The Lady's Tale

The Lady’s Tale

We are setting sail, again!

Greetings! Our long stay visa is approved, our itinerary is loosely set, and we depart April 2nd for France. Flying into Paris, we will visit for a few days, fly to Montpelier, and drive to the coast. Once in La Grande Motte, we will board Lady Anne, and our sailing adventures for 2023 begin!

For those of you who followed our travels last year, I wanted to explain about the lack of an ending to the site. The website host we were using had troubles; therefore I was not able to continue posting on the blog.

Here’s what you missed: we were in four squalls in nine days (two with Matthew and Katie), one during an over night passage complete with grape sized hail, and the worst being in Ajaccio, Corseca offering winds up to 130+ mph. Over two hundred boats were beached, there were several deaths, followed by the coast guard checking on you both by water and by air. The ocean was littered with floating debris, sails were shredded, and our bridle was bent (YouTube is full of images just in case you want to take a look, Aug. 18). The second squall with Matthew and Katie forced us to change our plans and sail at night to Naples; the kids were due to catch a train the next day to Rome and fly home. Everyone was spent. After they left, we spent the night anchored in Naples, saw lots of fireworks, and high tailed it back to La Grande Motte with a day to spare from having repercussions with our visa.

With the boat secured in the marina, we flew to London for a few days, luckily prior to the Queen’s death, and then home. Some of our other trips while waiting for the visa to be approved included a trip to Costa Rica seeing volcanoes, howler monkeys, and pristine beaches, to the Sonoma/Napa wine region for wine tasting and lessons on wine making and food pairing, and to visit with family members in Florida and Hilton Head.