Sunday, 11 August
A very foggy morning today! But we set off anyway on glassy seas with hardly a breath of wind, motoring with the main up – to help anyone see us – and with fog horn at the ready!
The beauty of modern sailing is we have GPS, a lovely display showing us exactly where we (and the land) are, AIS, which tells us where all the other boats are and what sort they are – eg, tanker or sailing yacht, and we used our radar for the first time.
The radar confirms what you can see on your display and would pick up any boats that aren’t on the AIS system.
We were concentrating hard and both looking to see if we could see anything ahead. The channel markers appeared out of the gloom.
But our main distraction was listening to the distress channel 16, where we heard the French and English coastguards, a French war ship, and several others trying to help a dingy with 60 migrants who were in difficulty. We heard that they were screaming for help.
Later we found out that there were 2 overloaded dinghies and 2 people sadly died. Whoever sent them out into that thick fog, most likely with none of our navigation aids is a callous, murderous criminal.
We need safe routes for these people and to let them work while their asylum claims are swiftly dealt with. So far this year, 30 people have died crossing these usually safe waters.
When the fog lifted we saw at least 5 huge P&O ferries charging up and down!
We could see all the way across to the Dover chalk cliffs when we were off Calais, (too far for a photo) and enjoyed a couple of porpoises who popped up to say hello.
We also heard and saw diving boats supporting cross channel swimmers!
Otherwise it was an uneventful motor sail with what little wind there was behind us. We managed to get a short sail just before we turned into Boulogne.
It’s a big, rather ugly town from the sea but has a lovely beach, which we headed to after getting some shopping. It is absolutely boiling so the water was delicious!
France seems to be the land of jazz, as we found a beach bar with some very good music – a cross between Dixie and Django Reinhardt.
There’s also a fine equestrian statue of José de San Martin, who liberated Argentina, Chile and Peru from the Spanish Empire in 1818-21.
Job done he retired to France and died in Boulogne in 1850.
The Argentinians put the statue up for him with full military honours in 1909.
Below is the statue is of Boulogne born Frédéric Sauvage, an early inventor (1832) of using the propellor for boat propulsion, to replace the side-paddle method. Sadly he failed to get any backing – the French Navy weren’t interested – and he landed in a debtors prison.
We noted some public art:
We walked up into the square for dinner as the restaurants near the beach looked a bit dire. C’était excellent!
When we got back to the boat, the tide had gone out by around 6 meters and the marina was filling with foam pouring in from the weir! Fortunately La Bamba was moored on the other side!
We have a rafted neighbour, but they are also leaving for Dieppe tomorrow so we can cast off together.
We must come back to see the largest aquarium in Europe (!) and the old town with city walls up on the hill – that we didn’t have time for this time.
Waaaawooo
It was such a lovely and educative trip
Welcome back mum
You surely had an amaizing time .
Cant wait for another script when you finally go back to see the largest aquarium in Europe and the old town as well🥰