One more time we crossed the North Sea, one more time it was not easy. We then had to stop in Esbjerg that we know well, and wait nearly two weeks in the new “marina” for fair winds. We didn’t went far, we had to call at Oudeschild, on Texel island, in the Nederlands, and we had not to regret it., so engrossing and new for us was the atmosphere of this fishing harbour : the polders rounded by seawalls, where the sheeps graze, the village nested down, the pumps preventing the floooding we can hear day and night…We make provisions of cheese and we arrive in Boulogne with a good wind, pleased to leave away a sea which is no longer a sea, with huge wind farms which compete with the oil rigs, navigation lanes which don’t offer nor place nor pleasure to the sailors, where nature seems to be distroyed….
En Lézardrieux we meet again our friend Gilles who will make us discover the Trieux of his childhood and the castel of La Roche Jagu, wonderfull, our friend Alain will introduce us Dominique and Xavier and take us to discover the Sillon de Talbert, and quickly we join the Aber Wrac’h for the winter.

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Holydays, Manon, Enzo and Kylian come back to our way of life : walks, visit to the Ile Vierge lighthouse, visit of the “Bel Espoir” at the Moulin de l’Enfert where works now our friend the carpenter Jean Yves, big lunchs with Paskal, Tao and Lucie, in one word : Holydays !
Winter is here, storms, rain, gales, we will have all ! Fortunately we will find a good shelter to varnish our masts at the Saint Antoine Yards, and small weather windows to take out and back our masts. Thanks to Bruno, Morgan and Bastien ! As for the couture Sofi will make all what we needed, even Iris’s bandana ! We will find also some time to make long walks, they are infinite, which makes our dog happy; Lise teach us how to collect the seaweeds, how to dry them, and how to eat them ! As for exchange we give to her daughter Jeanne a “baby” oak, an acorn picked up on the Trieux banks then breeded on “Skoiern”, as to apologize to have taken so much wood in the building of our boat.
And always, always, the soul of Michel Jaouen who glide on the Aber : the “Rara Avis”, Penn Enez baracks, kids from everywhere who still hear him saying ” Get by to be happy”…

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In February, with Enzo and Manon, pilgrimage to Marseille, which we find changed for some angles, but where we find ourselves back and where we meet again our family : Jacques, Sophie, the “great” Manon, Ibrahim, Emilie, Kylian, Virgile, and the sailor friends : Daniel et Monique, Eric from the Frioul, Margot et Philippe on “le Don du vent”, Michel on her “Léopard Normand” : we had bought our 3 boats the same year, in 1979…The calanques, the Frioul, the Société Nautique, the Panier, the rue longue des Capucins, the Corniche and the Valon des Auffes, the Pharo, the Goudes, Saint Victor and the Four des navettes, we needed much more time in this town we love, where we spent a big part of our sailor life. Stong, strong feelings

Then came the Covid19, just before Spring, with its cortege of desolations, with the confinment, modern jail for a humanity who receive a tremendous lesson, her who thougth that a smartphone and some “aplis” were enough to be happy…
Yet how beautyful is the nature…

Grimstad route goes trough Douarnenez, where we meet again our carpenter and friend Jean Yves, Gwenaël the farmer, Fred the sailmaker…then l’Aber Wrac’h, were “Bel Espoir II” turns into a new “Bel Espoir”we hope to meet some day on the seas, Lézardrieux were the friend Gilles is waiting to drive us in his woods, Boulogne were the ancestors of Capi, the Flahaut and the Bacquet reigned centuries ago….

In Kristiansand we meet the fanatic sailors of the “Hestmanden”, from 1911, the only one who escaped from WW II among the 1000 of norvegian merchant ships , then the Blindleia and at least, Grimstad !

Dans les bois de Gilles : Au pied de mon arbre, ce géant de 34 m dans les bois de Kermarie, à Loguivy de la mer, vaut le détour : 34m de hauteur, 8,30m de circonférence, c’est un géant. Il aurait été arrêté à un moment de son existence, cet incident aurait provoqué la croissance de 5 ou 6 troncs qui lui donnent l’aspect d’une pieuvre. Les Bretons, grands voyageurs, auraient ramené des graines de pin de Monterey (pinus radiata), de la baie californienne du même nom. La météo du Goëlo semble convenir parfaitement à cette espèce de bord de mer. C’est impressionnant de voir vieillir ces arbres venus d’autres continents. A 140 ans le pin de Loguivy  est probablement l’un des plus anciens introduits en France, et le plus imposant en Bretagne, assurément ( d’après Mikaël Jézégou, technicien forestier des Côtes d’Armor)

July the 28, in front of the Jørgensen og Vik shipyard, now a private museum of the Bergshav shipowner, “Skøiern” ex “Mars”, meets again her sister “Lady III” ex “Liv”, a century later ! The emotion is strong, the sight of these two boats fantastic, as it is full of chance, wills, perceverance to make these two boats, nearly the sames, meet again.
Fredrik Gude and his family will welcome us as friends, we will be amid wonderfull classic boats comming from all parts of the Oslo fjord, we lived an historical moment.

We were there :
Anne Marie Della Casa, Patrick Chalmeau, Stéphane Chalmeau, Manon La Brousse, Enzo Chalmeau, Fredrik Gude, Cecilia Gude, Thomas Gude, Allman Gude, Chris Ennals, Peter Ennals, Mona and Arne….Zoé and Iris…

With Manon we sailed up to Oslo, still host of Fredrik at the Osloforening, on Herben island, and there we make her discover the Bygdøy museums : the Fram of Nansen, the Gjoa of Amundsen, the Kon Tiki of Heyerdal, who Capi met one day in Djibouti, the Viking museum, and in Oslo we fell under the spell of the sculptures of Gustav Vigeland in the Frognerparken and of the Munch paintings in the Munch Museum.
Later, still at the Osloforening, Capi will meet again his great swedish friend, Pele…

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The winter storms have passed, our boat is ready to sail for Britany, the winds turned, then we left Santa Maria, said hello to the friends, and headed North East. It will not take us long to reach A Coruña, only one tack from the quarter…Just the time to admire this wonderfull town and we sailed again, still with the wind from the quarter. And with a good wind we arrived at the island of Groix in little more than two days.

We have only one month to prepare our feast, time flies, but June the 9, as scheduled, “Skøiern” is dried in Port Lay to welcome our families and friends. How great it was ! To see our hundred years old boat, honored in this tiny harbour, where the Captain lived, at the times of “Jeunesse et Marine”, more than 50 years ago ! In Port Lay rare are the ones who were not in the merchant navy, when it was not in the same Companies as us…. and merchant navy sailors, they are a lot to celebrate “Skoiern”, the friends are here, from all the corners of France, as for our families.
The feast started a day before, in the reunion, in the evening of June the 9 we tried to eat, and to drink, all what was left, without succeeding indeed, the following days we will go on apreciating this island we love so much.
It has been a great feast, full of emotion, reunion, friendship, with our “Skoiern” more beautiful than ever, been admired alongside as when dried.
The people of Groix, and especialy those of Port Lay welcomed us, they helped us, we savoured what they prepared for us, we couldn’t have made a better choice to celebrate the century of our boat.

We were there :
Anne Marie Della Casa , Patrick Chalmeau, Emilie Cintas, Manon La Brousse, Kylian La Brousse, Enzo Chalmeau, Dany Nollez, “Nono” Nollez, Madeleine Nollez, Sophie Tallard, Jacques Chalmeau, Sophie, Alain Charpiat, Gaëlle Charpiat, Vincent, Lily, Elisa, Daniel Suzzoni, Pascal Basset, Paskal Morvan, Julien Lacote, Hanane Lacote, Lina Lacote, Reina Lacote, Jean Pierre Charrier, Brigitte, Pierre Fermon, Colette Fermon, Edith Lepage, Hervé Lepage, Eric Beyo, Martine Beyo, Fred Gourlaouen, Alain Jourdan, Patrice Menard, Gaëlle De Labrusse,Tao Morvan De Labrusse, Lucie Morvan De Labrusse, Rodolphe Rohart, Claude Guillot, Jean Guillot, Georges Maréchal, Jocelyne Maréchal, Claudine Gauguin, André, Monique Suzzoni, Eva Petendi, Thiery Froment “the storyteller”,Yvon, Bernard,
Zoé and Iris,
By phone : Maurice Bertoni, Henriette Millan, Hervé Lopez.

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Even if it’s a long way from Cuba, 27 days, it din’t seemed long for us. We din’t stop at the Bahamas, nor at the Bermudas, we don’t have any hidden money in the “tax heavens”, but it was more because the weather was good to pass North of Bermudas and then heading East. A lot of fine weather, days without touching the sheets, wind from the beam, a lot of gulweeds too, then no fish, and a few days before arriving at Faial, the meeting of 4 blue whales that we cross very close, a big feeling. We will sail together for a time with Jean Louis Clémendot, but as he stopped in the Bermudas we will be waiting for him at Horta, in front of the roasted pork offered by the Peter Cafe sport, who celebrates also its centenary. Just a jump to Graciosa we didn’t yet know, and there, we fall in love with this island. All these islands are different, and at Graciosa we apreciate the calm of the port, the quietness of the island, the long walks, the traditional feasts.
It was planed, Stephane joins us at Horta with Enzo and Louison. Naturely Manon is here too. We have a straight program : the caldeira, meeting with the whales, visit of the Peter Cafe Sport with “Peter”Jose Enrique Azevedo, the renewing of the painting of Skøiern on the jety, and, for the men only…the climbing of the Pico, 2351 m, the Azores’s roof ! A revenge on the first trial in 2007, a promise done. It was gorgeous, and thanks to our guide Luis, not too hard. Horta it’s also the “Semana do Mar”, where the Captain, “Capi”, will be invited to row on a whale boat for the fishermen procession of Nuestra Senhora da Guia, whales boats regatas, parades, folk groups….Back to Graciosa with Manon, we visit the boiling bowels of Furna do Enxofre, meet Catherine, from a long time stranded sailor in the small village of Luz, more feasts, touradas…
Of course we think of the way back, then we go closer and we sail to Praia da Vitoria we love so much. No weather window, but a huricane that decide us to take shelter at Ponta Delgada, then, for the same reasons we went to Santa Maria.
At the end of October, as the weather is still in the same patern we take the decision to winter at Vila do Porto, well sheltered in this small island, our families and friends will have to wait some months more before we could meet again. Santa Maria is really beautiful, few populated, we can walk for hours in full nature, without cars, with our dog free for running and teasing the cows or Yann’s mule… The climate is better than in the other islands, more mediterranean, more aside the track of the big storms of the North Atlantic. We take also the opportunity of this wintering to do the works we had planed, the small yard in the port is very useful for us, and when you need something you don’t find on the island you just have to order, it takes some time but the parcels comes, and every time it’s like Christmas !
At spring we will sail for Britany, make a big feast for our boat before sailing for Grimstad and again make a big feast.

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