PART SEVEN (La Rochelle to Rochefort - 16nm up Charente river - 27NM 08:55-13:40)

Arrived Rochefort 11 August - see below for big surprise coasters in the narrow shallow river! It was CREDEAU’s 6th Birthday on Sunday 12 August (LOG = 8,312nm) - and I stayed in Rochefort for a fabulous week, taking the dinghy 50nm (100nm return!) upstream Monday-Tuesday through the barrage lock at St. Savinien (with gorgeous young lock-keeper Melanie!) to SAINTES, spending the night in a double room (= moi et mosquito!) at the appropriately cheap Bar de la Gare...
On Thursdays they have live entertainment on the extraordinary Rochefort Pont Transbordeur, and this week it was Frédéric La Verde playing on his Red Piano (on a trailer!) as part of a worldwide three-year documemntary for France TV3 - he’s already done Paris, New York and BT Tower/Big Ben in London!
I should have brought a Red Violin (!) but, needless to say, your companion had to join in on the ivories. So I played and was interviewed, before Frédéric, the TV crew and I shared some chilled Pineau on a cool Credeau! Also I met the entertaining old salt David Holdsworth on his Heavenly Twins catamaran Grey Dove - we shared quite a few beers over the week!! Having sailed from Oban in May 2011, he’s wintering in Rochefort for a second year before continuing on to Turkey (see www.sailblogs.com/member/greydove). He also has Port & Starboard shoes (see below!) and was on Dragon’s Den TV for inventing the www.superspout.com! Very sorry not to meet up with my good old friend Roger Durston, who has a Fairey Fisherman on pontoon i! (see blue boat below!)

I’m departing tomorrow (18 August 06:30) for St Martin on Île de Re (probably two nights) and then on to Île D’Yeu, en route hopefully to La Vilaine (Roche Bernard), the Golfe du Morbihan and further to Vannes!
Hoping to meet up there with Philip and Barbara Priest, who have an idyllic cottage in Caurel, Brittany.