silver wind | à Saint-Malo

Tags

cabin cruiser, canoe, captain taxi, Christine, condor ferry, cormorant, corsaire ferry, divers, diving platform boat, haircuts, Médiathèque, paddleboard, plage du mole, sailboat, silver wind, studio 3, tender

lundi 22 juillet 2019 – Monday July 22, 2019

A morning full of boats! We did not have anything special in mind for this morning, so we decided to take our camp chairs and head to the harbor. Most of the time there is something going on in the harbor and our chairs are nicer to sit on than the wooden benches at the harbor.

Within the first 75 minutes at the harbor, the following events occurred.

Spotted a cruise ship, the Silver Wind flying a flag from the Bahamas, moored in the harbor-too large to go through the locks.
Three of the Corsair Ferries arrived and departed for Dinard just across the Bay.
Two of the cruise ship’s tenders transported passengers back and forth.
A “working flat boat” docked in the harbor and two divers dove underwater. Both wearing wet suits. One with a helmet and air hose connected to the ship, the other with a tank and mouthpiece. Couldn’t tell what they were doing.
Captain Taxi arrived with passengers and departed with more passengers.
Six sailboats came through the locks and went out to sea.
The Condor Ferry arrived, unloaded cars, trucks + passengers and departed for the U.K. island of Guernsey.
A man standing on a paddleboard arrived and got out on the ramp.
A canoe with 4 people arrived and got out on the ramp.
A cormorant sea-bird appeared exactly in front of us, dove, then left the area.
AND Sandy got sun burnt in that little bit of time. The shirt she was wearing had shorter length arms and a lower neck line than usual.

cruise ship Silver Wind
Silver Wind tender
Condor Ferry
paddleboard
sailboat
cabin cruiser
canoe
Corsaire Ferry
Captain Taxi
dive platform boat
the cormorant was about 20 yards in front of us, Sandy luckily spotted it

We could not figure out what the divers were doing, but they were underwater for over 30 minutes.

Divers working from the dive platform boat.

After a lovely 3 kilometer walk on the beach in the afternoon at low tide we’d had enough outdoors for one day. Lovely, windy, and just a little warm in the sun. High of 23C (74F),

beach video

mardi 23 juillet 2019 – Tuesday, July 23, 2019

The forecast for today is HOT, a high of 34C (93F). It’s cooler here than in Paris where they’re expecting 38C (100F). Paris is expecting temperature highs in the 40’s the next 3 days. Glad we’re not there!

We went into the ocean just before noon! We walked to the Plage du Mole (beach of the breakwater) at high tide. The co-efficient was 60, so a fairly low-high tide. There was plenty of beach remaining and we didn’t walk far to reach the water. This is a very nice, sandy, beach and the shortest distance to walk from our apartment, about 6 minutes. The water was cold! The water temperature was 19C (66F). It was very refreshing but a shock to your system each time we dunked our shoulders underwater. We walked at the waters edge a few times and the current was strong. Parents really needed to watch their children because the pull back out of the waves almost knocked Sandy down. Lovely time on a very warm day.

half way in
two-thirds in
shoulders in

We ate the equivalent of a large chef salad for dinner.

mercredi 24 juillet 2019 – Wednesday 24 July 2019

Sandy met with her tutor, Christine for two hours. Phil accompanied Sandy from the bus stop to Christine’s house to see the improvements made by the city on the sidewalk and street. Phil shopped for pineapple yogurt for himself and rhubarb yogurt for Sandy before heading for the hardware store. He wanted to buy a small bracket to hang keys on but didn’t have much luck.

flowers …
we see on …
the way to …
Christine’s house

Today was another day of hot weather. Sandy stayed inside in the afternoon but Phil watched the boules game and talked to Alain and others. It was pleasant in the shade but too hot in the sun.

Phil read in the paper where the actual humidity in Paris was 19% with an air temperature of 40C (104F). Sounds like desert weather to us!

jeudi 25 juillet 2019 – Thursday 25 July 2019

We were out of the house by 8h30 to shop at the Intermarche grocery store. The store was already busy just 15 minutes after opening. We walked to the store since the temperature was still tolerable.

On our return, the bus was ready to pull away from the stop as we approached and Sandy waved in hope they’d wait. We made it!. We both thanked the driver for waiting for us. They usually don’t wait!

There was little to no wind this morning, but the air coming up from the Sahara Desert is supposed to shift around to the northwest by this evening. The high for today was 30C (86F) and the forecast for tomorrow is 20C (68F), much improved! Still hot.

Before lunch, we again walked to the Plage du Mole. High tide was at 13h00 so there wasn’t too much beach to walk through in order to reach the ocean. Cold, cold, cold was how it felt! The water temperature had warmed up though to 20C (70F). We spent a longer time in the water today than we had on Tuesday. Sandy actually swam a little and after your body was shocked with freezing water, it was very pleasant.

Phil, who cannot float
Sandy, who floats very easily

After returning, we felt much cooler and comfortable than we did in the morning. The cooler front came through late in the afternoon and it rained over night. Much better.

vendredi 26 juillet 2019 – Friday 26 July, 2019

It rained over night as the streets were wet when we walked to the boulangerie.

Today was the day for our second hair cut in France at Studio 3. The lady that cut Sandy’s hair was the same lady that cut it last year, the assistant. The owner of the shop cut Phil’s hair again this year. We are both very happy with the result. We made an appointment for the last week of August, in five weeks, before we leave for the USA.

Sandy after another successful haircut.

The city workers made the final repairs on the parking post behind our apartment building. Sandy took a photo of it this morning. We’ll see just how long it lasts with August a week away.

The newly replaced parking prevention post.

samedi 27 juillet 2019 – Saturday July 27, 2019

We walked to an art sculpture demonstration by artist Damien Colcumbet near the Rocabey market. We watched him while he was creating a rhinoceros out of clay, but the building was NOT air conditioned and we didn’t stay very long. Phil noted a picture in the studio was priced at 5 000€ euros.

Next we walked through the interior portion of the market to look for PIQUILLOS, the delicious sweet, non spicy pepper we have eaten this summer. We didn’t see any but spotted many vendors with green rhubarb, and courgettes rond (round zucchini). We walked through the exterior aisles but didn’t see anything we wanted.

Our next stop the was the Médiathèque la Grande Passerelle (new city library). We wanted to see the exhibition on the Moon Landing. After asking two different people, we found it. It was not what we expected, even after Sandy carefully read the description on the Saint-Malo tourism site. There were only about 8 posters and no photos. We had lost something in translation. Oh well, we had a lovely almost 5 kilometer walk.

Car chargers are becoming more common.
Car charger in the parking lot near us.

dimanche 28 juillet 2019 – Sunday July 28, 2019

This morning ended up being very much like Monday morning. We didn’t have any plans so we walked out to the harbor. It was just after low tide so we were not expecting a lot of activity. Wrong again. The harbor was a busy place once again.

While were at the harbor Sandy saw the cormorant. It was not diving for fish. Rather it was flapping its wings like it was going to fly. A few seconds later it took flight and we were able to get of video of it flying. It always seems to fly just a foot or two above the waves.