February 15, 2005
N46.1 W01.1 Farewell La Rochelle, France
Dave and Chis arrived in La Rochelle, France on January 6 and began to ready Platina, their 53-foot ketch-rigged Amel sailboat for a round the world adventure. With careful planning, everything has come together. The weather looks good, our skipper and first mate arrived from Southampton, our boat registration has arrived, and Platina is provisioned for a month at sea. So, off we go. Nervous excitement. We love La Rochelle, and hope to return, although in warmer months.
Platina
Chisholm Lyons and David Greene purchased a new Amel ‘Super Maramu 2000’ (www.amel.fr) 53-foot ketch-rigged (two masts) sailboat in May 2004. They sold virtually everything in Canada, quit their jobs, and decided to sail around the world. Neither had a significant amount of sailing experience. This is the story of their journey.
Their sailboat is named Platina, which means platinum in Spanish. The sum of their ages when they bought the boat is the atomic weight of platinum. Platina was launched on January 20, 2005 (Dave’s mother’s birthday). We were there to see it. It was cold and windy.
Chis and Dave arrived in La Rochelle on January 6, 2005 after spending Christmas in London with the London Lyons’ and New Years’ in Paris with their friends Jim and Luc from Toronto. Chis and Dave rented a beautiful apartment on the Place de Verdun, in the heart of the old part of La Rochelle, until January 31, 2005 when they moved onto Platina permanently.
We made an appointment on January 11th to visit the Amel shipyard and take a tour of the facilities. We arrived promptly to discover that they had hoisted the Canadian flag on the pole in front of the yard. A nice touch that made us feel very welcome. We met with Antoine for a few minutes, discussing various issues. We could barely hold ourselves back. Off we went to see the fiberglass department, the word-working department, and assembly areas. A very impressive operation. We were chatting, walking across the yard, and out of the corner of our eyes, we spotted Platina. The look on Dave’s face was of utter surprise. Chis couldn’t see her because he’s 4 years older. She was sitting in a large tank, where they were testing the engine, pumps, and other bits and pieces, and making sure she didn’t take on water (a good thing). Then, Antoine climbed aboard, and invited us on. We had not expected this. We went below, looked around, saw all of the additions and changes we had made, and finally felt like it was becoming a reality. She had a heart beat. The plastic cups (complete with the Amel logo) were even in the bathrooms. After several minutes (it may have been hours), we left Platina, having Antoine quickly take our picture on her stern. We went to the rigging department, and there were the two masts for Platina. At the base of the main mast was a silver Canadian dollar, heads-up, that was a gift from our very dear friends in Vancouver, the Mulligans. Dating back to the ancient Romans, it is an old sea custom to step the mast on a coin. It was meant to give good luck. (The origin of this custom is derived from the Romans, who placed a coin in the mouth of a dead body to ensure clear passage to heaven. Is this how the Catholic Church became so wealthy?). So, altogether, a watershed day.
February 12th was a big day. We rented a car so that we could, yet again, go to Carrefour (the 3rd largest retailer in the world; like Walmart). Actually, Walmart copied them and won, but that's another story. We find those mega-stores too mega. Anyway, we returned to Platina and a beehive of activity. Someone was there to drop off or papers, which is a BIG deal and means that we officially, officially own the boat and can now leave. Someone was repairing the noise in the freezer. Someone was tinkering with our weather software. AND our skipper and first mate arrived from England! They come compliments of Eliz, who knows someone at the BBC, who knows someone at a lovely English sailing club, who knows Ed the Skipper. It's currently drizzling here, so we walked to the internet cafe in our spanking brand new foul weather gear. It's worse than wearing new running shoes because this is head-to-toe. Actually, it’s worse than wearing lederhosen. At least we are in a mariner town. We are now just looking for a weather window, and expect to leave next week. This means that we can move on to the next level of emotion: nervous
anticipation. So far, we know that we will be on 3 hour shifts between here and the Canary Islands, after which we will move to the more luxurious 4 hour shifts. We hung that great photo of Chis sr. and brother Norb on the Bluenose, so the boat seems
much more like home.
La Rochelle is a beautiful old city on a shallow tidal plain (3 metre tides). Canals were built to transport agricultural products from the wet marshlands inland of the city to the port. On the North Atlantic coast of France, La Rochelle was founded in the 10th century as a fishing port, and became a major shipping port for salt and wine by the 12th century. As the capital of French Protestantism, La Rochelle was a threat to reunification, and by 1628 the city was starved and decimated by Louis XIII. By the 18th century, it had rebuilt and enjoyed the benefits of trade routes for sugar from the Caribbean, and furs from Canada.
Favourite places: the park just across the Place de Verdun runs west to the ocean, where we walked/ran along the seawall toward Port Neuf. Monopris, the grocery store, is close to the old clock tower. The 19th century market in the centre of the town. Nicolas, the wine store, across the street from the market. Café Cedric, for freshly roasted coffee, opposite the wine store. AquaCyber, the internet joint, in the Ville du Bois part of town.
Favourite restaurants: Few. Because we didn’t go to more than 3. We highly recommend Les 4 Sergents near the Tour Nicolas for dinner. La Marine, on the pier in the old harbour, is good for lunch on a sunny day. And the little take-out place in Gabut that we can never remember the name of. One of Dave’s former Deloitte colleagues highly recommended a Relais & Chateau restaurant on the seawall, but we never went.
Great memories: Long walks, finding the Amel dock in Minimes by surprise because a dredging barge distracted our attention, fresh baguettes, reading voraciously to distract from buying gear for Platina, seeing Platina in the testing tank at the Amel yard, historic architecture, running the canal.
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February 10, 2005
Chis Working on Provisions
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February 05, 2005
Dave at the Nav Station Checking Weather
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