Many things have happened since my last blog post, and I should write about those, but first, a little amusement, courtesy of one Oliver Clerc, a French reporter who wandered by our boat in Cherbourg a few days ago. He interviewed us, and our dockside ("pontoon") neighbors, and wrote the following article, reproduced here in blatant violation of copyright, in English translation (via Google Translate...). This appeared in the Monday, November 9 issue of "Ouest France".
Note: the "quotations" are a bit embellished. We were not recorded via audio, rather the reporter took notes. We might not have said quite what he reported, and of course Google Translate may have further mangled things.
-- Jerry
At the port, confined foreigners sympathize
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The Americans Jerry Callen and Katy Petersen, as well as the Germans Anke and Martin Birkhoff, pontoon neighbors at the Chantereyne port of Cherbourg where they are confined.
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The life of marinas is made up of brotherhood between frequent travelers. In Cherbourg, Americans and Germans live their confinement as neighbors on the pontoon. Links are forged.
The story
Chances of existence, for these confined so far from home ... Saturday, Jerry Callen and his partner Katy Petersen, Americans from Boston, leave their Idril sailboat moored in the port of Cherbourg, cross the pontoon to dine aboard Mago del Sur, invited by the Germans Anke and Martin Birkhoff. This is where they learn the outcome of the Trump-Biden duel. “Martin tells us about the election,” says Jerry. I turn on my phone and find Biden elected! "We are coming out of the Trump nightmare," Katy sighs.
Safe in France
In the evening, their daughter calls them from Washington, describes the scenes of jubilation. A little aside from the country for these great travelers who gave up everything to live their life as ocean adventurers. But their first stopover, in Nord-Cotentin, dragged on. In January, they take possession of the boat with which they must travel the blue planet, tame it, when in March, the first confinement slows their dreams. No big deal: "We felt a lot safer here than in the United States," Katy says.
A summer trip along the English coast later, they learn that Britain is going to close. “We were in Chichester. The following night we left for Cherbourg ”, sums up Jerry. New "locked down" (containment). "When you're sailing, you shouldn't be in a hurry ..." Their first gesture was to pay for their place in Port Chantereyne until December 2nd. The next, to look, in the masts of the neighbors, for the pennant of one of the international associations of long-distance navigators to which they belong.
Exactly, there is one. Nearby. It flies alongside the black, red and gold flag of the other side of the Rhine. Coming from Bremen, the owners of Mago del Sur were to reach La Rochelle, before Spain, the Mediterranean, and others elsewhere. A damage, longer to repair than expected, they are nailed in Cherbourg since October 14. “Then there was the storm,” says Anke. And when a weather window opened, containment fell on us. I feel a bit trapped. "
She points to an almost dead town, "a pity, with almost no one in the streets and all these closed shops". Put him in perspective, reports the pleasure of having discovered Mont-Saint-Michel, Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, Barfleur. They have fun together "this language that we invent to make ourselves understood when we buy vegetables", agree: "Life is never boring. There is always something to do on a boat. And we are better there than in an apartment without a balcony. Their world tour stopped in Cherbourg.
Temporarily.
