A very different voyage

Having reached Rouen, the next thing to organise was unstepping the mast for transportation by road to the south of France. Removal of a mast requires the use of a crane and, crucially, a skilled operator to make sure the job is carried out properly.

On our recce to France in January we stopped at Lamanage at Rouen marina to discuss demasting (démâtage). They advised us to give them a couple of weeks notice when we had an idea of the date we would arrive with Libra.  Our plans coalesced and we called them mid March. Once we arrived in Honfleur we called Lamanage and thought they said that the mast could be removed next Monday 10th April. So far so good....or so we thought.

It's never that straightforward though, is it?  The major challenge is that hardly anyone at Lamanage speaks English, and our skills in speaking French are such that we only get around 50- 75% of what is said.

Over the winter we did our research and have arranged for a company called Boat Loads to transport the mast for us.  We notified Nigel at Boat Loads and he pointed out that Monday is a bank holiday in France. We realised that we may have got the wrong end of the stick, so we called Lamanage again.

This time we were much clearer with our questioning and it turns out that we were completely wrong. There is only one person who can organise the crane and he is on holiday until next Tuesday. Nobody can even book the demasting without his presence.  This means that the boat will remain in Rouen until we can fix a date, which can't be done for nearly a week.  Thanks to Brexit, as UK citizens we can only spend 90 days in any 180 day period in the EU and we didn't want to waste them sitting on the boat twiddling our thumbs so we decided to come home.

There is an upside. We have both realised there are things we need to organise at home so this is an opportunity to sort them out t. Also, we will be travelling by car so when we take down the sails we can bring them home with us. Boat Loads offered to take them, along with the mast and boom, but we would rather know exactly where they are.

All that remained was to arrange our journey home. Public transport is cheap and reliable, so  we had a 20 minute walk to the bus station, then €1.70 for the bus and Metro to the SNCF station, then a €7 train journey to Dieppe. We took the ferry to Newhaven and our youngest son,  fresh from the delights of a few days solo travel in Paris, collected us in the car and drove us home, .

I honestly thought I'd be away quite a bit longer than 5 days!