-keeper) – however, he had not fastened it to his boat (rookie error) and promptly a hiatus ensued, “Monsieur Monsieur”, followed by some very fast shouty French, which I didn’t catch while the boat slewed across the lock on the wrong aspect, and the crew clambered around looking helplessly as to what to do!
On Boni, all was calm, and we watched the bridge lift in front of us, then we were able to go, only to be greeted by a great plethora of boats facing us, all waiting to enter the lock in the opposite direction. We wove our way through them, shipped the fenders on the decks and made our way up to La Roche Bernard.
River life:
Seven Swans-a-swimming!
Upon calling the Port on the radio, we were invited to come into Julliet Vingt Cinq (J pontoon, 25). Without further instruction, we found the place and stopped. This pontoon is at the opposite end of the marina than where we were last time, so we had new things to discover, including a much nicer miniature shower/loo block. After signing in with the Capitainerie, we walked to recover the car – 1.5kms away. What if she wasn’t there? What is she had been vandalised? What if she didn’t start? What if…. But she was there, all fine and started on the button – phew!
Now with the use of the car we could start getting organised for the big packing up and ready to get Boni lifted ashore the next day.
Wednesday we took Boni to the waiting pontoon, where we were met at 1100 by Alexi and his colleague. The lift system here is very different from the one at the National Sailing Academy at Portland. Alexi uses a tractor with a low hydraulic trailer which is carefully pushed under the hull and raised; then the boat is trundled up the hill to the boat park and placed into a really clever cradle consisting of two sections. This was a really swift and impressive operation and Boni was all settled into her new cradle and surroundings probably less than 40 minutes from being in the water! Here hare a few pictures to give you an idea of how it all went. Here are the sequence of photos showing the lift operation onto a hydraulic low-loader trailer, pulled by a tractor!
Then Boni is taken up the road to the boat storage yard:
On
Meanwhile, we got a lift back to the Port to retrieve our car and drove it over the big bridge to the boat park. After a quick salad lunch, we set to getting everything packed up, cleaned and stowed.
A drink in the old port at Sarah B (we thought we’d earnt it!) lead us to book a table for later that evening there. Off to the super-market to stock up on essentials to take home (Voigner, Muscadet-sur-Lie, Cremant, Cotes de Rhone, Bordeaux etc).
Great evening ambience at Sarah B, and tasty food – Rilettes de Poison followed by Tataki de Thon salad for me and Sea Bass for Bob. 
The Sarah B restaurant is in the old port at La Roche Bernard:
We slept one last night on the boat and were probably not meant to, as we got back and the gates were firmly shut into the yard, but thankfully not locked (otherwise this would now be a different story!) – so we let ourselves in and watched the sun go down for the last time this summer in France.
Obviously one can’t use the boat’s toilet on board when you’re on the hard (standing) – so a bucket does have its uses (just saying).
We got away by 0940 on our way to Cherbourg; found ai “Air” to stop off at which had a man with a van selling coffee and Frites (we passed on the frites). The toilettes here were of the traditional “Air” toilets – two feet pads with a hole in the ground. Hmmm, what are the muscles like for squatting over such a thing these days (no – I didn’t fall over!)
After this, I drove for a while to the inland port of Carentan where we stopped with our picnic lunch. We were in very good time and spotted the Carentan Normandy WWII Museum. This was an exceptionally well presented set of artefacts, recollections and videos, mostly about things that had happened at Omaha Beach on the D-Day landings – too much to take in and process properly; however, the horrific subject matter of how disgusting war was (and still is) didn’t make me very happy. Here are some photos from the museum – including some musical instruments!
We arrived in Cherbourg at 1545, in very good time and eventually got loaded on the Brittany Ferries boat – The Barfleur. Setting sail at 1815 over a very smooth and glassy sea – no wind here, but time for a game of Scrabble (please see results chart below for scores so far) arriving in Poole at 2145 all ready for the disembarkation and trip home.
Click on the chart below to see how many miles we travelled:
Scrabble statistics so far: