GROIX on a windy day

16 June Groix
Today is biking day. We rent bikes from Bikini Bike Hire (really). It’s still pretty windy F6-7, but away from the harbour it is a bit more sheltered. We cycle first to Locmaria – I think I left the video camera case there yesterday (groan) with an SD card & spare battery in it… we put it down to bad juju from photographing the wreck.
From there we went to St Nicholas – an inlet on the SW coast of the island, further North than Locmaria and shallow and sheltered today. It is hot and there are a couple of boats in there, one tucked right in with a stern line to the shore and one further out. Some people are spear fishing. Al goes swimming. It’s cold but he doesn’t mind that. If we get the chance we’ll take Snork Maiden around there.
After a couple of hours there, we pedal off to the end of the island, to the lighthouse. It’s late in the day and deserted. We watch the gulls, one of which checks us out, walking about and looking at us. It looks comical with a stiff-legged gull gait. It’s very windy here, so we cycle back to the port. There’s a tuna fish wind vane on the church tower, I suppose that's a weather-tuna.

I didn’t tell you about our neighbours. An elderly couple in a power boat, one of a fleet of 12, all retirees, on a little jaunt, but now stuck because of the wind. Yesterday they had a late afternoon party. When we got back they plied us with Rum and pineapple cocktails (I drank Al’s share) and meaty hors d’oevres (Al ate mine). They were quite distraught that we’d missed the social event (but then they had probably consumed quite a bit of rum by then.) When we came in, the chap was very complimentary about our boat. We were quite flattered until we realised that he knew next to nothing about boats! It transpired that they pack leader was trying to get the whole lot through the Raz de Seine at the same time. You have to understand that he had a big range of boats and abilities and the Raz is very unforgiving. Like herding swimming cats! We’ll never know what happened.

Oh yes. And this was the day Al got THE CALL.