Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure
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@Madame-Buttonfly and I are in the final stages of prepping for an 8 or 9-week journey in SAKURA to Brittany (and maybe a bit of Normandy on the way home). I've been making sure that the boat is ready for the trip, filling up with diesel and water, making sure that everything is working, that we have sufficient spares, and moving stuff around on the helm so it is in a more logical position. We've filled all available fridge, freezer, larder and harder to get to storage space with victuals. I need to get some clothes and a bit more fishing tackle on board and we will be ready to go.
We plan to leave early Wednesday afternoon and take advantage of the favourable current to help us on the way to Studland Bay, where we will pick up a buoy, or drop the anchor for the night. On Thursday at first light, or a little before, we'll head to Alderney, the northernmost of the Channel Islands and a passage of about 50nm.
We'll spend a couple of days in Alderney and then head for the north Brittany coast via Jersey or Guernsey (to top up with tax and duty-free fuel). All of this is a bit fluid, because we are obviously completely dependent on the weather.
In broad terms we will muddle down the coast of Brittany going no further than Vannes, where we will spend a week with some of my French fishing pals. Then we turn around and muddle back again. If we have time and the inclination, we'll do the Normandy D Day beaches and then head back across the channel, and home.
Our preference will be to avoid marinas as much as possible, but in much of the northern part of our trip, we will be dealing with 10 meter tides, we have enough chain to deal with that, but massive tidal ranges present 2 issues, at low water, you have a hell of a long scope to rotate around the anchor, and at high water, what you thought was a nice sheltered bay at low water, is now super-exposed. Added to all that Paula and I are relative beginners, so we don't want to bite off more than we can chew
I've estimated about 1,200nm for the trip. Let's see how accurate I am....
"OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011
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Thank you. And sorry to miss you when you are here doing your day-skip. Would have loved to have met up. Have a ball, it's a breeze compare to the theory.....
"OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011
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@Giles I may have missed this elsewhere, but are you progressing on downsizing the main residence?
This trip sounds incredible. everything from sailing into new places and seeing historical beaches, all the way down to stopping at a pier side stand to grab grilled anchovy's or whatever little local shit you can bring back to the boat.
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@jordanscollected said in Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure:
whatever little local shit you can bring back to the boat.
Mainly Oysters.
Sea Bass fishing along this coast is stupendous, so I'll be doing a lot of that.
We have the house on the market. We have had 5 viewings, but as each viewing came and went, and we listened to the comments the prospects had, Paula and I realised that we simply aren't going to find something as nice and as quiet locally, and frankly if we move away from Gosport, we probably couldn't afford it either. So it is still on the market atm, but we have asked that no special marketing is done to drum up interest whilst we are away. A move was going to cost us a lot, so we think we'd rather invest that money into keeping the big house going until it's time to properly downsize or die, whichever comes first.
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@Giles If you F'n die before selling the house I'm flying over for the estate sale. $7 IH shirts (you know how they do these estate clothes) in my size will be worth the travel cost.
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(Half the forum goes to the Meet the Crew thread to check @Giles measurements)
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@popvulture The other half has them memorized.
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@Alex in my head you were scuba diving and didn't get cell service to weigh in. a lot of things have to line up just right.
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@Alex said in Giles and Paula's Great Retirement Adventure:
@jordanscollected You think i'll sell his shirts for $7?
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@Giles We hope you have a great trip / adventure.
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I was just telling Katie yesterday how much I was looking forward to sitting in the patio at the back yard after party because I didn’t realize the house was actively being viewed. Maybe @Kasi can buy it and rent it back to you. On second thought his monthly rent might be more than a mortgage.
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Just noticed that this has been installed on our home berth. Feel quite grown-up...
"OK face up to it - you're useless but generally pretty honest and straightforward . . . it's a rare combination of qualities that I have come to admire in you" - Geo 2011
