La Rochelle, France

La Rochelle

We have arrived in La Rochelle, France which is the location that we will pick up the new boat.  We have now been here a couple of days.  The trip over was a bit gruelling, but about what we expected. Our travel was on American Airlines and TAP Portugal: Pensacola to Miami; Miami to Lisbon; Lisbon to Nantes and a rental car to La Rochelle.  We almost missed our flight to Lisbon as it turned at that changing terminals in Miami is a nightmare!.....about a  mile long treck with the need to exit and re-enter security.   So, of course one of our checked bags went missing - it is supposed to be delivered to us today.

La Rochelle -- Old Harbor

We spent some time yesterday exploring the town - which is magnificent!  Small streets, old buildings, street cafes,  and literally thousands of sailboats.  I am sure my photos will not do it justice.  We are staying close to the old harbor, but there is a new harbor/marina that we estimate has over 3,000 boats within it - most are sailboats.

This is clearly a "nautical town".  We saw several new boats being commissioned, including boats by Lagoon, Fontaine Pajot, Nautitech, Bavaria, and Amel.

Old Harbor

The new harbor/marina was quite a spectacular sight.  I don't think I have ever seen such a collection of sailboats in one place.  The  French certainly take their sailing seriously.

New Harbor - Note masts in background

From old square riggers, to new boats, to fast racing boats - we saw it all here in La Rochelle.  We spotted a Nautical Museum, which we have not visited as yet, but intend to do so.  

We are loving this town!  The locals are friendly, the restaurants are good (some a little pricey), baars and street cafes are really good.  Latest word on the boat is a "slight delay"......so we are waiting on more info on that one.  The one disturbing thing is that we just witnessed a protest by the "yellow jackets" or "Gilets Jaunes".  Apparently its a  protest organized entirely on social media with no identified leaders, no political connections, but a protest by the French people about increases in fuel prices - particularly diesel.  We hear there's a threat that this could cause major disruptions in France..........we are hoping this will not be the case!

Maitre Coq - Ocean Race Boat

Anyway - we are here and it doesn't suck!  The next challenge will be to track down our pallet of equipment that we shipped and hopefully no no further disruptions from those pesky "Gilets Jaunes".

I did just activate my inReach tracker - so if you click on the link below or the one ar the right side of this page, you should see our current location.

More updates to follow!

Our Location:
https://share.garmin.com/Midnightsunii