The Harbor Festival was in full swing. I borrowed a bicycle from the harbor office to make a run into Brest and have a look. There was a huge crowd and hardly anything to see. Most was taking place out on the water.
I went to the local Decathlon store and bought a pair of deck shoes. My old one had disintegrated in the UV light. For the next day I had an invitation to go out sailing with the Altensa crew from Wales and I didn’t want to show up with those rags of shoes of mine. We went out around noon and I think I’ve never seen so many ships in one place.
There were many traditional ships large and small, racing yachts and catamarans and hundreds of spectator sailing yachts and dinghies. Aside from this being a great sightseeing trip we were also scattering the ashes of Adam, Paul, Dave and Dan’s friend Chris who had wanted to come along one this trip but died before they left. I was going to film the ceremony and friends and relatives were watching through live video (filmed by Dan). I had never been part of a burial such as this. It was very moving. Maybe I would like to go like this, too
The next day my new (used) fuller came with the forestay all prepared for the right size and was installed in short time. It looked beautiful. Only now my old sails didn’t fit the new profile in the furler anymore. So off they went to the sailmaker. Date of completion: unknown. In the meantime I prepared my halyard that had broken on the way to French Guiana and made a new splice. It was now a bit too short but would still work and hopefully be a bit less noisy than the ten year old one that I had been sailing with for the last months.
The Altensa crew invited me for dinner and drinks of which we consumed quite a few and I had a great time with them. I went to bed happy and a bit drunk. They got up really early to go out with the tide and be on their way back to Wales.
While I was making coffee the next morning someone who introduced himself as Jürgen from Sylt knocked and we were soon chatting in Amy’s cockpit. He has been sailing all his life been around the world with his boat. A few minutes later Jonas came by who I thought I had seen before but couldn’t put my finger on it. It later turned out he had sold Wayne my windvane to me. I had bought it from Jonas and then contacted the manufacturer Peter Foerthmann. Although I had bought it second hand, Peter helped me with a few questions. Much later on my trip I had contacted Mr. Foerthmann again to tell him what a great piece of equipment his windvane was. This was of course no news to him but from then on we had a very friendly email conversation which I have been enjoying a lot.
Jonas didn’t recognise me either at first but when I told him later he remembered it, too. He wanted to downgrade from his 46ft Swan and was interested in the Albin Vega. After hanging out in my cockpit, we went over to Jonas’ boat. And in the evening I visited Jürgen in his Catamaran and we had a few drinks.
The next day my sails came and I left with the evening tide for Littlehampton.
