4 June 2006 - Honfleur and home

We left St Vaast for Honfleur, a 12 hour sail along the Normandy beaches, stopping off at Arrowmanche half way. Arrowmanche is home to Mulberry Harbour which the allies made during the second world war for the D Day landings. Goliath slabs of concrete all over the place, just plonked in what seems like the middle of the ocean. Salt Dragon managed to avoid taking a chunk out of one of them.

We got to Honfleur about 11pm in time for high water and had to go through a lock, the first one I'd ever been through, to get to the habour.

Once there we moored up with some fishing boats as Salt Dragon is too much of a beast to fit easily into the pretty little marina.

Honfleur is stunning, all wonky and higgle-de-pigglety.

We spent a couple of days wandering about and then started the 24 hour sail back to southampton. The channel was very calm which was a relief for me as I didn't have to watch my sister be sick. Instead I watched hawk eyed for rubbish, as my dad had said that it all floats to the surface in its millions of tonnes in the channel when its really still and I was very curious to see it.

I watched the sun go down, and then because I was on the 4-7am watch, I watched it come up again, to the tune of Lion King's Circle of Life. Is it just me or does everyone have a constant soundtrack going on in their heads? I had the theme tune to Black Beauty in my head for two days straight after James ate a horse burger in St Vaast. When there is no obvious trigger I usually have the A Team blaring through my brain cells.

We came up to the Isle of Wight about 10am and noticed alot of boats out so we called up the coast guard and found out we would be sailing back smack bang through the round island race. 2-3 thousand sailing boats take part in the race each year a clog up the solent for most of the day, racing around Wight while avoiding being run over by ferries, tanker or an agressive fellow competitor. Or my dad.

Managed to squeeze Salt Dragon through and got home safe and sound with just a few bruises and a sunburnt ear to show for the entire trip (quite proud of that).

Back to the real world...grrrrr....