Our summer cruise couldn’t start on Saturday as crew members had to attend a wedding and the Royal Tournament, but Sunday soon dawned and by lunchtime Ann and Phil were at our club marina at Gosport to take the lines for Mark and Grace who had brought Trilogy from her Fareham creek mooring. After loading our gear and food aboard, and after a solid pub lunch someone said - "well, what are we waiting for? Let's go !
Trilogy slipped out of Portsmouth harbour at 4 o'clock on a beautiful summer afternoon, threading her way through boats already returning to their moorings, their crews mentally preparing for Monday morning, much to our smug satisfaction.
Averaging 5 knots Trilogy sailed through the starlit night under the Milky Way with attendant shooting stars, the single reef in the main was shook out at midnight as the wind dropped and the engine was started. By 4 am the powerful Barfleur light tempted her away from Cherbourg towards St.Vaast with the east going neap tide and motoring through the still, rosy fingered dawn we passed by Isle Tatihou and into the lock to tie up at 06.50 and crash out oblivious to the early morning traffic of departing fishing boats.
Monday 28th July. A slow lazy day, followed by dinner of Emits de Mer and our favourite Filet de Colin which Mark, Jo and I'd enjoyed at the lesser Wessex rally in June. Unfortunately for my unseaworthy stomach, one of the Fruits was less than fresh and at two in the morning was forcibly returned to the mer.
Tuesday dawned bright and still with a cloudless azure sky but we had to exit the harbour too early to start for Grandcamp so dropping anchor off Isle Tatihou in 3 metres we awaited the turn of the tide. I dinghied Ann and Grace to the island where they spent 2 hours exploring while Mark and I did some constructive housekeeping between watching the antics of the junior sailing school. Mark collected the ladies in time for a cockpit lunch of bilge cooled beer, cheese, pate and heated baguettes, the standard Trilogy cruising menu.
Anchor was weighed at 1500 for an easy sail to Grandcamp Maisy to give it its full name, arriving at 1900 after passing the Isles Marcouf, Omaha beach and crossing the flat rocky approach to the port. Earlier we had passed close to the entrance bouys to Isigny which raised a suspicion that the published way-point was not entirely accurate and found on our approach to Grandcamp, it was over a mile too far south. Today was my birthday so after a quick change and a G&T it was off to an excellent restaurant overlooking the harbour lock for a birthday dinner. Afterwards we strolled in the humid darkness around the town which is not very interesting apart from a memorial to Free French aircrew who flew with the RAF.
Wednesday:We departed Grandcamp at 09.40 in drizzle. Why is it I always that I get my oilies on first and then get stuck on the helm in the rain ? We motor sailed a mile or so off Arromanches and Gold beach until the hulks of the Mulberry harbour came into to view and we went inshore to take a closer look. Grace was moved by the sight as her husband Arthur as a young artificer was stationed off Arromanches in the bowels of HMS Bellona, a destroyer stationed to give support fire during the invasion.
The sea was calm inside the Mulbenys, illustrating their continued effectiveness. Setting course for Courseulles we quickly ran into shallows fouled by joined up fishing floats, with the echo sounder beeping like mad we twice had to backtrack to get into deeper water. Once clear, the freshening northerly wind reaching its forecast force five speeding us along too early for the lock opening at Courseulles so we continued on a few more miles arriving off Ouistreham at 18.15 where we waited 2 hours for the next lock opening and a quiet night in the tree lined marina.
Thursday. As a consequence of miss-reading the canal passage timetable in the dark last night we left the marina at nine to arrive at Bruneville after the bridge had closed. Next opening was 2 o'clock so we tied up and walked over the new Pegasus bridge to the museum commemorating the landing of British glider borne troops under Major John Howard, to capture the bridges over the canal and the adjacent river Orne. A lunchtime pining for egg and chips by Mark and myself was satisfied at the nearby restaurant where we established that the French was "oufe frites et fites" - logical really!
Once the bridge opened our progress up the canal to Caen was uneventful passing under or through three further.bridges before reaching the Port du Plaisance in the centre of the city. I had been to Caen in Lady Cortege, a wooden pre-war Hillyard, on a similar cruise, 5 years earlier and had not been impressed with the extensive post war concrete architecture. But one had to allow for the fact that the RAF had largely obliterated the city when the occupying Germans stopped the Brits and Canadians under Montgomery from joining up with the American forces after they had fought their way from Sword, Juno and Gold beachheads.
Friday was designated as a sightseeing day. There are some interesting sites in.the city, the grave of William the bastard in the cathedral (he wouldn't be seen dead in England) and the castle with its Musee de Normandy, excellent art gallery and the botanical gardens of the University. Our meal in the evening, in a street of tourist cafes, was satisfactory for us men but unfortunately was tough horse and equally tough fish for the ladies.
Saturday was another late rising morning after which our intrepid lady shoppers were tempted away by multitudes of "Soldes!" and "Promotion!" notices from their known route to Monoprix Supermarche, and got lost. The natives in the suburbs however proved unusually helpful even stopping a bus and telling the driver to drop our ladies at Le Port.
Recovering over a lunch of delicious tarte au pomme and tarte fraise in the cockpit, we discussed a suitable time for departure back to Ouistreham. The optimum departure time was the 17.00 bridge opening and we were offered half the 90f cost by a Dutch yacht - nice people the Dutch. Both boats spent the night alongside down stream of Pegasus bridge, and although it is a quiet spot once the Son et lumiere is over, the hot airless night was enlivened by the sound and fury of mosquitoes enthusiastically re-enacting the invasion over our sleepless bodies. I think they must be licensed by the Tourist Office.
Sunday morning found us in Ouistreham lock with a host of boats, all shapes, sizes and nationalities, enough to fill it and then spew us out, criss-crossing in all directions into the bale de Seine, ourselves heading towards Deauville/Trouville 13 miles away. Apart from the engine stopping due, we think, to a low oil level the passage was uneventful and we entered the fabulous resort of Deauville with "its kiss me quick" neighbour Trouville on the opposite side of the river at 13.00.
We toured the boardwalk, inspected the casino and gazed at the upmarket shops, glanced into a jewellers where rings started at £2000 and a gents watch could be had for a snip at £10,000. We dragged the ladies away to observe the beautiful people littering the streets with their BMWs, Meres and Jaguars but I was pleased to see that at the Resturaunt de Mer on the boardwalk the waiters still wore Tuxedos but alas not with white gloves as on my last visit 15 years before.
Monday: We visited our favourite port of Honfleur, going the easy way through the delightful Norman countryside of small farms and villages, tucked in between the hills and forests by Green Line bus. It was very hot and we did little apart from lunch and some desultory sightseeing.
Tuesday: The weather started off fine but dull as we led harbour and the poor viz. across the Seine estuary for the 2 hour trip to Le Havre deteriorated into drizzle as we tied up and had lunch below.
This town to was badly damaged during the war and its wide streets are edged with 60's concrete office and apartment blocks but the town square was a watery amazement of pools, falls, streams, sluices and fountains; especially interesting were massive balls of coloured stone that slowly rotated on a fluid bed of water. It really was a delightful surprise in what we agreed was an otherwise very dull city.
One further surprise that evening was an excellent meal in Le Wilson restuarant, on I' Avenue Wilson, named we discovered after the late American president, not as far as I know any relation. Close by the marina is a supermarket and we made all use of it to replenish supplies and to stock up with wine and spirits at bargain prices (10.5f to £1) for our return to UK.
Wednesday: Our last voyage along the French coast was to Fecamp, we left Le Havre in poor visibility, keeping a mile off the high cliffs' motoring past the empty oil terminal at Cap D'Antifer and Bruneval, the sight of the famous commando raid on the German radar station. Arriving in warm rain at Fecamp we moored alongside a veritable fleet of Dutch boats whose crews bemoaned the weather which they told us was sunny and hot in Holland. The sun soon came out however and quickly dried our oilies and we ate dinner in the cockpit for the last time.
Fecamp is an interesting port and town, the home of Benedictine surrounded by high hills on each side and with two tremendous wooden piers surmounted by walkways on each side of the narrow harbour entrance which were used by teams of men to haul engineless sailing craft into harbour.
Thursday: Next morning we awoke at 05.30 intending to set off across to Brighton but the moaning foghorn warned of poor visibility and when we realised that we couldn't even see across the harbour we all turned in again. We finally motored out at 1000 in about 100 yards viz which gradually improved as we cleared the coast. An uneventful motored crossing on a flat sea, with unusually few ships sighted, no more than 5 or 6 even in the shipping lanes, and arriving at Portsmouth at 02.30 to awake on Friday morning to another brilliant day but alas, the very last one of our holiday cruise.
We had covered a total of 250 nautical miles during our cruise and motored for 46 engine hours which is fairly typical in our experience of sailing this time of year when light winds seem to predominate.