Saturday, September 6, 2008

Tides, Markets & Weather Windows

As we write this we’re still in La Rochelle doing what cruisers spend a lot of time doing – waiting for a weather window. As soon as we have good weather our plans are to head south to Spain. Since our last entry we have done numerous sails in the La Rochelle area to the nearby islands of Ile d’Re, Ile d’Aix and Ile d’Orleron. Each trip out we have tested various aspects of the boat and are extremely pleased with her. On shore time has been spent exploring the area on bike and foot and enjoying the market. La Rochelle has the largest market in the area. The indoor market is open 7 days a week and has everything from seafood to cheval meat (you figure that one out); cheeses to pates; and breads to deserts.



Three days a week the local farmers join the permanent market and sell their produce and cheeses in outdoor tents surrounding the market. It’s quite a colorful site and excellent people watching.



Another event that becomes part of your life is the tides. Back in Texas and during our past cruising tides were rarely an issue. Here your sailing time revolves around them. It is not uncommon to have a 5 meter difference between low and high tide.




Be sure to pay close attention to the last picture. Some of the French sailers apparently do not pay attention to the tide tables because they are AGROUND!

But now all boat items are fixed and Lone Star is ready to go. It took a bit longer to get everything taken care of not because of slow workers but because of another French tradition – vacation time in August. August is the month France goes on vacation and Amel essentially shuts down for 3 weeks during this time. So we are now waiting for that perfect or almost perfect window to head south. Since we have been here the weather has been constantly changing from sunny to stormy to windy to extremely windy and stormy. In fact yesterday we had gusts in excess of 40 knots. Its one thing to be out and have the winds build to 40, it’s another to start out in them – especially when you don’t have too. However the weather gurus are telling us a high is on the way and things should be moderating. Well if you have to wait somewhere for good weather you could do a lot worse than La Rochelle.
Fair Winds,
Craig and Jan

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