La Moira, Saturday

Saturday 20th August : Our first sailing day dawned bright and sunny. The charter people arrived to collect our deposit and answer any questions. Skipper had been conscientious, as ever, checking that everything worked, so he promptly sent the charter company guy up the mast to fix the anchor light. By the time we had bought bread and some petrol for the dinghy outboard it was lunchtime – everything seems to be a long walk away at La Trinité.

We set off for the island of Houat. We planned to pick up a mooring buoy outside the harbour at St Gildas, although we had been warned that it might blow from the northwest that night and the anchorage is rather exposed in that event. There certainly wasn’t any wind to speak of during the afternoon. We raised the mainsail for a while, but I suspect the Skipper just thought I could do with the exercise. It didn’t really help much so I - sorry, we - brought it down again.

We were pleased to see free buoys when we arrived off St Gildas, and at this point stopped bemoaning the lack of wind. The Bavaria’s deck is very high above the water, but with patience I got a line through the ring of a buoy by lying flat on the deck. I also managed not to drop the boathook overboard, always a bonus. It had a wooden handle, and I wanted to see if it would float but Skipper wouldn’t let me try. This mooring exercise has led to much debate on how it could be made easier, so we’ll be eager to try our New Improved method next year, if we can remember what it is. We decided a second line to the buoy would be reassuring, if indeed the wind did get up, and Skipper suggested the easiest thing would be to swim out with it. Except that he had “forgotten” to bring any swimming shorts.  I would quite happily have volunteered for the mission, but he seemed to feel it was his job, so in he went, clad only in his checked Jermyn Street undies.

St Gildas beach, Houat

The next new experience for us was to launch the dinghy to go and have a look at the village. It didn’t look very far from our mooring to the slipway in the harbour so we decided not to bother with the outboard and fished the paddles out of the bottom of the cockpit locker.  This proved to be a good decision, as it made it a lot easier to carry the dinghy up out of the water. We left it next to several others and went off in search of a drop of the amber nectar

Witnesses to our progress across the harbour were doubtless amused by my irritated admonishments to the skipper: “Paddle!” as we seemed to keep turning towards his side. Only later did I grasp that the little boat was pivoting about its centre of gravity, so as skipper weighs about 30 kilos more than I do he needed to paddle harder than me to keep us moving in a straight line. Seems fair.

La Moira is the one with her fenders out!

Overlooking the bay was a bar with lots of tables outside on the grassy sand (or sandy grass?). We enjoyed a drink, dutifully wrote and sent our postcards, did a spot of grocery shopping and wandered back to the harbour. We realised how spoilt we had become by sailing in the Mediterranean and Baltic when we saw that our little dinghy was only a few inches from the rising water. Another 15 minutes, and it could easily have bobbed away across the harbour. As we paddled back to La Moira lightning streaked down behind the headland, and a squall began to blow up. Aware of our ignorance of local weather, to be on the safe side we stowed the dinghy on the foredeck, secured it and went below just as a brief but quite spectacular storm erupted.

We ate beef stroganoff and rice. I had forgotten to buy mushrooms, so Skipper charitably declared that it was better without. We were surrounded by yachts with people eating drinking and chatting quietly in their cockpits, and the scene was most tranquil. This was not to last. Normally I’m not averse to a spot of bobbing, in fact I sleep better on a boat than on land, but there are limits. By about 4am I was only in contact with the mattress for half the time, and a glance up to the cockpit would reveal sky…then sea, then sky, then sea. Skipper moved into the saloon, but I was too sleepy to move. Next morning, the sky looked bright and the sea not very heavy, so we prepared to get underway. I made the mistake of eating a hearty breakfast. I hope seagulls like muesli.