Pornichet to Brest (July 2012)

I was working in Paris while Paul transported the boat from Narbonne to Pornichet. For the first half of the trip from Narbonne to Bègles Paul's mom Cendrine helped to traverse the canals and go through more than 150 locks. And for half of that trip they were accompanied by Alain and Joel, with their canal boat. Alain and Joel have a lot of experience driving on the French canals and they were a tremendous help to Paul and Cendrine. At Bègles Paul was joined by Jean-Guy, Arbutus's former owner, who helped with the remasting and helped sail Arbutus from Bègles to Portnichet. It was an invaluable learning experience for Paul to sail with Jean-Guy. Please read about Paul's voyage from Narbonne to Bègles and from Bègles to Pornichet (in French). At the beginning of July I met Paul in Portnichet. He had already been there for one week installing electronics and making some small modifications. This trip would mark my first time actually sailing with Arbutus and I was anxious to see how I would feel on a larger boat. It would also be my first long trip. With Baladin our longest cruise was three days. A day after I arrived Paul and I met the third crew member at the train station. The first time we met Thierry was at our local climbing gym Issy-les-Moulinaux. He is the president of The Association of Climbing. We learned that Thierry is passionate about sailing, he even used to be a monitor at the famous French sailing school called “Les Glénans”. We told Theirry about our trip in July and invited him to join us, and he agreed. For us it was another opportunity to learn from an experienced sailor. We bought two weeks worth of provisions and left the following morning. The conditions were good when we departed...it wasn't too cold and it wasn't raining. I am not really fond of sailing. I don't even know if I like this sport a little...The major reason being I get seasick easily. It doesn't matter how rough or soft the waves are. If the boat is moving I get motion sickness. I am so sensitive that I can even feel bad on a train or in a car. I yurn for the day when I am able to read inside under sail. When I get seasick it's finished. I feel absolutely defeated. I've tried many ways to prevent my seasickness (click here to read about my seasickness) and some have been able to subside the effects...but it's always present. A great way to prevent seasickness is to be active and I found that with Baladin when I am standing and I take the helm and I move with the waves, I feel good. So when we left Pornichet I took the wheel. I lasted for three hours then I started yawning, not from lack of sleep, but I started to feel funny. My head started to hurt and my throat went dry. I rehydrated and ate some biscuits. After a few minuets I felt something in my throat and I began to salivate. I wanted to lay down and close my eyes, so I did just that...big mistake. I felt fine when I was lying down, but the moment I stood up I was ready to vomit. So I generously fed the fish. I went inside my cabin and hid in my sleeping bag until we reached Belle-île. I woke up to help...or rather watch the boys attach Arbutus to a buoy in Port de Sauzon for the evening. I stopped throwing up...but my headache was still present and I still felt like death when we were seated for dinner. Just the rocking back and forth of the boat made me feel bad. The headaches I get are horrible. It's a constant intense pain at my temples, forehead and back, and to alleviate this pain I want to hit my head forcefully on a hard surface, or take a metal skewer and make intrusions to release the pressure, or (I thought about this solution many times)...decapitate myself. The nausea and vomiting always stopped when I laid down, but my headache was still there...wtf is wrong with me? The next morning we were headed towards Lorient. Paul told me he was impressed with Arbutus's speed with such little wind. The boys were thinking about my feeble state when they decided to go to Lorient where we could dock at the harbour and put our feet on the ground. It was a relief to hear this...but I also desperately needed to fight this seasickness and going on land would be a step backwards...so I've heard. I don't remember much about Lorient except there was a small bakery stand at the harbour's office that opened in the morning. Sadly no fresh bread for Sundy because we had to leave before the bakery opened. Don't worry though we bake our own fresh bread on the boat :) My first attempt could have been disastrous because I only read half of the recipe. After combining all of the ingredients and kneading the dough I put the mixture directly into the oven. After a good 15 mins I reread the recipe and realized I needed to let the dough sit and rise for 30mins before putting it in the oven. Ahhhhhh. I promptly removed the dough from the oven, which had already slightly crusted, and I let it do it's rising thing. In the end it was a little dense but still edible ;) The rest of the way wasn't very eventful for me. The first week for me was a lot of restless sleeps, I was in the horizontal position more often than not. It was cold, grey, and raining a lot. In my head I was just rehearsing the speech I would give Paul when we arrived in Carentan. The very bad speech that I wouldn't be joining him on the circumnavigation...That first week I thought about abandoning our circumnavigation a lot...ohlala the ramifications of my decision would be huge. I never ended up giving the speech to Paul when we reached Caranten. Please read Paul's experience of Pornichet to Brest here (in French). A highlight for me was Brest and the Brest Maritime Festival. The afternoon we arrived the rains let up for a few hours and the sun came out. So it was a nice entry into the busy harbour. We set up our folding bikes and biked into the city to buy groceries. Holy hell that's when the rains came again and it didn't help when we got lost finding the supermarket. We got drenched. After dinner we wanted to check out the festival because there were supposed to be fireworks. There was a break in the rain so we decided to take our chances. We hopped on our bikes and without fail ten mins later the skies opened up and it was a torrential downpour. I didn't think I had any dry clothes left on the boat...We persevered and half an hour later we made it to the entrance of the festival where we were informed that we had to pay the one day entrance fee to watch the fireworks...It was too expensive for us so with our tails between our legs, and cursing everything I saw, yes even the street light was not immune, we biked through the rain storm back to Arbutus. The weather gods decided to give us a break the next day when we spent the entire day at the festival. I think it just sprinkled in the morning. Oh what a difference a day can make! I forgot about how miserable I was after drinking some beer...and taking in all of the events. We visited some gigantic naval ships, saw some fast boats, old boats, and visiting boats from many countries. The warmest welcome we received was from Cuauhtemoc, the Mexican tall ship. A gentleman was there to greet us when we walked up the ramp and another took my hand when walking down the steps onto the boat. “Hola”, he said. The atmosphere was lively, the crew was chatting with the visitors, and they decorated the boat in bright colours. It was such a contrast to the Norwegian boat. There was a private invitation only party on board. We gave our names at the gate, but shockingly someone forgot to add our names to the list.