Brittany behind us

We were stormbound in La Roche Bernard for five days, in fact it blew force 11 on the night of the 21st May and Miggy was most concerned that some ducklings she had been nurturing wouldn't survive - but they did. There could have been worse places to ride out a storm than nine miles up a beautiful river in a charming town. A town full of resident Brits most of whom come from Lymington it seems. Martin Nash and Sally Muir, Royal Lym YC members, have a house on the quayand were kind enough to invite us round for drinks where we met Peter and Pam Betteridge, who did a radio course with us, Malcolm and Carole Edge again, Mike and Penny, residents of La Roche Bernard and John and Moira from North Wales.
We nearly killed the aged computer in the internet cafe trying to post our blog! Sally Muir let us do the last one on her laptop. Internet access points in France are few and far between and those that exist possess ancient hardware or out or date software that won't accept memory sticks or CD's, or the machine has been programmed not to accept such things to guard against possible viruses. Hence we have to type the blog at the internet cafe rather than at leisure on or own machine and are generally unable to post photos.

We also got to know some delightful French people. Jean Paul and Annie live in Perros Guirec and come down to La Roche Bernard in their tiny motor boat on the canals from St Malo. We took pity on a young couple, Vincent and Pauline, being bounced about in the waves on our pontoon in their 22 foot Etap sailing boat and had them aboard Bella for lunch. He is a backstage director and she a costume director at the French National Theatre. We hope to see Vincent in Spain as he intends to overwinter in La Coruna.

We had primed you to listen to Miggy on Radio Solent last Tuesday. The interview was postponed a few minutes before the scheduled broadcast time because Julian Clegg had to chat to a guy who had phoned from the top of Everest. The spot is reprogrammed for Monday the 29th May at 0645 BST.

The weather relented somewhat so we left La Roche Bernard, our last stop in Brittany, and sailed for Piriac in Loire-Altantique on the 23rd May. The sail was short and boisterious but enjoyable although motoring down the river to the sea was a bit tedious into the headwind and we were delayed at the lock at the Arzal Barrage for an hour! Piriac is a charming 17th Century hamlet about 10 miles north of the River Loire estuary. It is good to be in salt water again and to see phophorescence at night in the loo! We have eaten well in Brittany with wonderful fresh vegetables and fruits from the markets and shops and a wide range of fish and meat that you do not see in UK. To mention Cassoulet de canard, Coquille St Jacques, St Pierre, Merquez, Beef filet hachè will make your mouth water.

We saw tiny British Storm Petrels on the way to Piriac who skim the waves in search of food, graceful Terns and more funny little guillimots.

We have sailed a total of 545 miles to date around coasts and up and down rivers but still we are only 200 miles south of Lymington! Hopefully our new running log will continue to record our mileage correctly.

We intend to sail to Pornic from here tomorrow and then to Ile Noirmutier and Ile d'Yeu from where we intend to cross the Bay of Biscay to Spain in mid June.