journal • belle-isle • eu

This page is intended for our non-French speaking friends and relatives, as most of our journal is unfortunately published in French only. Although it would be feasible to have the entire site be bilingual, it is just too much of a job for us. The reason for this page, however, is we nevertheless want you to be able to grasp the most important points of this logbook. The sections hereunder will therefore give you a brief summary of what it is all about. If you wish to know more, do learn French (joke!) Alternatively, and perhaps more pragmatically, you may try using an online translator such as Google’s, in order to have the text automatically translated into English (or some other language). Although the translation is far from good, it should give you some idea of what is going on with more detail than this page intends to give, and with a more up-to-date situation, since we will be updating this page only now and then.

Who is Fleur de Sel ?

Fleur de Sel (French for Saltflower) has been our sailboat since 2008. She’s a cutter-rigged centerboard aluminium-hull sailboat, with a length of 36 feet (11.25 meters). We have already sailed several thousand miles with her, but she has a far greater experience, since she has already crossed the Atlantic Ocean several times, and sailed around the globe at least once. A few pictures and more specifications, albeit in French, are available on the Fleur de Sel page.

Where have we been, and where are we now ?

Here are the highlights of our travels aboard Fleur de Sel, with links to our corresponding photo albums:

• July and August 2008 – We spent our honeymoon aboard, travelling from Northwestern France all the way up to the North of Scotland.
• Winter 2008-2009 – Fleur de Sel overwintered in the friendly Orkney town of Kirkwall, under the watchful eye of Mike
• June and July 2009 – Having quit our jobs and moved out of our apartment, we returned aboard for good, and sailed Fleur de Sel from Orkney through Shetland into Norway, and all the way up to the Lofoten Islands
• August and September 2009 – We returned from our Northernmost point, calling into the splendid Faroe archipelago, once more on the Scottish West coast, and then on via the West coast of Ireland.
• October 2009 to February 2010 – Having returned home to La Trinité-sur-Mer, in Brittany, France, we spent 5 hard months refitting and upgrading Fleur de Sel for her next voyage, working sometimes day and night.
• Since March 2010 – We are once again on the “road”, heading South this time. The destinations we have been visiting since then are : Spain, Portugal, Canary Islands and Cape Verde Islands in the first half of the year 2010. Then, after crossing the Atlantic Ocean, to Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina in the second half of 2010. We visited Patagonia in the course of the austral summer, mos notably cruising the Chilean canals northwards.
• The map hereunder reports our latest known position. If you’re keen on having more details concerning our wake, please head to the itinerary page (called « Parcours » in French). Finally, our latest pictures can be found on our Sailing album.

What are our plans ?

To make it short, we have embarked on a long journey away from our home port, but aboard our floating home. Now that we have rounded the tip of South America, we plan on crossing the South Pacific Ocean westwards, with the aim of reaching Polynesia, and then on to New Zealand. Although once again the text is in French, a proposed set of destinations is shown graphically on the maps of the itinerary page (called « Parcours » in French). You will see that we might go all the way around the globe if all goes well ! But this is still a long way off.

What time is it aboard Fleur de Sel ?

The section called « Fuseaux Horaires » in the right-hand column is about time zones. It shows Universal Time, the time in Nyon where we used to live and in La Trinité-sur-Mer where we departed from, and most importantly the few time zones where we are now in.

How can you contact us ?

Since we are now homeless and nomads, communications can be a bit more complicated. The easiest way to keep in touch is undoubtedly via email. For privacy reasons we do not publish our adresses on the site, but you can reach us by filling the « Contact us » form (called « Nous contacter » in French). You might have guessed, but the required fields are your name, your email address, and the email subject. A warning, though: we will often be on passage, or maybe just in places where we have no access to the Internet. For this reason, we might only read your email in a few weeks’ time, and it might take us another few weeks until we can post a reply. We thank you for your patience !

Do you have a newsletter that I can subscribe to ?

We do, but just as for the journal it is in French only at this time. It’s already taking us some time to publish it regularly, so we haven’t been translating the newsletter we send 3 or 4 times a year. We try to send a short text update now and then in English to those who want. If there is sufficient demand, we will try to send the newletter in English as well (or in other languages !). So do ask us if you are interested.