We'd forgotten, but in Brittany, it's not hot in summer.
We moved to Crozon in 2014, and since we've been here, we haven't exactly had "Breton weather" in successive summers. I remember a March 30, 2015 when it was 30 degrees, and a November 3, 2016 when it was 21. In Brittany, since we arrived, it's been hot and sunny in summer, before and after summer too.
In 2024, the position of the Azores anticyclone, which remained too far west, deprived our region of warm summer weather, and this was immediately felt on board the boat. From June 1, we had to install a mini oil-bath heater, to avoid shivering day and night.
We'd forgotten, but children grow up, and parents grow old
Our children have grown up, and their parents have aged: there's even less room in the boat, and our 40-year-old adult bodies are having a hard time adapting to this cramped space. The charm of novelty has worn off, and we're having a hard time finding our feet and lasting comfort during this second season on board...
To make matters worse, our rigging is damaged and we have to change all the shrouds on Sea-Sea. We're stuck at the airstrip until a rigger finds time to replace them, which won't be until mid-August... And we're just hanging around. The kids don't notice these inconveniences too much, everything just glides along, and as long as we keep smiling, they're happy. Not once have they asked to go back to the house they haven't seen for 4 months... and that's a good thing, because if we'd had to deal with their frustration on this point, we'd have been heading for disaster.
But it's hard for us to keep that smile... Jean and I hit our heads and legs several times a day, we're not as flexible and tolerant as we were a year ago, and we either swear loudly to atone for the pain, or go into a nervous fit of giggles every time we hear a thud, witness to a wall that has collided with our body.
Non-exhaustive list of everything that annoys me
I can't bear to go and bury myself every night in the coffin, I can't bear that we don't have running water, I can't bear to go and fill our jerrycan every day at the pontoon.
I can't stand to do the dishes squatting any more.
I can't stand the showers in the port's sanitary facilities, which don't have a strong enough flow to keep us warm and smell of sewage.
I can't stand it any more when my children walk past the merry-go-round and duck-fishing station at the entrance to the harbour every day, nagging me to take them.
I can't stand being woken up in the morning by boats full of Parisians who set off fishing, screaming as they maneuver at 7 a.m., and can't imagine that there are people sleeping in the boats around them in the middle of July.
I can't stand having to get off the boat to turn the electricity back on every time it's cut off every 12 hours, sometimes in the middle of the night because it stops our heating.
I can't bear to be cold, to have slept badly, to be tired, and to have to look after 2 fit children all day in these conditions, who just want to run around and have a laugh.
I can't stand having to dismantle my saloon table every night to set up a bed, and every morning to dismantle this bed to find the saloon table again.
I can't stand never finding a parking space in the port, and having to walk 10 minutes every time I want to pick up the Twingo - it's like being in Paris!
I can't stand the hydrocarbon leaks that surround us in a sea that stinks of gasoline...
This adventure turns into a crossroads, largely due to the cold and rain, which leave us few days of respite.
A few rare comforts soften the daily grind
I invest a lot in the Relais des Pêcheurs, a comforting bar with a foosball table, where I console and warm myself by drinking Irish coffees while the children play, unaware that their mother is drowning in despair. In the mornings, when I don't have the strength to re-install the saloon table for breakfast, I take the children to eat at the boulangerie. Morgat's bakeries are my second home.
All hell broke loose, but we eventually found our rig. As soon as it was in place, we set off in the worst conditions, with the spray and the rain, to find the sea air and stretch the sails of our Écume de mer. In any case, after the almost 3 months we've just lived through, nothing scares us any more, and that summer, if we'd had to wait for warm, sunny weather to cast off, well, we wouldn't have had many opportunities to escape.
After 4 months of cold, damp and suffering (longer than a Vendée Globe!), we finally found our home, and realized that the 4 of us had just achieved quite a feat, crammed into our Écume de Mer for all that time... This time, we're not about to do it again, or else with a much bigger boat - at least 9 meters long - in which Jean will be able to stand upright without dusting the ceiling with his hair.
So we're looking for a great 9-metre opportunity, or why not, another boat donation!
