Author: pierreo

Posted in Sports

Channel Sailing Regatta

Posted on by pierreo

I interrupt my trip to Slovenia again to relate another experience I had recently.

Middle of October is the time when Channel Sailing organises its annual regatta for clients.  Channel Sailing is the company where we hire the boats that we sail with during the year.  Every year, at the end of the season, they organise a regatta for their clients.  It is competitive, but it is also friendly and offers an opportunity to those who are not used to race to get a little excitement in controlled conditions.

Well, controlled conditions is maybe not quite the best way to describe what we had again this year.

As usual, we arrived on Friday evening to take possession of our boat for the week-end, in this case Foxtrot, a 37 foot Jeanneau

By the time Nick and I get everything organised, it is drink time.  First we have to have some snack, so we dig into the lunch supplies for cheese and salami

Nick brought some excellent Rum.  Since the beer is not cold yet, and Xavier has not brought the wine, we have no choice!

Allan and Annemie joined us later and we went for a very nice dinner in Zeebrugge.

The next day, Saturday, the wind has picked-up significantly and it rains occasionally.  Sailing will be tough! After the briefing, at about 10:30, we sail out of Zeebrugge into the North Sea.  Even this close to shore, the waves are high (3+ meters) and because of the harbour and shore, are not very regular.

Since we are running with the wind, Nick asks Allan and I to set up the spinnaker pole to hold the genoa.  It is a struggle as we have not done it for a while and make a few mistakes, but we get it done.  Unfortunately, both Allan and I are now a little seasick and with the weather and waves, there is little chance to recover…

As we approach the committee boat, we manage to take down the pole and sail normally.  There are only 4 boats today and we get ready for the first race.  Nick is steering and we all help as we can.  I am still coping, but Allan is looking greener by the minute.  On top of that, it is getting colder and we are all struggling to stay warm.

We get a good start and head for the windward mark – with the high waves, we can only see the mark when both it and us are at the top of a wave, so finding it is not easy.  However, at least we have a rough idea where it is, so we head in that direction.  As we get closer, we finally spot it and head for it.  We are second as we round the mark and head on a reach toward the next marker that we expect is to the left of the first mark.  After several minutes, we see nothing.  We head upwind to search there with no success.  the rest of the fleet seems to be mystified as well.  One by one, the boats give up and start running back to the committee boat and the leeward mark.  Nick does not ask us to set up the spinnaker pole – good – I feel woozy and that would spell the end of my breakfast.

We find the leeward mark but then the committee boat cancels the race.  We find out that they could not set the second mark and therefore we should only do an up and down, just like the America’s cup.

Is is now noon and we have not had a complete race yet.  We get ready for the first race again.  Good start, we now know where to find the first mark which we reach in second place.  Back  to the leeward mark, which we almost missed until Allan saw it than the finish line and we come in second! Good result.  I am surviving (just) but Allan is very cold now.  We have a long debate but decide to do one more race then stop regardless of what the organisation does.  Over the radio, they indicate that the next race will be just start-windward mark-finish, no leeward mark. We ‘survive’ again the last race, finish second again and then head for home … which will take more than one hour since we are heading into the wind and into the tide.

As soon as we arrive inside Zeebrugge harbor, I feel better!  We finally tie-up at about 17:00.  The rest of the fleet is right behind us as there was no additional race – wise decision.

The next day, the wind is down, the sun is slowly coming out, but the temperature is even lower.  It is only 5 C and with wind still at 20-30 km/hr, the windchill is very low.  We are fortunately equipped for it as demonstrated by Xavier and Nick.

We do five races on Sunday.  we win two, finish second, third and fourth in the other three.  We all get to steer a race.  For mine, we take a terrible start as I am blocked away from the start line by the other boats and have to do a 360 at the last second.  We start last, but are able to come back to a credible third place (which is later corrected to fourth as the boat behind us has a better handicap).  Races done, it is time to relax and head back to Zeebrugge.

It is still very cold!

Back at the West-Hinder Marina, we pack up our stuff, clean the boat, put everything in order and wait for the announcement of the final results.

Overall, we ended up in second place, same result as last year.  A good result considering.

Two and a half hours to drive home and I get there absolutely exhausted.  I was in bed before 9PM!

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Posted in Culture, Travel

Slovenia 3 – Radovljica, Bled and Bohinj

Posted on by pierreo

Unfortunately, the rain became even worst the following day.  Fortunately, this is a transit day between Longarska Dolina and Bohinj Lake so we did not miss much except one “spectacular” walk (per Ingrid).  It is not safe to do it under the rain as the path and rocks can be very slippery.  Therefore we went directly towards Radovljica, a small medieval town very close to the Austrian Border.

There are small passageways and houses with beautiful murals everywhere.  As it is still raining, I am trying not to get my camera too wet …

The highlight of the town is the Beekeeping Museum.  There is a huge tradition of beekeeping in Slovenia and especially in this area.  There are also several advancements in the art of beekeeping that were initially developed in Slovenia. Here is the entranceto the museum with a cart for transporting hives.

What is really interesting is the effort that some people went in the design and fabrication of their hives.  Here are just two examples

 

We went for a tour of the town, with a very nice church, unfortunately closed.

In the restaurant where we are planning to have lunch, there is also a museum dedicated to “Ginger Bread” – not to be eaten, but to be admired because of the decorations.  Also can be used for sending some one a message, in the case below, the message is obvious even if you cannot read the inscription.

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Posted in Culture, Sports

Manneken Pis Celebration

Posted on by pierreo

I interrupt the telling of my trip to Slovenia to relate our recent Manneken Pis Day here in Brussels.  Every year, the cyclo club I joined, the Cyclo Woluwe St Lambert or CWL, celebrates the most famous statue in Brussels.  We did so again on Saturday, my first opportunity to take part in this unique event.  More about the club at

http://wolucyclo.be/index.htm  I am hoping that there will be more pictures there as I could not take any of the whole group.

It was a beautiful day and I was dressed for action, the first time I was wearing the club colours as I had only obtained my new jersey the week before.

We gathered at the usual starting point – Stade Fallon – at 8:30, quite early for a week-end.

Everybody is wearing his club colours.  There are a lot more people than usually on Sundays.  This is good.  We even have guests from Bouillon (in Belgium) and Meudon (in France), two clubs with which the CWL had events this years.

And we are off.  About 50 cyclists meander through the outer communes of Brussels on the way to the Grand Place.  It is quite a crowd waiting for the light on Avenue de Tervuren.

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Posted in Culture, Travel

Slovenia 2: Velika Planina and Logarska Dolina

Posted on by pierreo

It was soon time to head out of Ljubljana and go due North towards Kamnik and our ultimate goal: Levika Planina, loosely translated as “Great Highlands”.  However, before we can start our first hike, we have to take a cable car to get us close. We met Giuseppe in the morning and thanks to his good driving we are there early enough.  The cable car helps us to gain about 1000 m of elevation, a lot easier this way than on foot.  At the top of the cable car, there is a chair lift, but that is not for us – from here we walk and immediately I can tell that this is going to be a very nice walk.

We are on a high plateau where cattle spend the summer months.  At first, we do not see any cattle, not do we hear the sound of their bells, so we suspect that they have already been taken back down into the valley.  Velika Planina and its sister plateau Mala Planina (mala is small in Slovenian) are protected environments and the only structure that can be built there are the typical herdsmen hut similar to what they built many years ago.  Some of them, however, have been transformed into comfortable week-end homes.  How can you beat a view like this!

There are several  water points for the animals

and a small village with several huts. 

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Posted in Culture, Travel

Slovenia 1 – Ljubljana and Postojna

Posted on by pierreo

I recently spent almost 2 weeks in Slovenia and I had a very good time – since when have you heard of me coming back from a vacation complaining?  But it is true that I really had a good vacation this time again.

I started in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia.  It is a small town, only about 250000 inhabitants which had maintained its medieval character, at least in the center of town.  The Ljubljana River crosses the center of town which is dominated by the Ljubljana Castle, the tower of which is visible above the light green tree.

Both sides of the river have been preserved and are now pedestrian area where locals and tourists mingle in many restaurants and bars.  Because Slovenia has been at the crossroads between Mediterranean, Slavic, Eastern and Northern cultures, it offers a mixture of many different backgrounds, but strongest is the Austro-Hungarian influence which existed until WWI.  It can be seen in many of the buildings in the older part of town, which is well preserved, but in places in need of minor renovations – I have seen many facades that were peeling (more than the paint) and other flaws here and there.  Slovenia is a young country and so I would expect that they will catch up very quickly.

A river, or water in general, always adds a side of serenity to the center of a city, which otherwise can be very hectic.  This is the case in Ljubljana as well, especially with the first colours of fall that are starting to show in the trees.  A few days after I left Ljubljana, there were very severe rains in Slovenia and in places, the Ljubljana River left its banks – fortunately not in the center of Ljubljana and therefore this area was not flooded.

There is another pedestrian street parallel to the river.  This one too has restaurants, but it has more shops and older houses.  It is also here that Ljubljana City Hall can be found.

Joze Plecnik (1872-1957 and I apologise to Ingrid and all other Slovenians for the lack of accents on his name – but I just cannot figure out how to add these in WordPress) was a very important architect who designed several buildings mainly in Ljubljana.  He is an interesting character in that he also designed interiors, decorative motiefs and furniture, just like Frank Loyd Wright and Viktor Horta, two other architects that I really like.  Amongst others, Plecnikdesigned the National and University Library, an imposing building with red and gray bricks. This figure sits above one of the entrances and is, to me, the exact opposite of the reserved attitude I would expect of people that go into a library.  It looks more like a professor that is fully absorbed by the topic of his lecture!

Just as you get used to the Germanic influence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, you get a reminder that it is difficult to “classify” Slovenia as only one thing.  In the very back of the somewhat  Teutonic Library, is the very Venitian headquarters of the Ljubljana Festival Committee.  Venice’s influence in Slovenia was not limited to the coast as we will see later.

As in every city these days, there are unfortunately graffiti’s also here.  However, I was taken by the artistic efforts that some of them went through – it may be the reason why they have not been painted over or cleaned even though they are right in the middle of the city.  I call this one “The Yawn”, but it certainly did not reflect my feelings as I was walking around town.

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Posted in General

A few old friends …

Posted on by pierreo

Vous me pardonnerai tous, j’en suis sur, le fait d’ecrire ce qui suit en Anglais vu que cela est la langue habituelle de mon blog!

On Saturday, we had a party for my father’s 80th birthday.  He turned 80 in July; he was actually born 2 days before Belgium celebrated its 100th birthday.  So, we are slow, and in Europe, it is impossible to organise a party in July or August as everybody is away on vacation.

We arrived early, of course.  The guest of honor knew there was something going on, for his birthday, but he had no idea who was invited or who was coming.

My sister and Michel arrived at the same time with the table decorations and food! We were going to a restaurant where we had paid dearly to be fed and my sister brings “betjes” (or snacks in local dialect).  It was good she did as we had to wait a while for the food – but that is another story.

The Wood, name of the restaurant where we were, had a late night party the night before, and they were still cleaning up as we arrived, 10 minutes before the start of the party.  You have to know our family – if you invite people for 5PM, they will arrive between 4:55 and 5:05! So we had to be ready, but before that, all we could do was wait…

I like this picture of my parents!

We had close to 60 people there,  most of them of my parent’s generation and a lot of them had know each other for over 50 years!  I had known a  lot for most of my life.  We started with a glass of Champagne and “Betjes” – the party is not sponsored by Corona Beer – that is a left over of the night before!

As usual, at a gathering such as this, you wonder why you did not do it sooner.  Everybody seemed to find some one they had not seen in years and the same is true for me.  I saw people I had met in Italy, when I was 10, and had not seen since.

My father made a wonderful speech – carefully listened to by all.

Here is a close up

Thanks to Philippe for his nice pictures …

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Posted in Culture, Travel

New York City

Posted on by pierreo

About a month ago, I spent a long week-end in New York City.  I realised that I had not been there in over ten years, even though I would drop in regularly when I was living in Connecticut.  I arrived on Friday noon and stayed in the Millennium Hilton, just across from the construction site of “Ground Zero”.  Downtown is the area that I knew the least, so I decided to stay there. 

I spent the afternoon roaming the area, going to Wall Street, visiting Trinity Church and resting around South Street Sea Port.  I am always fascinated by the Brooklyn Bridge.

It is an engineer’s dream and to consider that it was built in 1883, more than 120 years ago before computers, calculators and many other machines that make today’s life “easier” (???).

There are several sailboats moored as South Street Sea Port.  This is one of the smaller ones but which I found attractive.

The main exhibit is the Peking, a clipper ship from the golden age of sail which has been reconstructed in parts to give an idea of what sailing on it was like.  I am lucky to discover that, on Friday, admission is free so I go and spend an hour on board.  Later on, I discover that you can sign up for a sunset cruise on a sailboat around the Statue of Liberty.  I cannot resist and sign on.  This is the boat arriving to pick up the passengers for this journey.

It is a recently renovated 1900 schooner, with the original design of mast and sails and no modern conveniences such as electric winches or anything like that.  Only ‘modenisation’ is a diesel engine for maneuvering.

We left soon after 7PM and the crew (us) had to help to raise the sails.  It is hard work, but with 10 of us on the Main Sail, we had it up in no time.  We glided away with the Manhattan skyline disappearing in the distance.

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Posted in Sports, Travel

Zeebrugge-Dunkirk-Zeebrugge by sea

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On Monday, I met Rob, Zuzana, Machteld and Filip. We are part of the crew going sailing this week-end and this is the one and only meeting for us to organise the outing.

On Thurs, Rob is enthusiastic about the week end, where we are going and the weather – here is the note that he sent out (the underlines are mine):

“All,

As we get closer to leaving, the forecast is looking good for Sunday, but a
little more unsettled on Saturday.  Depending on which weather forecast I
look at, I would summarise the current position as:

Wind force 3-4 SW going W on Sunday
Chance of showers on Saturday, with some maybe harder.  Looks like the
weather will get better during the day as a low front passes away.

Looking further at locations, if we cannot get to Gravelines on Saturday
night, I think that Dunkerque may be a good option.  There are a number of
marinas open to all states of tide, and (at least from the websites) looks
quite pretty.  I will do some more research tonight.

Don’t forget to bring enough dry clothes.  See you all tomorrow evening. “

It turns out that this weather forecast was not far from the truth – the problem will be the direction in which reality will deviate from forecast. But once again I am getting ahead of my story.

We left for Zeebrugge on the Friday evening after work. Rob was driving and I was navigating. We did not have too many problems with traffic until we came close to Gent where we lost about ½ hour because of road works. We arrived at the boat and Machteld and Harry were already there. Zuzana and Filip arrived soon after and so we started organising food, drinks, personal stuff etc. It always takes quite some time to checkout the boat too, and do a full inventory so that we know where everything is.

For this week-end, out home will be Swing, a 37 ft Jeanneau from Channel Sailing. I have sailed on her sister ship, Foxtrot, last year and I know she is a good boat. Annemie arrives later – she was stuck in the office later than anticipated, and so with a full crew, we decided to have dinner at a local restaurant at about 21:00.

When we get back the the boat, there is an annoying alarm and we do not quite understand what it is for. We are able to silence it, and since it is late, we decide to deal with it tomorrow.

By 6:00, most of us are already up and eager to get started. The weather looks great and I decide to wear normal clothes to start: long pants, warm shirt, sweater and a windbreaker vest. It may seem like a lot for the middle of summer, but with the wind and the cold water, it is just right. The wind feels like a good force 5, or somewhere around 20 knotts (about 35 km/h).

Since the alarm is still on, we call Carlos to discuss what to do. He indicates that this is because the second battery is running low on power. We figure that as soon as we turn on the engine, it will recharge and the alarm will clear – nothing to worry about.

We leave our mooring a little after 7:00 and start motoring towards the mouth of the harbour. It is a rather long way in Zeebrugge and after 20 minutes, I call Port Control to get permission to get out – it is granted immediately.

Unfortunately, we discover that Battery 2 is still not charging and therefore we are not able to clear the alarm. This could be a problem as it is already low and all the electronics on board run off that one battery. We decide to go on, thinking that we will figure out a solution later.

Once outside the harbour entrance, we raise full sail and shut down the engine.  The wind continues at about 20 knotts in a Southerly direction. Since we needed to go South West, we were beating as close to the wind as possible, doing a good 5 to 5.5 knotts with a slight tide against us. We take turns at the wheel, changing about every hour or so. Most people have done it before so it goes without problems.  Here is Harry at work, while the rest of the crew relaxes.

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Posted in Travel

England 1 – The Lake District

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I had often heard of the Lake District in England without ever knowing why it was so popular, or exactly where it was.  When I made my plans to go to Ireland and realised that I would be finishing somewhere in the North of Ireland, I started to look for something to do in England on the way back South to the coast.  The Lake District became the number one candidate and am I glad I stopped there.

From the very first sight of it, the drive from Ullswater to Windermere across the Kirkstone Pass, I was mesmerised by the scenery – I never expected the type of terrain and vegetation that I was seeing.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  I need to link this back to the last entry in my Ireland series.  I had taken an early ferry from Belfast to Stranrear in Scotland and therefore I needed to drive about 200 km South to the Lake District.  It was an easy drive, a lot of it on motorways.

I finally arrived in Windermere and found the Rayrigg Villa where I had booked a room for three nights.  As always, I received a very long and thorough introduction to the area and what I could expect to do while I was there from the host Wills – extremely helpful in every way.  The best advice he gave me was the directions to the beginning of a short walk that leads to the top of a hill overlooking the whole area called Orrest Head.  I immediately headed that way and spent the next two hours getting there (it only takes 15 minutes), looking around (90 minutes) and coming down (15 more!).  It must be one of the best places for sunset in the area, unfortunately I was too early and did not want to wait until 9 PM when the sun would actually set.

Even on the way up to Orrest Head, I was taken by the view and could not resist a shot or three.

Such a typical English countryside, with the hills, trees and old fashion stone walls. Once at the top, the view gets even better, especially with spectacular clouds all around to increase the perspective in the distant hills.

Any direction I look is picture perfect.  the South of the lake with Windermere and Bowness in the foreground.

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Posted in Travel

England 2 – Brighton and the South Coast

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OK – you are right, where is England 1?  That will cover the Lake District and will come later as I do  not have the information I need with me to cover that area.

I finished my tour of Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England in Brighton where I spent the last night before taking the ferry back to Brussels.  It is a convenient stopping point between the Lake District and Dover where I thought I could spend an interesting evening and morning.

I stopped at the Hilton, located right on the beachfront.  I will spare you the photo of the room I was given – it was impressive – especially since I only spent less than one hour in it since the local connection to Internet did  not work.  I had to make a choice between Internet and being moved to a smaller room! Internet won…

However, I did catch the view of the beach from the room, first looking East with the still functioning Brighton Pier.  At this time, about 17h, the beach is still very crowded at the end of a gorgeous Sunday.

Next looking West towards the remains of the Western Pier which burned down and was abandonned in 2003

I went jogging along the beach later in the evening, a very pleasant jog.  I can see why this is a popular place to come for the day or just a few days.

As I was there at the end of May, the evening is very long and by 20h, the sun is still up in the sky, but most of the people have left the beach. The Eastern sky is already turning colours from the sun getting closer to the horizon.

Towards the West, about an hour later, the sun is gone and the sunset colours are at their best.

The ruins of the Western Pier are a magnet for birds, most of them, I expect, will spend the night there. Continue reading “England 2 – Brighton and the South Coast” →

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