I’ve earned the label of being paranoid from my dearest. Each time I’ve seen a douane (customs) boat I’ve said that they stopped and turned to come and visit us. The first time was leaving St Malo (they followed us out of the channel), then while we anchored near Fort Latte (they stopped for at late lunch on anchor), then on our final approach to Lezardieux marina up the deep water estuary (they passed us, turned and stopped).

Shortly afterwards we had three very nice gentlemen asking permission to come aboard from a black rib as they nudged our rear transom. “Of course, bienvenue”. They asked for our papers while I continued to navigate the narrow channel less than ten minutes from the visitor pontoon. Janine grabbed passports and boat papers and the gentlemen made themselves comfortable (with their shoes on) around our cockpit table working through our papers. With me babbling away in French while steering at the helm they shortly concluded we were all in order and wished us a pleasant stay before hopping back onto their rib. I asked for a receipt and got some surprised laughter, “desole monsieur”.

So we moored up in the beautiful, stunning, wooded, hillside marina, surprised that the tide was pushing through much quicker than expected despite the short delay, later I realised the tide tables for St Malo are UT+1 instead of UT. That means the table already took account of local French time on top of universal time, so I was an hour late. The tides had turned but lesson learnt and without any drama we pulled up alongside the pontoon, tied off and soon after helped a few late arrivals moor up. We helped and made friends with a chap from ‘up north’ who looked exhausted after a 2am start. Turns out he’s now convinced his wife to buy a catamaran and sell the house :-) :-)... good luck Ian!!

Intentionally choosing this safe haven instead of anchoring today we are soon engulfed in a torrential downpour with the water running down the cabin windows like hose pipe had been left on and the rain bouncing off the river floor like hail stones on tarmac. We were glad to be safe, warm and dry inside the ‘plastic can’ while the heavens opened outside.

We set off the next morning like a ‘bat out of hell’ on little G up the river to explore further than big G could go... the bridge was lower than our mast, just, not a risk worth taking. Any hooos, we zoomed up the river with ears flapping in the wind (both dog and humans) as we sweep round the each and every corner to decide we’ve gone far enough with no treasured landing in sight, we turn with tail between our legs and return back the way we came, back under the bridge until, putt, putt, putt, pu, p, p p, silence. Oh snit! Not again. Fuel tank reads full still, but that sounded like an empty tank. While her ladyship (anxious Anny) starts to panic as we drift slowly down stream towards the rocky shore, captain B magiver bounces into action and throws a few more litres of go-go juice from a back up canister under his seat down the fuel tank hole. With fingers, and toes, crossed, we spark the ignition a few times and p, p, pu, becomes putt and we resume our adventure back to big G unharmed but still mildly shaken.

We return to shore, and after a short widdle walk hit the local bar, western movie style, the doors swing and the music stops along with conversation. “You ain’t from round here are you!” I think my terrible French gave us away, however we are awarded with a thimble of wine and a belge Grimbenbergen. As we sip our winnings we begin to reflect on the latest events. A few lessons learnt, fuel gauge needs some attention, good to have a second canister, we can’t row against 4 knots of tide, nor with a dog in lap, we need to learn to paddle, and an anchor is a great way to buy time before approaching the shore too quickly. We had the dinghy anchor on board but we just didn’t think at the time to use it. Hindsight.

As the sun rises we ponder whether we should move to the mooring bouy, we need the practice if not to save a few € but very quickly the marina fills up with chaos as six boats from the local sailing school start practice mooring and manoeuvring around our target visitor bouy. A pre-departure widdle walk later we decide not to get entangle in the local festivities and instead head out to our long weather dependent anchorage on the outskirts of the Isle de Brehat, and oh my big G!! The island is stunning.