Visiting Trelissick

We are off the boat again, and staying a lovely Airbnb in Falmouth while Triskel Marine installs the Integrel system in Idril. The work seems to be progressing well; here's a picture of half of the new 48V battery bank, installed in the starboard well just forward of the companionway. The main Integrel controller is also visible.

Meanwhile, Katy and I are exploring the area around Falmouth, on foot, bicycle and ferryboat. The Airbnb we are in has a lovely view of the harbor from its patio, and is an easy walk to the downtown and dockyard areas of Falmouth.

Today we took an early morning train out to Perranwell and then biked to Trelissick, a National Trust location.

The short bike ride from the train took us mostly on lightly-used country and village roads, and past this repurposed call box.

The gardens at Trelissick are just amazing. It occurred to me as we walked among the trees that arborists must think in terms of decades, if not centuries.

After a pleasant hour or so wandering around Trelissick, we got back on the bikes and headed to St. Just-in-Roseland, home of a lovely church and surrounding grounds. To get there we had to cross the River Fal (from whence Fal-mouth) at the King Harry Ferry. It's an interesting ferry, in that it moves across the river on chains.

It was easy to know when we had arrived at the church.

The church is beautiful (and homey!), as are the  surrounding grounds.

The main walkway down to the churchyard is lined with stones carved with mostly biblical passages, but a few other wonderful sayings, too.

The harbor at St. Just-in-Roseland certainly does dry out.

The trip back to Falmouth (via St. Mawes, and another ferry ride) gave us more views of the Falmouth harbor.

We got back in the mid-afternoon. Tomorrow morning we will move back to the boat; hopefully all the work will be done, and we will finally be able to start really sailing.

To see all the pictures we took, visit this album.

Hey, we seem to be living aboard!

Idril is currently alongside the east pontoon at Mylor Yacht Harbor in Cornwall, U.K. Tomorrow morning the folks from Triskel Marine will come aboard to start installing our new "Integrel" electrical system. We arrived a week ago, and have been busy preparing the boat for the Integrel and learning how to live aboard. We've also been recovering from the trip over from France and spending more time resting than usual.

Our trip here was our first outing without guidance from Kevin Bray, the Swiftsure Yachts representative in France, and the "handover agent" in Cherbourg. Kevin did an outstanding job helping us find and resolve the inevitable new boat glitches, and did a great job teaching us to handle the boat. But now it was time for us to leave familiar Cherbourg behind and start sailing.

We left Cherbourg about 10 days ago, on a typical (for Normandie) partly cloudy Friday afternoon. We left the Cherbourg Rade and sailed west, passing the northwestern tip of the Cherbourg peninsula, and then turned south to sail though the Alderney Race.

We timed our arrival at the Race for close to slack tide, but it was still pretty exciting. The sea floor under the Race is full of underwater mountains, so there are dramatic upwellings, strong currents and many overfalls. Occasionally the boat would just slide sideways, and keeping a heading was a challenge.

At the southern end of the Race we turned northwest and headed for the English Channel. The wind was unfortunately against us, and with the increasing wave heights as we left sheltered waters, we were soon both seasick. Scopolamine patches helped, but neither of us felt really 100% until we reached calmer waters near Plymouth on Saturday afternoon.

We had planned to make a nighttime crossing of the shipping lanes, but we still don't have an AIS transmitter, and our receive-only AIS showed us some very crowded waters. With neither of us feeling great, we decided to turn back to the southwest and attempt the crossing during daylight hours, which we did on Saturday morning.

Once past the shipping lanes we decided to make for Plymouth, rather than press on to Falmouth. There was no chance that we'd arrive at Falmouth before dark, and we both needed some rest. So, Plymouth it was. We spent the night at Mayflower Marina.

After a good nights sleep we set out for Falmouth around midmorning. 

We were still fighting our way upwind, and finally we arrived at Mylor Yacht Harbor at dusk on Sunday evening.  The entrance to the harbor is guarded by a huge mooring field, and finding our way in to the dock was tricky. We had to "parallel park" the boat (as we had at Plymouth) between a set of pontoons, with boats in every slip on either side. The bow thruster was a big help, and we were lucky to have very light winds as we arrived.

The next morning we moved from our temporary spot on the dock to a nice, wide slip, where we stayed for the next 5 days. 

On Monday morning we confronted our first boat problem since leaving Cherbourg: our fresh water pump failed. Luckily we could still get fresh water at the galley sink with the foot pump, but only cold water. On Tuesday morning we took the pump out and replaced it with our spare (boy, are we happy we had THAT spare!).

It was easier than we anticipated, and I was pleased that we were able to handle our first post-delivery mechanical failure on our own.

On Tuesday evening we had a visit from Triskel Marine, in preparation for the installation of our fancy electrical system. Its major pieces are:

• four 5KWh lithium batteries
• a high-output DC generator, mounted on our Volvo Penta D2-75F propulsion engine
• a kilowatt of solar panels on our stern arch (already there, but not hooked up)
• a 5KW DC to AC inverter, which takes power from the batteries and produces the 220VAC power needed by our watermaker and kitchen appliances (an induction stove, microwave/convection oven, hot water kettle and the all important milk frother...)

We're very eager to have this system installed, because without it, we're not able to anchor out or take moorings, making us dependent on slips and shore power. 

The batteries were dropped off on Friday afternoon, and we stowed them temporarily in our aft cabin.

The plan is to install two on each side of boat, beneath the floor plates on either side of the companionway. To make this work on the port side, we had to move some water filters inboard to clear out some space. We did that this morning. This was another confidence builder; neither of us had worked with the 15mm PEX tubing and associated fittings before this. It turns out that this kind of plumbing is very easy. Thank you, John Guest Company, for making some very easy-to-use fittings!

So - what's it like to be living aboard? For starters, everything takes a little longer than you might expect. Everything on the boat has to be stored such that it won't just go flying every time the boat heels from side to side, or bounces up and down on the waves. This means that all of our kitchen gear -- pots and pans, utensils, dishes, and of course food --  has to be stowed with little room to move around, making it tricky to get out. 

Here's a view of our galley, looking from front to back. Notice the cabinets at the back of the counter.

Here's what the contents are like, up close.

To get the large dinner plates out I have to first pull out the smaller plates on top of them; there just isn't enough height to get my hand in there with both sets of plates at the same time.

A lot of our storage is also beneath floor panels, so to get at it, you have to lift a floor panel, get what you need, and replace the panel.

It's not really hard, and you get used to it quickly, but it does slow things down.

Some truly critical pieces of equipment, however, remain at our fingertips.

It's also important to keep the boat tidy - "A place for everything, and everything in its place." It's just not OK to let dishes pile up in the sink; they have to be washed immediately, dried, and put away. Our galley sink is smaller than most terrestrial kitchen sinks, so we typically do dishes as we cook. Meal prep is an all-hands affair (especially since there are only the two of us aboard). But we'd kind of gotten accustomed to that while in Cherbourg; typically Katy does the actual cooking, and I wash and chop vegetables, make a salad and dressing, and do the intermediate clean-up.

All of this is becoming second nature, and since we don't generally have any place we have to be at any particular time, it doesn't seem onerous.

We are currently tending to sleep until fairly late in the morning (8 or 9) and, being so far north, don't go to bed until 11 or midnight, since it stays light quite late.

I'm spending a lot of time just crawling all over the boat, figuring out how things are put together and making a lot of notes. I'm working on creating a "boat owners manual" with lots of pictures and detailed instructions on how to operate the boat; the manual we got from Garcia was surprisingly generic. I also try to get out for bike rides at least 3 days a week. My rides sometimes bear delicious fruit.

All of this is about to be disrupted, though. Starting tomorrow morning, Triskel will start installing the Integrel, and we'll be off the boat and back in an Airbnb for 5 days. I'm looking forward to having the boat well and truly finished, so we can really settle in and make Idril our home.

Locked down, but not locked in

Well - France has finally responded to the corona virus (more properly, SARS-CoV-2), with closure of all restaurants, cafes, bars, schools, and "non-essential" businesses. Prime minister Macron will address the nation tonight at 8PM, and it is expected that measures to mitigate the spread of the virus will be tightened.

Meanwhile: we still had the car that we rented last Friday. We called Enterprise and discovered that there would be no issue with us retaining the car through Thursday morning - so we will. This enabled us to spend the day hiking and visiting nearby ports on the west coast of the Cherbourg peninsula.

Regarding the virus, we figured:

• If one of us has it, the other does, or soon will, too, so there's no point distancing from each other.
• Travel by car isn't going to aid transmission in either direction.
• Walking in essentially deserted areas won't hurt anything, either.

The most potentially dangerous thing we did today was visit the downtown Carrefour first thing in the morning to stock up on basics (pasta, UHT milk, coffee, TP, tissues, etc.). It was not very crowded, and people seemed to be making an effort to remain at a distance from each other. There were lines taped on the floor at the checkout counters to remind shoppers not to crowd together while in line. It was all very orderly, and we felt much better once we were sure we had essentials for at least 2 weeks.

SO - into the car, and off to the west coast.

Our first stop was the south side of Cap Le Rozel, which has a spectacular beach. We walked the beach and then hiked on paths on the bluff above, and south of, the beach. The weather was spectacular -- an almost cloudless blue sky, warm sun, and very little wind - nothing like the weather we have come to expect from Cherbourg.

The beach at Cap Le Rozel, from the southern bluffs

From there we drove slowly northward, stopping to walk whenever the opportunity presented itself, such as at this B and B in Le Rozel.

North of Le Rozel we found trails that curve around steep bluffs, with the Atlantic crashing onto the rocks below for accompaniment.

Our final stop was the harbor at Diélette. I may be able to add pictures from Katy's camera at a later date.

France is beautiful. Spring is arriving, and hopefully it won't be entirely spoiled by disease.

Touring east of Cherbourg

Today we had the second partly-sunny day in a row, with no rain in the forecast until the evening, so we decided to rent a car and do some walking in the harbor towns east of Cherbourg. We have visited these before, but under less-than-ideal conditions, so being able to get out and walk without (much) fear of being rained on was really nice.

Our first stop was Gatteville Lighthouse (Phare de Gatteville), the second lighthouse east of Cherbourg. This picture is actually from our earlier visit, made shortly after we returned from our trip to Dusseldorf for the big European boat show.

The tide was very high, with waves crashing over the seawalls on the access road.

[See the update to this, below.]

From there we drove to the nearby town of Barfleur, which has a harbor with a nearly 10-meter tidal swing during spring tides (which is what we had today). Katy took some pictures (not shown here) of the boats actually floating; the last time we were there, they were sitting on the seabed.

There is a lovely church at the entrance to the harbor, which has this sad, if attractive, memorial.

In memory of the fishermen of Barfleur and the surrounding area perished at sea

It seems that all French towns, no matter how small, have at least one very nice Catholic church.

Our next stop was Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, which has an much larger harbor but, unlike Barfleur, well protected from the raw tidal swing by a lock at the harbor entrance. We walked around the harbor and through the town, and had lunch and coffee. Between lunch and coffee, we discovered this nearly-hidden semi-public garden. I just loved the rooflines from the interior.

We also shopped for some specialty foods at Maison Gosselin, which our landlord, Christian, had suggested we visit, and took in a shop near the harbor that had lovely hand-painted postcards. It also had a serving dish with this image, which really captures life on the Cherbourg peninsula in winter.

By then it was almost supper time, so we drove back to Cherbourg and our apartment, making a second, low-tide stop at Phare de Gatteville on the way. Fittingly, it started to sprinkle just as we were walking from the parking lot to our front door.

==========================

So much for the travelogue. You may be wondering how we are. Well, life in Cherbourg is quite pleasant. Our apartment is cozy (small, but comfortable),  there's an excellent farmer's market on Saturdays (and other days, too, but that's the big one), and our boat is coming along well. Katy and I are, IMO, adapting well to being together nearly all the time. We get pissy with each other occasionally, but actually less so than I think we did in Cambridge. We really enjoy cooking together, and with the excellent fresh ingredients we have here, we've been eating very well. We both have folding bicycles, and I've been riding at least 10km most mornings, and usually much more. I've lost a lot of weight, and feel great.

I am loving being retired.

That said - we miss our friends and family pretty ferociously, and that's been aggravated by the scary news we get regarding COVID-19. Given our somewhat solitary live style, I think we're unlikely to be stricken by it soon, and since we're both in pretty decent health, we're not terribly worried about it. But we do worry about all of you back in the U.S. It seems like this will hit the dance and music communities very hard -- not necessarily the illness itself, but the knock-on effects of cancelled dances and concerts. 

It's also strange watching the presidential election season play out from the other side of the Atlantic. We both voted via absentee ballots in the primary and will vote in the general election, but we don't really discuss politics much with each other. That's perhaps a good thing, since it's so generally unsettling. But events in the U.S. feel remote and somewhat unreal. 

We enjoy getting email from y'all, and we're also available on WhatsApp and Signal. Ping us!

-- Jerry

Update to our visit to Gatteville Lighthouse

The day after this entry was posted, we drove back out to Barfleur and walked up the lighthouse - 350 steps or so. The actual light is really nifty.

The view from the platform is pretty incredible.

Towards Cherbourg

Towards Balfleur

Our goodies arrive, and the boat gets a top

Today was a big day for us. Our two pallets of stuff from the U.S. were delivered to the Garcia boatyard, and the coach roof (the last big structural piece of the hull) was glued on to the superstructure.

Our pallets arrived in Rotterdam 6 days ago, and we honestly didn't expect them to reach Cherbourg as quickly as they did. Guillaume, our contact during construction at Garcia, texted us this morning to let us know that our goodies are here.

The "big" pallet

We toodled on out to the yard (Katy on our folding bike, me jogging) and spent much of the day pulling out critical items from our boxes: radio parts that Garcia will need very soon, cruising guides for the French Atlantic coastline and Scotland, Hanabi (a favorite game) and, perhaps best of all, Katy's folding bike.

Our bikes, at home at the apartment

Besides the arrival of our stuff, the coach roof was mounted on our boat today. There was a small army of workers spreading the glue, and then the roof was lowered and bolted down.

Cake frosting? No, lots of glue!

The hull for the coach roof attached

We also had a good discussion with the lead electrician regarding the SSB radio installation. All in all, quite the exciting day!

Domesticity

Today was all about getting settled into our near-term life in Cherbourg. We slept in until 10, still shaking off the jet lag from the trip over. We had a very late brunch at home and then went out for a walk around the marina. On the way back, I took this picture of Katy at the entrance to our apartment.

The apartment is small, but comfortable; the word "cozy" comes to mind.

It has a lovely view of our hosts' garden (complete with cat - can you find it?).

We did more grocery and houseware shopping, and upon return, Katy made a lovely dinner of risotto.

Tomorrow we leave for Brussels, and a visit with our friends Bill and Uschi.

Cherbourg - Day 1

We arrived yesterday evening in Cherbourg after a long day of travel. Owen drove us to the airport on Tuesday evening, along with our 3 huge bags to check and 4 carry-ons. We had no problems at the airport (some of you may know of our last minute ticketing woes...) and chilled for a few hours in the Lufthansa lounge (Katy scored business class tickets - well, la-dee-da!). The flight to Zurich was great in business class - we could actually sleep. The transfer in Zurich went smoothly, and we arrived in Paris in the early afternoon.

After a brief panic at the airport (I managed to leave a carry-on, containing my precious concertina, at baggage claim...), we were soon driving a rental car through the French countryside. We arrived in Cherbourg around 8PM (2AM human body time...) and found our apartment.

The

The host couple is very nice, and they left us with some starter food and drink. After a bit of initial unpacking, we hit the sack.

This morning (Thursday) we did more unpacking and figured out how to make the apartment work for us. We then headed over to the boatyard to meet with Kevin (the SwiftSure representative in France) and get a first look at the boat.

The walk to the yard takes us past the central harbor in Cherbourg.

This was about mid-tide; I'll try to get shots of high and low tide soon, to show off the astounding (to us Cape people...) tidal swing. 

The boat is in the main construction building at the Garcia/Allures yard.

She is very much still a work in progress, but she looks like a boat!

Kevin then took us out in the yard and showed us GX24, the boat built just ahead of ours, and launched this fall. It's now hauled out after its initial trials.

It's a purty thang, isn't it?

After lunch and more discussions at the yard with Garcia, we took off in the car to do some shopping. 

We bought very mundane stuff: some food (fruit, cereal, yogurt, milk, bread, cheese), a couple of pillows and pillowcases, some light bulbs, and extension cord, etc. But shopping was fun. reading labels in French was good for us, and we saw some entertaining goodies in the big "everything" store:

Need some PJs?

Or maybe some yogurt?

After shopping we didn't have enough time to go back to the apartment before meeting Kevin at a sneak preview of the program his SO's circus group is putting on. No photos or video, but it was fantastic.

The back to the apartment for a quick dinner, a little more organizing, and this blog post.

Our lives in pallets

We've spent the past month sorting though all of our remaining household goods, separating them into groups:

• Discard (and why did we bother moving these to Falmouth???)
• Donate to the Falmouth public library, Goodwill, or the Salvation Army
• Fob off on Re-gift to friends and family
• Pack and store at Gentle Giant for the duration
• Leave in Falmouth for our return in 2021
• Take with us on the plane, for our first couple of months in France
• Stuff into boxes for shipment via slow boat to France

Yesterday we nailed down that last category:

And a few minutes ago, off they went:

There were several moments of excitement. When the driver lowered the tailgate, it stopped about halfway down. He fiddled around with the control wiring for a bit and discovered that a fuse might have been blown, and he didn't have a spare. I asked to look at the fuse; it's the same style we use on the boat, and luckily we still have a box of stuff to take to the Bonnie lass, including this:

Yea, team - it worked.

The other moment came as he started to load the first pallet (the heavier of the two) onto the tailgate. The box tilted............and didn't fall over. Whew!