Back in Topsham

The ‘Ros Ailither’ sailed into Torquay harbour on Saturday morning, 19th July 2008, in time for Hazel (and Katie) to jump on a train and join her parents for their 40th anniversary celebration.

David and Jay put the boat on the drying grid in Brixham and repainted the bottom before coming back up the river Exe at high tide on Tuesday.
We were all reunited at Topsham, where we have enjoyed a week of visiting with friends and family and having a few tipples with the local residents!



Ros Ailither is happy to be back on her mooring at Turf, where Dave is busy sorting out a few technical troubles on board (eg. stripping down and re-building the generator).

Katie has found her land legs at last. She took off at the Double Locks Pub then the next day walked the whole length of Topsham recreation ground on her own.



Jay has caught the big silver bird back to the States. It took us two and a half months to sail across the Atlantic and he flew back in half a day! One of his first jobs will be to cut off his long hair, which should now be at the required length of ten inches to send off to make wigs for kids with cancer. (www.locksoflove.com). He has been great fun to have on board and the boat seems very quiet without him.



So, the adventure is over for the time being and we are now trying to get back into the swing of ‘real life’. Thanks to everyone who has read this blog, posted comments and sent us e-mails along the way. I hope you have all enjoyed the trip as much as we have.

Brest Maritime Festival

After waiting five days for gales to calm down, we had an amazing trip across the Bay of Biscay. There was just the right amount of wind – enough to get us moving nicely without kicking up too much sea. This lasted for the whole three-day trip and we sailed all the way, motoring only the final two hours into Brest. We didn’t see many whales on this trip but had quite a few dolphin visits, with some spectacular leaps out of the water. John's wife Fiona met him here and they jumped ship to go camping in quieter quarters.



We arrived on the second day of the Brest Festival and were immediately in the midst of chaos. Almost 2000 boats were crammed into the harbour, all different sizes and types and from various countries. There were classic yachts, working boats, sailing dinghies, Old Gaffers, luggers, square riggers and super-fast race boats. Not to mention the fishing boats, ferries, trip boats and ribs whizzing about the harbour on their daily business. We met up with old cruising friends and made some new ones too.



The streets surrounding the dock area were cordoned off to form a vast festival ‘site’ full of tents offering all sorts of goodies: T-shirts, beer, ice cream, crepes, moules-frites… There were displays of French boat-building, Norwegian shed construction, Irish peat burning, Newfoundland rescue dogs in action, Vietnamese woven ‘basket’ boats. huge mechanical smoke-breathing dragon got dragged through the streets,

Every day, the water outside the harbour was full of colourful sails doing ‘manoeuvres’, and each night at 11pm, hundreds of boats paraded in the harbour, with laser lights playing over the sails and Breton music broadcast through loudspeakers.

Ed hit it off with Katie!

The Whittons of Topsham joined us for the week. Maria felt queasy sailing around the harbour in a force 1 so she and Ed went for a drive in their van for a couple of days leaving Grace to learn the ropes. We did a day-sail to nearby Camaret to escape the masses and had a lovely lunch ashore with John and Fiona and a relaxing afternoon on the beach (plus a chilly swimin the sea).


We went for a midnight sail to watch the Bastille Day fireworks and joined in the evening parade for working boats. Dave had great fun up the mast setting off hand flares given to him by the organizers, until they told him enough was enough!

I also found time to carve and paint a wooden plaque or ‘toile de mer’ to add to the collection of over a thousand from all the boats that have entered the Brest festival since its beginning twenty years ago.



It has been a great way to end our three-year voyage and we are now on our way back to the UK. Instead of joining the fleet sailing to Douarnenez today, (which is the wrong direction), we headedg north to l’AberWrac’h, and from here we will head straight back to Torquy. We should be back in British waters sometime on Saturday.

INDEPENDENCE DAY IN SPAIN

We nearly had a crew mutiny when Dave got Jay to clean the bilges on American Independence Day.



In Jay’s own words, as e-mailed to friends in the US:

So I thought I´d share with you my holiday. I am in Spain on a boat load of British folks. Today I woke up with my little American flag proudly hanging over my head (the ¨Made in China¨sticker recently fell off while I was re-wedging it so I was feeling pretty patriotic). Those stars and stripes began as a way for me to poke a little fun at my captain, but today it stood for all the beauty and splendor of my country. I actually pondered those guys in the white, curly wigs who declared our independence for us instead of my usual 4th activity of going to a barbecue and drinking a couple of beers. At breakfast I was slightly confused about our beginnings. Most Americans go for the dark, rich flavor found in a cup of coffee so why get so mad about a few twigs and herbs that don´t taste that good anyway?

I don´t think it will be much of a surprise to any of you that the rest of the Ros Ailither crew showed little emotion when I blurted out ¨Happy 4th of July¨ half way thorough the meal while spattering a little more catchup than usual on my bacon and eggs. Although they didn´t share my enthusiasm for the day, I have a not so faint suspicion that they had thought about how to celebrate. After breakfast, I put the washing out on the line and came below as David and Hazel talked over plans for the day. They didn´t have time to get everything done themselves so they pitched a fun little activity my way.

Now I´m not exactly saying they´re still sore about the whole ¨Keep your old woman we´ll get ourselves a president thing¨, but...actually that´s exactly what I´m about to say. Dave went off to take care of a few phone calls, John went shopping for dinner with Katie, and I don´t know what Hazel did but she was really quiet all day while I was literally up to my armpits in oil. For some reason I found myself paying reparations for my country WINNING the war by cleaning the bilges because our generator had been leaking for a few days. To make things worse, while I was digging around for old screws, bits of stainless, and fist fulls of congealed oil, my beloved Red Sox hat that I got while at Fenway with my brother John and our father, got a thorough dousing with black, um I´m not sure exactly what the stuff was but it smelled horrid and probably won´t come off. When I was about half way done, Hazel came down and timidly said, ¨I don´t suppose you can drink a cup of coffee while you´re doing that can you?¨ Yeah that´s right COFFEE! When you combine that with the filth that covered most of my exposed skin and...sniffle...the tarnishing of my hat I don´t think that there´s a more blatant way to say, ¨Take that you dirty American. Next time just drink your tea and be happy!¨

Well, being a strong, stubborn Yankee I did my job without complaint...until now which may very well negate the claim I just made so maybe I shouldn´t have written any of this email...and at lunch I showed them. Sort of. Since I was hot from being in the engine room for so long I didn´t feel like a hot drink so I did the best I could. I chugged a Coke right in front of all of ém while saying, ¨Yeah, how do you like that¨...with my eyes because it´s really hard to talk while you´re drinking. The rest of them pretended not to notice my patriotic stand against their attempt to re-colonize me, but I´m pretty sure they know that next time they ask me to clean the bilges...well I´ll probably do it, but when I´m done there better be a Coke waiting!

Anyway, HAPPY 4TH OF JULY. Have a burger for me because tonight John´s cooking fish pie and I don´t even know what that is.


Back to Hazel:
It’s not been all bad though! We have spent a fair bit of time wandering ashore in Sada. It isn´t the prettiest of towns- most of the cute little houses have been knocked down to make way for big ugly apartment blocks. But there is a nice sandy beach and a long seafront promenade where everyone dresses in their finest to ´parade´ on weekends. Katie is loving being ashore, seeing people, grass, sand, dogs and getting lots of practice at walking on her own. She is nearly there...



We have sampled lots of the local delicacies – thick hot chocolate and churros, tortilla, frango, paella, bacalao. We spent an evening drinking cerveza in a local pirate´s bar full of boating knick-knacks where Katie learnt to do ‘cheers’ with her sippy cup. The weather further north seems to be calming down and we are hoping to set off across the Biscay to Brest in the next day or so.

Back in mainland Europe

We left the Azores in flat calm conditions. We motored away from Sao Miguel and watched the lights of it grow smaller all through the night before the island disappeared altogether the next morning. The wind stayed light and almost on the nose so we hoisted the main, topsail and jib and motor-sailed for the next four days, enjoying the warm temperatures and calm, almost glassy, seas. None of us felt remotely seasick this time, and even Katie had her sea-legs from the start. And her appetite!



John did an amazing job of spotting wildlife.
He identified lots of birds - Cory’s Shearwaters, Bulwers petrels,Wilsons and Maderian storm petrels, some that even John had never seen before.
We saw a shark, a shoal of tuna and one turtle drift by. We saw plenty of dolphins, both common and striped - often feeding in groups, with shearwaters circling above to pick up stray fish.


Most amazing of all were the number of whales. Some were too far away to identify and others only surfaced briefly. One crossed so close across our bows one morning that John thought we might have a collision. But we had clear views of a pod of sperm whales swimming parallel to the boat, fin whales coming the opposite way and minkes up close. One large but unidentified whale easily overtook us when we were sailing along at 6 or 7 knots; they really are magnificent creatures.

After four days the wind finally picked up from a good direction, allowing us to sail. A gaff-rigged schooner appeared on the horizon and stayed on a parallel course for two days. We spoke on the VHF, they were the 100’ sail-training vessel ‘Ruach’ from Germany, heading home after a planned stop in Torquay. Eventually we parted company as they kept on their direct route and we altered course eastwards to avoid gale force winds further north.

A storm was heading for western Ireland and kicking up big seas even 300 miles to the south. Winds were no more than force 5 where we were but big swells created an impressive sea and we rolled quite nicely for the next couple of days.



Katie was fine throughout, although she was frustrated at not being allowed on deck so much. Instead, she enjoyed bouncing around the material walls of my bunk below.
John found the motion hard to cope with and didn’t feel he’d really got his sea-legs yet. However, he still valiantly stood his watch, helped out with Katie and did his share of cooking etc.

A swift circled us for a while before landing, exhausted, on the rigging. We kept him warm in a box and despite John’s best efforts at reviving him with water and food, he had to be given a sea burial two days later.

Katie missed Jackie but became better acquainted with Jay on this trip. Jay also showed great potential as a master chef. He spent ages whisking egg whites and sugar by hand, here he is mastering the art of piping!
Despite Jay’s best efforts, and three hours in the oven, they didn’t turnout quite as we’d hoped and also had to be given a sea burial.

Comment from Jay: Stupid meringues!


Just as the sea started calming down, the latest weatherfax showed a new gale forming in the Bay of Biscay so decided to head for shelter. We are now in a small town called Sada, just south of la Coruna. We met friends with a similar trawler on our outward journey three years ago and they have settled here on land. We are catching up with them while we wait for better weather conditions to head for Brest.