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Halley
Halley
in France – May 2001
Could Henley be so bad that three normal guys felt they were in paradise one evening sat in semi comfort bobbing on the end of a rusty chain at the mouth of the Lymington river. The setting sun was hazy arctic, the wine well below chambre and a couple with matching beige anoraks on the Wight Link ferry waved briskly. It seemed impolite to pretend we had not seen them so against everyone’s better judgement we grudgingly grimaced and returned the compliment.
The rusty chain clearly had spirit as we were still in place the next morning at five o clock. We committed it to the deep and swiftly washed out towards the Needles channel to the accompaniment of two very shrill oyster catchers who did their best to damage our hearing. Our destination, St. Vaast, was about 70 miles distant. However, not half a mile away on the West side of the Shingles bank a yacht was lying aground on its ear showing most of its keel, we agreed this was not a good thing so I went below to conjure up the full English breakfast – children at home, don’t try juggling six raw eggs while standing at an acute angle , one leg braced against the wall while cantering over an Easterly swell at the same time.
The early fresh breeze on the beam had Halley creaming over the ground, marginally over-canvassed but doing what a yacht should do with all sail flying. Exhilarating and all very well but with most of 12 hours sailing left life was going to be a lot easier after heaving too and hauling in the first reef. The wives would have been proud of us – first reef went in quite soon after if became really necessary but as there were no women around there was no point in being macho anyway. Ace sailing conditions, top hull speed and a foaming wake streaming by.
As the Southern shipping lane came closer the radar picked up three ships in line to the West, with oodles of space between number two and number three we continued our track. On closing, number two which I thought was the size of Guildford Cathedral and precisely the same colour, was in overtake mode and had moved abreast of the leader. Somehow this gave us something to talk about for the next four hours, you have to make do with simple pleasures on a channel crossing particularly as these were the only ships anywhere to be seen for the entire day.
The trouble with going fast is you tend to arrive early. In this case it meant that the Barfleur race had not exhausted itself and there seemed little pleasure in several hours of top speed sailing to stand still against a 5 knot tidal stream. Time for fallback plan B as advised in all well organised institutions. Cunningly this entailed going with the 5 knot stream to Cherbourg rather than against it – a well tried and tested old sailing ruse. Within minutes we were joined by another yacht, the mist began to close in and we approached the Cherbourg waypoint with one mile visibility. Five miles to go and we had collected five other boats, all going our way. I did wonder if I was the only person with confidence in my navigation when the Poole / Cherbourg ferry tagged on behind us and waited until he could see the outer forts before sprinting for the finish line.
Friday evening on a bank holiday
weekend, did we really expect the marina to be empty, of course not but the young
harbour master in his battle worn rib was beginning to show the first signs of
panic. We exchanged pleasantries
with a friendly bonjour before continuing in fluent Eurospeak i.e. slow, loud,
English. He recommended us to pontoon Novembre which I presumed would be between
pontoons Meek and Oscair then he quickly slunk back into the shadows to continue
fretting about the overwhelming armada about to descend on him. There were no
free berths anywhere, except for one – strung like a cats cradle with warps from
an ugly neighbouring steel yacht which sported greasy tyres as fenders – another
gem from The Old Salts Book of Etiquette. As Holmes used to say, “Very clever
my dear Moriarty, but not quite clever enough…” If harmonisation is what is wanted
in Europe then I think we can safely say we harmonised his warps to our advantage
and fended off with the vast fenders I bought for the Dutch canals – not unlike
inverted hot air balloons or “space hoppers” if you can remember as far back as
the 70’s. Outside of Halley was a plastic fantastic racer moored withbits of lightweight
racing string and the last boat on the seaward end of the pontoon.
Save for the sign proclaiming “Visiteurs” and a few unflagged yachts, the single Belgian yacht and two German flags must have wondered if they are arrived in an English marina – a sea of British ensigns fluttering everywhere, the unmistakable fizz of tonic on gin filled the air and a parade of duty rolled endlessly on to the great shower block shrine.
By mid evening, the fretting harbour garcon had conceded rafting up on the seaward end of each pontoon and it wasn’t long before John McEnroe on number four was letting rip with “You cannot be serious..” to a 42 foot potential number five hovering nearby. At this point, the harbour boy was never seen again – he was evidently cuter than he looked. A steady trickle of boats continued to arrive through the evening until we retired to bed, leaving each raft of eight boats wafting in the breeze like demented accordions and stressing up the high tech thread our plastic racer was using as a shore line to a note near A above top C.
The story is told, although I slept through it so this is only hearsay, that one of our crew members who we shall call Victor Meldrew for the sake of anonymity and I don’t want to offend him as I go on holiday with him, got up in the middle of the night to tell our talkative neighbouring race crew to put a sock in it. They looked pretty sheepish when I saw them the next morning.
Let me not put you off Cherbourg. Cherbourg of course is not France, no more than say Portsmouth is England – let us say that if you take an ancient town and place it in the way of one of the largest air and sea bombardments the 20th century could muster at the time, then in some way it gets changed. Now while this offers the opportunity for refurbishment as Estate Agents would have it, the opportunity rarely seems to be fulfilled to the best with the building style on offer at the time.
Sadly, the harbour area is still on the waiting list for refurbishment but I have to say that the planners have made a bold start along the front promenade with typically French street lights. Not out of place in a modern art exhibition, while giving the impression of illuminated helter skelters at night they would seriously injure a parachutist at any hour of the day. For once, my descriptive powers fail me – you will just have to go and see for yourself.
The square offers the typical markets with cheese, flowers, fish, vegetables all of which look wonderful but almost certainly do not comply with the regulations we blindly follow. The old side streets are still lined with all of those shops you had to role play at in O level French and it is not difficult to imagine a resistance cell still operating from some of the road side bars. We took an empty table near the square, sipped strong coffee, watched the world go by and avoided eye contact with the five shaven headed youths getting very agitated at the bar doorway. Their ferry was leaving in 30 minutes and there was not a taxi to be had – not even for ready money. The one wearing a Man. U. shirt and sporting a curtain ring in his eyebrow had a stomach that was a tribute to the lager industry. He left the group, walked over to our table and stood by my side. I stared studiously ahead, waiting for his chewing gum to ping off the side of my head. “Canya getta taxi rown ere mate?” There seemed little else to do than go through the pretext of scanning the square and discovering afresh that indeed there were no taxis to be had. Rescue came when the bar owner decided he would rather take them in his own car than read about his bar being destroyed in riots in tomorrow’s newspaper. I just hope he didn’t drive a CV2.
The taxis, we later discovered, only ply one route, like bees to and from the hive. The deal is you get a free taxi paid by the hypermarket - you have to say “Eep-air-marsh-ay” – to the marina or ferry terminal, if you buy vast quantities booze. The truth is you don’t have to say anything to the taxi man because once he knows you are British that is where you get taken, even if you want the cats home. You should not buy a second hand taxi from Cherbourg unless you are in the auto suspension trade.
The crew from our neighbouring racing plastic machine turned out to be “young people” which they couldn’t altogether be held responsible for but “from good families” so last nights reprimand was set aside. By the time they had loaded their wholesale cargo of fine wines and crates of champagne there was no space below for non essentials so their decks were littered with their entire sail loft, personal baggage and bedding.
An evening spent checking out every restaurant in town confirmed the validity of Rule 14 – No restaurant shall have a vacant table on the Saturday night of a summer bank holiday weekend – even for ready money. The retired contingent of the crew could have been forgiven, you find that the names of days and their significance cease to have much meaning after you stop working. Not lacking in determination to have an international meal, we eventually dined aboard on hickory smoked kettle chips, a take away pizza, a bottle of Ozzy shiraz and a fruits of the (black) forest pie. You can’t get much more international than that, je pense. In fact we had a particular stroke of luck at Antonio’s Pizza Shed. Having placed the order in French, admittedly this may have been a mistake since we are English and Antonio is Italian, he was quick to spot that we only needed one pizza for three and not three pizzas each large enough for three persons. It could have been that there were not nine of us standing in front of him at the time.
The 05:35hrs forecast for our return was SW 4 to 5 occasionally 6. We were promised a good old Atlantic swell and made numerous preparations for the onslaught. The reality was a force 2 barely ruffling a flat sea. We motored homeward leaving a group of spinnaker flying die hards for dead meat. By coffee time we had already exhausted the interest you can wring from spotting the next cuttle fish skeleton come floating by and had moved on to the more stimulating “I spy with my little eye something beginning with S” game. The final outcome and record of the winner was lost in all the excitement.
Two or three ships appeared over the horizon at different times but scuttled out of our way as soon as they had spotted us, I got the impression that it was another rest day for the shipping lanes. The highlight was an encounter with one of the ubiquitous NYK Line lorry transport ships which are remarkable to behold. Picasso in his blue period could so easily have designed them. Basically a blue shoe box, they have corners missing to irregular degrees and appear to have elevations and planes where they shouldn’t be. In addition the company logo is a sort of dazzle camouflage so all in all it is impossible to say which bit you are looking at and which way it might be going. Presumably someone on board knows.
The much appreciated relative peace and quiet of the French VHF marine airways was left behind with the morning. Sure enough, 10 miles from home, Pinacolada was still heard calling Juicy Lucy for an idle chat “on the usual channel” and Solent Coastguard were playing their endless tape recording confirming “loud and clear” to any and everyone who had not checked their radio since they last did it five minutes earlier.
Lymington Town Quay was a welcome haven for the night. Lying alongside a friendly Yawl we span tales of the salty sea such as would wile the most timid traveller until weariness and complaints from the neighbours called us to our bunks.
Clive
Williams 3rd June 2001
Photos
Alex Evans