Dolphins Under My Bed

by Sandra Clayton

  By 8pm we have entered the huge Bay of Douarnenez but have still not reached Morgat, and seeing three boats anchored in a small cove decide to join them for the night. The anchor slips off weed the first time and we move to another spot to try again, bringing us closer to the three other boats. David drops the anchor again, but before we can be sure it has bitten Voyager begins circling wildly.

  The most successful method of anchoring that we have found is for me to take the controls while David goes up front to the anchor. Steering into the wind, I bring the boat to a stop at the chosen place, David drops the anchor and lets out chain with the boat in reverse (either from the wind or by my putting both engines into reverse). We then test the anchor several times by motoring towards it and then putting both engines gently into reverse until the anchor pulls us up sharp as it digs firmly in.

  When David is satisfied, he puts on a snubbing line to take the strain off the windlass and then we take transits. Taking a transit involves standing on your boat and stretching your arms out wide so that your finger-ends point at a fixed object, or transit point, on either side of the boat. If, when you adopt the same position later, your hands no longer point at the same two objects you know the boat has moved. It is a very effective method but we rarely see anybody else do it.

  Tonight, however, when I try to motor forward to test the anchor the starboard engine sticks in reverse. With the port engine going forward, and the starboard engine in reverse, the result is to drive Voyager in circles around her anchor.

  The people on the other boats come up onto their decks to watch. We turn the starboard engine off and anchor with just the port, which is less satisfactory than using both engines. While David goes below to find the cause of the problem, I take transits and keep going back on deck to check that they remain constant. The bay’s shoreline is rocky and I am worried about drifting onto it if the anchor doesn’t hold on the weedy bottom.

  David traces our mechanical problem to the Morse controls but is unable to solve it. I become convinced we’re dragging our anchor and am determined to be sure before it gets too dark to see. It may have unnerved our French neighbours – first, an English catamaran spinning like a whirling dervish and then this anxious-looking woman constantly materializing on deck and impersonating a tree – but for whatever reason, all three boats up-anchor and leave. Fortunately for us it turns out to be a quiet night.

  While David looks through the cruising guide for a Yanmar engine dealer, I get dinner: tomatoes in olive oil, basil and black pepper, green salad, French bread, brie omelette with herbes de Provence topped with parmesan cheese; caramel egg custards, coffee and Belgian chocolates. Not bad, really. Considering.

  According to the guide there is a Yanmar engine dealer across the bay at Douarnenez, a large commercial port. We shall go there in the morning. We put up the paraffin lamp on the foredeck, light the wick and go to bed. David looks very tired. I expect I do too. It is always the way with a sudden disappointment. We have only just been thinking how well we are doing, and that we shall be in good time to tackle the Bay of Biscay in a day or so. Now we have dark thoughts about how long the weather window for Biscay will last, how long it will take to get the Morse controls repaired, and how much it is going to cost given our last experience of French mechanics. Our rest would have been even further disturbed had we known that tomorrow is a public holiday.

  We leave our solitary anchorage at nine the next morning for the two-hour journey to Douarnenez. It is France’s fifth busiest fishing port and fishermen have used it since Roman times. Nowadays, it is mostly seasonal fishing for sardines and tuna. In the main, trawlers head south for the Bay of Biscay, although some fish off the coast of Africa.

  During the journey I get out our French vocabulary to prepare for a French mechanic. I memorize the salient words but just in case he can’t, or won’t, understand my efforts to speak his language I also write a note in French. It is succinct: Excuse me. English. Don’t speak French. Starboard engine reverse, oui; forward, non. Problem – the Morse control gearbox. Can you repair, please?

  14

  Douarnenez and through the Raz de Sein

  At Douarnenez we aim for a small cove called the Rade de Guet. Given our limited manoeuvrability with only one engine we anchor well away from half a dozen local boats on buoys so as to avoid embarrassing situations we can’t steer out of. Despite giving the boats on the mooring buoys a wide berth we still think we have parked relatively tidily until we look back from the dinghy on our way to the marina and see that Voyager is slap in the middle of the route in and out of the bay.

  When you leave the Rade de Guet for the town by dinghy you cross a stone causeway called the Passe du Guet that is impassable at low tide, and which connects a small wooded island called Ile Tristan to the mainland. This little isle has several lovely, crumbling old houses on it. Once over this causeway you are in the river. Dog-leg across the river between the sandbanks and you enter a little marina in the village of Tréboul. We arrive there at 12.30.

  Now, some behaviour patterns are inherited through the genes, and some are learned. Whatever the cause, one of David’s is to arrive everywhere at lunchtime. If we’re talking behaviour patterns, heaven knows I’m in no position to criticize, although that never stops me unfortunately.

  ‘It’s lunchtime,’ I grumble as we cross the submerged causeway.

  ‘So?’ says David.

  ‘So this is France,’ I snap. ‘The whole country closes for lunch between noon and five. It is also approaching the hottest part of the day.’

  David, however, is the supreme optimist. His response is always the same: ‘Oh, somebody will be open/We can have a look around the town/I’ll buy you lunch/It’s not that hot.’

  Everywhere, including the Yanmar engine dealer, is closed – not just for lunch but for the holiday – except the patisserie and a clothes shop. Food and fashion. I find that very French. We buy a baguette and an amazing baked plum custard from the patisserie, and then take a detour to the office of the Capitaine du Port to explain our being in the middle of his patch rather than have him arrive angry on our doorstep. But the harbour master’s office is shut as well.

  On our way back to the dinghy we press our noses against the Yanmar mechanic’s window in the vain hope of detecting signs of life within. There are none, but someone passing by, who speaks a little English, says very helpfully that the mechanic will be there at two o’clock.

  The bad news is that the town is hosting some sort of regatta, so the chance of getting a mechanic quickly seems rather remote. Looking down into the packed little marina it is obvious that there isn’t a berth available for Voyager while he works on her either. The weather window for Biscay seems to be slipping out of our reach.

  We return to Voyager, finish Tréguier’s brie with some of Tréboul’s freshly-baked baguette, and devour the baked plum custard. This type of pastry must surely have been what was in the mind of the person who coined the word ambrosia. We set off again at 2 o’clock and are just within reach of the marina’s outermost pontoon when the outboard runs out of fuel.

  It is probable that the mechanic, a rather shy young man, has gone into work on a public holiday so that he can get some work done in peace. However, once we spot him through the window of his locked shop we eyeball him until he feels obliged to come out to us. I try my French on him. He blinks at me sympathetically, but is at a genuine loss to understand. So I rummage in my trouser pockets. He backs away. I pull out my crumpled note and offer it to him. He takes it gingerly, reads it and relaxes into a stream of rapid French. In among the torrent of words I recognize only four: demain, du matin and neuf. I translate for David. ‘Tomorrow morning at nine.’

  David’s face brightens in anticipation of getting the job done so soon; then he looks down apprehensively into the crowded little marina. With two engines, Voyager will turn in her own length; with one, it can be ignominious. ‘Where does he want us?’ he asks resignedly.

  The
mechanic begins speaking again.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ asks David.

  I don’t know. I can’t find a single familiar word to grab hold of, but with his right hand he seems to be clutching an imaginary tiller and with the left pointing at David. Then he grins at me, taps his chest, points to the dock beneath his feet, and with his palms pressed together against his chest makes a coy little diving motion towards the water below us. Light dawns and I translate. ‘He says will you collect him from here in our dinghy tomorrow morning at nine? Otherwise he will have to swim to us.’

  ‘Delighted to!’ says David pumping the mechanic’s hand.

  We begin paddling back to Voyager. There is a strong current in the river combined with a strong head wind. And as well as avoiding sandbanks we are soon dodging aged wooden boats motoring up and down the narrow river. They have their sails furled and look rather grim.

  ‘What are they doing?’ I ask, paddling furiously from under a wicked-looking bowsprit.

  David has a standard answer for my how, what, where and why questions, which tend to occur over-frequently and especially under trying circumstances. ‘I don’t know, Sandra,’ he says. ‘How the hell would I know?’ This is a variation of, ‘I don’t know, Sandra, go and ask your father,’ which I encountered quite a lot as a child.

  As far as I can work out, between my increasingly ineffective paddle strokes, one old boat motors down the river while another disappears back up it. It seems an odd sort of carry on to me.

  The wind gets even stronger as we leave the river and cross the causeway into our cove. I am quite weary by the time an inflatable dinghy approaches from behind making a huge wash. It slows as it gets level with us, to avoid overturning us, and the man in it stares first at our paddles and then at the outboard engine on our stern. I smile and point to the outboard. ‘Kaput,’ I lie then continue paddling bravely. Well, I’m not going to admit we’ve run out of fuel. And I don’t know the French for it anyway. But I am getting very tired. The man throws us a rope and gives us a tow back to Voyager. I am very grateful.

  Back on board David refuels the outboard engine and then goes below to work out a course for the Raz de Sein, ready for when we can set off again. The Capitaine du Port’s boat comes whizzing towards us and I begin marshalling my French excuses for our being plonk in the middle of his busy cove, but he passes without glancing our way.

  Had we been tidily anchored, of course, we should not have seen them. We should have been tucked into the corner, near the moored boats behind the Ile Tristan, with our view obscured by its trees and crumbling old houses. Instead, we have an uninterrupted view from our little cove into the enormous Rade de Douarnenez. And drifting across it that afternoon are the tan sails of what we later identify as an Essex fishing smack and a replica 18th century two-masted warship rippling with white canvas and complete with gun ports.

  ‘Good grief!’ I say, darting below for the camera. ‘Come and look.’

  By the time I get back on deck there are several more. They are motoring down from the harbour further up the river, past Tréboul’s little marina where we’d dodged a couple of them in our dinghy, down to the mouth of the river, raising their sails as they turn right at the Ile Tristan and emerging into the Rade de Douarnenez under full, glorious, billowing sail.

  The ones we had seen off the town of Brest, being buffeted by the French Navy, must have been just two of the dozens making their way here for the regatta. There are huge sailing trawlers, tiny fishing dories, beautifully restored yachts, old workboats with barely any paint at all and enormous luggers. There are bowsprits, figureheads, wooden masts galore, tan sails and white sails, square rigs and gaff rigs and every boat has every bit of canvas it possesses aloft and silhouetted against a backdrop of gently rolling summer fields and a blue sky.

  We open a bottle of Soave, put our feet up, and spend the rest of the afternoon on deck, under straw hats, just gazing at them. It is like watching a nineteenth century painting come to beautiful stately life.

  At a quarter to six a church bell begins tolling. Most of the boats are gone now. David is asleep. He was up several times during the night to check our anchor, and again to get the 05.35 shipping forecast. The BBC has changed its times and the forecast is earlier than ever now. I go below to prepare an evening meal. A random twiddle of the radio dial produces a familiar signature tune: The Archers, an everyday story of country folk and the BBC’s longest-running radio soap opera. Tony Archer is complaining about his milk quota. The last time we were in France, shortly before we abandoned the country for ever and immediately before the French driver hit us on a mountain road leaving us with a catastrophic repair bill, our car radio had been playing an episode of The Archers. I hope tomorrow isn’t going to be a case of déjà vu.

  In the absence of any shopping I raid the store cupboard for dinner: spaghetti, pepper & garlic sauce with a few anchovies, parmesan cheese and French bread. The Tréguier water in our tank also makes very good coffee.

  One of the things you notice in this kind of life is the great differences in drinking water. One source will leave a brown residue on the inside of your cup while another is indistinguishable from spring water. The ultimate test is smell. If it has one, you wait until you get to another town before you fill your tank. Before you do any of that, however, you ask somebody reliable if it is actually meant for human consumption, no matter what it looks or smells like because unlike Britain, where we even flush our lavatories with drinking water, what comes out of a tap in mainland Europe may only be intended for washing your boat.

  We look out on a cathedral tower, and the setting sun turns the commercial dock behind us honey-coloured. Two Frenchmen in a small day boat, faces glowing red from a day fishing hatless in the sun, grin and wave as they hurtle past our stern to their dinner. The big bay is empty now, except for one tan-sailed gaff-rigger and one white-sailed schooner having a last unimpeded sail. It has been a lovely day. Even my deck shoes are almost comfortable.

  Next morning David sets off in the dinghy at 8.30. Before picking up the mechanic he also needs to call at the Bureau de Change for more French currency. He soon comes hurtling back again. It is low tide and, despite a draught of only inches, our dinghy won’t go over the causeway. As he shoots past me on his way out of our small bay and into the larger one, which is quite choppy, I call out, ‘What about a life jacket?’ He waves and smiles, the way he does. ‘Well, how about one for the mechanic, then?’ I yell at his disappearing back, but he can no longer hear me. Remembering the massive charges for our car repairs in France, I can only suppose its absence will be reflected in his bill.

  The mechanic, when he arrives, shows no resentment at our lack of care for his safety, nor at the wet bottom he has acquired on the journey out. Indeed, he is not only polite and cheerful, but very quick. Not only is he very quick, he is also at great pains for David to understand what has gone wrong with the gearbox control cable and how to fix it himself if it happens again. Having solved the problem on the starboard side, he then goes off to check the port gear box to ensure the same thing is not about to happen to that one, too. When we return him to his shop we find his charges very reasonable. Then we go and stock up the larder.

  The supermarket is small and cramped, but the atmosphere is delightfully amiable as you dozie-doe and two-step around other customers that you suddenly encounter nose to nose around the shelving. We find everything we want except eggs, and the French word for eggs eludes me. In desperation I eyeball the owner.

  ‘Madame,’ I say, ‘Si’l vous plait,’ make a small ellipse in front of her eyes with my index fingers, then pump my elbows and cluck like a broody hen. She bursts out laughing, dives under the vegetable counter and emerges with a box of six.

  Maybe coastal French are different from metropolitan French, or times have changed, or maybe we just smile more nowadays. For whatever reason, we have encountered nothing but civility. We also discover, despite what everybody says about the French,
that they queue as well. We join a huge one outside the patisserie, single file and straight out of the doorway down the middle of the street so that the traffic coming down the hill has to struggle round it. And the lady in the Tabac not only sticks the stamps on our postcards for us but directs us, unasked, to the furtive little post box, tucked away on the edge of the quay, on the wall of the office of the Capitaine du Port.

  We return to Voyager with two bottles of wine, peaches, green-gages, tomatoes on the vine, port salut cheese, pâté and tinned sardines, six brown eggs, some more of the glorious pastries and a warm loaf with a fleur de lys pattern baked into its crust.

  At 11.30 we up anchor and set sail for the Raz de Sein. This is the entrance to the Bay of Biscay. Like the Chenal du Four, catch it wrong and it is very inhospitable. It is particularly dangerous when the wind is against the tide, causing a steep breaking sea. Strong westerly winds also cause breaking seas.

  On top of this, the tidal stream attains up to 7 knots during spring tides. The next spring tide is seven days away and, apart from taking advantage of the Biscay weather window, has been another reason for wanting to go now. At present, half way between spring and neap tide, the tidal stream will be a maximum of 5 knots even if we should miss slack tide.

  By 12.30 the promised wind speed of up to 16 knots is a mere four. At 3pm we turn left out of the Bay of Douarnenez and into the Raz de Sein with all three sails up. We have the timing right and sail through it without being aware we are anywhere special. Twenty five minutes later we are into Biscay.

  15

  Crossing Biscay