Day XII, part II: A FERRY to Jersey (or Should I bring back a sweater or a cow?)

At 3:30 pm I walk towards the ferry terminal.  It's been a while since I took my last ferry !

Non, despite appearances, I have not joined any of the orders of nearby Mont Saint Michel ;-)

I walk through Intramuros, i.e. what most tourists consider Saint Malo 'proper', i.e. the accumulation of overpriced restaurants and shops within the walled old city that you'll find in every tourist trap worldwide.  And THIS is where all the people are.  I have clandestinely been deliriously happy that the beach was so empty and was always afraid to ask for the reason.  Here is the reason.  Dull people walking over dull streets and spending their dull-earned Euros in dull stores to be able to show off to their dull friends.  More power to them as long as it keeps my beach EMPTY of dull people ;-) 

Have I mentioned before that I'm an opinionated bastard?

SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM !

Fortunately I leave the excess-spending-money mob quickly behind me. 


Then it's time for 3 Ooops and a very brief visit to England, the island of Jersey in particular.

The first oops happens when the clerk at the check-in counter of Condor Ferries tells me that I have paid for a seat on tomorrow’s ferry instead of today’s ferry.

He quickly changes it to today’s crossing.  

A brief note to anyone inclined to complain about the prices charged by BC Ferries in Canada:  

For a total ferry riding time of ~ 2.5 hours (1 hour 15 minutes each way), CONDOR ferries charges me 44 Euros, which is roughly CAN$ 62.  And this is the LOWEST rate for a foot passenger; I declined the offer of paying 20 Euros more to sit in the reclining seat area ;-).

Boarding the ferry

The second oops hits me when I realize that it’s already getting dark when the ferry leaves Saint Malo at 5:15 pm.  I won’t actually get to see Jersey, except maybe some lights of the harbour area.

Re-enacting the battle of Britain 

The third OOOPS occurs as soon as we are 10 minutes under way. I realize that the ship is rolling quite a bit and I come to the conclusion that I might have to deal with sea sickness before the day is over.  Watching hordes of young male English binge-drinkers trying to navigate their way through the aisles of the rolling ship does not help much.

Looks very similar to St Malo!

The one hour and 10 minutes of being slightly nauseous and the prospect of not being able to see anything when I get there actually awaken a strange thought in my head.  I don't want to take any more ferries. OOOOH. Blasphemy !

Very happy to see this sign and to get solid ground under my feet !

Time to get off the ferry. As soon as I have solid ground under my feet, I don't even mind the passport-checking line-up.   I have time for a few quick cigarettes on British soil; then it's time to check-in again for the return voyage.  Strange as it may seem, Jersey is actually in a different time zone !

When the captain predicts 'calm waters' on the way back so St. Maaahlo (British Captain speak), I feel like throwing up on his pretty boat.  But the forecast is accurate.  Maybe it was the wind that made the first journey unpleasant. Or maybe the Fish & Chips with wine that I consume at the beginning of the return voyage has fortified my stomach?  Be that as it may, when I go out to the smoking area just before we return to St. Malo, the deck is CROWDED with people leaning over garbage bins or the ship's railing. I have to watch where I step because quite a few of the unfortunate heavers didn't quite make it to their intended unloading areas ;-(


In Saint Malo it takes close to half an hour to get all the foot passengers off the ship and I'm starting to wonder what would happen if the boat was sinking.

I decide that this trip to Jersey wasn't worth my time or my money, but at least I managed to go on a FERRY trip ;-).   On my way back to the hotel, I reward myself by walking along the beach instead of the road.

bon nuit !

Day XII, part I: Walking on Water, Walking on Clouds.

I was convinced that the pictures would show it.  It was so overwhelming but the extend of the effect is barely visible in the pictures.  It must be the TINY motion of the body that forces the eye and consequently the brain focus on the plane of the sky instead of the plane of the sand.  But the camera does not capture that motion, so you'll have to focus here !

These are actually puddles of water

This beach is my favourite beach because of the particular characteristics of the sand.  Even when the water has already retreated from its high tide peak for hours, the sand remains in large parts covered by a sheen of water, which turns it into a mirror.

These, on the other hand are not puddles.

And neither is this.

Then it's time for breakfast and the routine is always very similar:

Stairway to heaven

Pay attention to the lower half of the picture.  You should be able to see the sky reflected in the sand.

After this enlightening episode I head back to the local supermarket. A nice relief from the supermarkets of West Vancouver. I much prefer the naturally aged women and fishermen  here to the outrageous-outfit-clad and surgeon-stretched visages of West Vancouver. If I ever want to see dead things look alive, I'll head to Mme Toussaud's.

This is a picture of ONLY the sand:

And this is THE SAME picture rotated by 180 degrees.

See what I mean?  I'm walking on clouds !

Sore feet on Day XI: Pas de velo, pas de bateaux !

This is my fourth time in Saint Malo.  Three times I have been here and I've never taken the ferry from Saint Malo across the mouth of the Rance to Dinard.  So I had planned it for today, given the forecast for rainy weather.  But it seems that this ferry only runs between April and October.  I'm not sure whether the stormier weather or the lack of tourists during the winter months is to blame. 

I'm wide awake at 4 am again. Which time zone am I sleeping according to ??? OMFG: I live on somewhere between Moscow and Islamabad time !  Couldn't I have chosen Fiji?

Blame it on all this time confusion, that I call Chantal at 5:30 pm my time.  That should be 8:30 am Vancouver time. I am utterly confused when she tells me that she's at work. "You are working Saturdays?" I ask.  "No, Its Friday", she replies.  Oh, right. Vancouver is 9 hours BEHIND on the same day.  This isn't Hong Kong, where the other calculation would work.

Before breakfast I look out over the ocean. It's still PITCH dark out there.  But there are lots of little lights moving back and forth.  Under-the-cover-of-darkness sea-doo championship racing?   That seems to fail Occam's razor, so I decide on fishing boats trolling in today's catch.



Breakfast is at 7:00 and it's good but not quite worth the money the charge for it.

When I leave the hotel for my first beach march at  8 am it is still dark.  But that has its benefits as the following pics show ;-).

The Post office opens at 8:30 am, so this is the brightness level at about 8:45 am:

This is why I keep coming back here: It's not a beach but a mirror!

At 9:30 a seagull (by its looks it could very well be the same one as yesterday) has discovered the piece of bread on the railing and after consuming it sits patiently on the railing and looks at me typing away at the computer.  It's not even scared when I open the balcony door to throw it another larger piece, which it catches on the way to street level with incomparable grace/poise.

Naturally, it comes right back and tries to look hungry.

I head back down to the beach.  As a teenager there was a few painters I liked. Sure, Salvador Dali was one of them, but I remember another one by the name of Yves Tanguy.  I even once tried to paint something in his style.

To me it looks like he is just adding flotsam and jetsam to the beach I am standing on.

Mid December. Thank you Gulf Stream !

Fortunately I am one of a small group in love with this beach

I had already found out yesterday that the bicycle rental places were not operating during the low season.  I then find out that La Renard, which I sailed on in 2013, does not operate past October either.  But what really irks me is the fact that the ferry to Dinard has stopped its service during the low season as well!























No Pirateering during low season !

Or maybe they just sank their last ferry boat?

My walk seems to lead me once around the outside of Intramuros, the walled tourist heart of Saint Malo.  When close to the main gates of Intramuros I see many people in fancy coats (fur and not fur) and most women seem to prefer expesnive-looking shoes with heels that would have them fall over backwards if they ever set foot on the beach.  For them a holiday at the sea seems to consist of click-clicking on their heels from fancy store to fancy store without ever coming close to the ocean.   
I, on the other hand, am wearing perfectly sensible heels and climb down this latter to reach yet another beach.

A secret underwater exit/entrance

Spoil your seagulls while they're still alive !

By the time I get back to 'my' beach, my feet aren't talking to me any more.  A plan to walk to the supermarket to buy some more wine is abandoned as a peace offering to my feet. Instead I tell them to take me to a Creperie.  My feet are happy that they don't have to work for a bit and I delight in the view ;-)

I order 'un quart de Rose'. However, somehow I end up not with 'un quart' (0.25 l), not even 'une demi-bouteille' (0.375 l), but with 'un demi litre' (0.5 l). Ah well. When in Rome .... 

I order a Gallette avec Noix de Saint Jaques 

While we are on the subject of Noix de Saint Jacques, known in the English-speaking world as Scallops or Pilgrim Mussel, or Saint James Scallop, etc etc.:  First of all, the stuff sold as scallops in the freezers of Canada is a joke. It's garbage, as anyone will attest to who ever had one of a decent size that was never frozen and that was most likely caught on the same morning.

So the things that are hidden from view in my Gallette look like these (kind of):  

But what are they?  NO, they are not what the literal translation suggests. Noix de St Jacques are NOT actually Holy Jack's Nuts even though that is what it translates as ;-)

They are actually the closing muscle of a shell that looks like this one:  

Now, this should remind you of 2 other images:

Boticelli's Birth of Venus

... and ...

Big Bad Oil company

Last year I brought my grandmother 2 souvenirs of my trip of Brittany.  2 fine examples of the shells depicted above. Only: There were completely flat.  What happened?  I tried to explain to Grandma that I didn't bring her plastic imitations but that these were maybe driven over by a beach-cleaning tractor, which gave them their flat shape.  Grandma was not convinced and the riddle of the FLAT scallop shells remained unsolved.  

Until today !

I went to the local Intermarche (a supermarket)

And I see a whole basket of the actual article on sale.  Scallops still in their shells.

And behold: upon closer inspection, each animal has one flat shell and one convex shell.

Riddle solved!

All is well in ocean-view country ;-)  Bon nuit!