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Enjoy the TRAILER and pass it on to anyone you know
Very often it’s not the grand vistas but the intricate details that are most remembered from our travels. Enjoy this array of exquisite bits of flotsam and jetsam from my travels in England and France.
A swan at Versailles
The “Thinker” gargoyle at Notre Dame
Two gargoyles’ view of Paris
Chenonceau through a window
The kitchen at Chenonceau
Drain pipe at Chambord
Opera costumes at Chambord
Egyptian cats at the Louvre
MIniatures of Paris in shop on Ile St. Louis
Pont D’Alexandre Paris
Buckingham Palace
Near Buckingham Palace
And ending on a yummy note…the Albert Pub in London. See you there!
Wigeon of Fearn 2014
In 1963
It has been great fun to learn that the Wigeon of Fearn, the yacht which took my on an infamous cruise around the Mediterranean in 1963, it not only still alive but very well, having been purchased and restored by Anne and Jim Foster who live on the West coast of Scotland. The Wigeon is now their home and has been entered into the UK National Register of Historic Vessels.
St. Monans
The Wigeon began her long life as a Gentleman’s Yacht built in 1936 by J.M. Miller & Sons of St. Monans, located just over 12 miles south of St Andrews and the smallest of the East Neuk fishing ports. It was powered by a diesel engine and was of timber carvel construction with a hull of teak and oak. Her design was based on a fishing trawler (which is why she survived during a terrible mistral storm tossed us about on the crossing from Italy to Corsica–a storm which sent six less sturdy Chris Craft vessels to Davy Jones’ locker). She measured 56 feet in length, 14.6 feet breadth, and 5.9 feet depth with a gross tonnage of 37 tons.
She served with the Royal Navy from 1939 to 1945 as a Senior Officer Armed Patrol Tender at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys Islands when private yachts were commandeered to by part of the anti-submarine fleet on the lookout for German U-Boats.
Spithead Fleet Review 1977
In 1977 she took part in the Queen’s Silver Jubilee celebrations on the River Thames and in the Spithead Fleet Review.
Fitted with new engines in 1996 and outfitted as a floating home, she has taken on an elegant look with her new canvas sidings. 
And as you can see, she is still as seaworthy as ever. My thanks to the current owners for all the great photos.
The interior still features that gorgeous polished oak table and benches that we gathered around to share meals of broiled eel and bourbon soaked birthday cake back in 1963.
But with some new decorative touches by the current owners. What a marvelous 78 years of sailing history with an adventure or two thrown in.
This gallery contains 18 photos.
A dear friend was browsing through my posts and noticed I hadn’t posted on Honfleur, one of his favorite haunts in France. Mine too. Not only because I had a charming visit there in 2009 but because my great-grandfather Captain … Continue reading
From Guest Blogger Robin Williams ~ no, not THE Robin Williams, but the intriguing teller of tales, travel guru, and man of perpetual curiosity who concocted my adventure of a lifetime aboard the Wigeon of Fearn in 1963. Robin resides in Laguna Beach and after decades of organizing and filming travel tours around the world, and at an age when most men have gravitated to their Barco-loungers, still conducts Hollywood guided tours and drives a private limo for fat cats!
Tale #1 by Robin Williams ~ PAHT YAH JHELHMM
The Wigeon of Fearn
In the spring of 1963, I found an ad for a British yacht, the Wigeon of Fearn, in a yachting magazine that I purchased in a magazine shop in Hollywood (it’s still there) and put together a yacht cruise of the Mediterranean for a group of college students. Back then I was a young adventurer and would do just about anything without thinking too deeply. I just did things that were wild and wooly and never thought about problems that lay in wait. I just forged ahead.
Skipper Jim in the background with a few of the college students
I hired a Skipper named Jim from Dorset. I think he might still be alive because he certainly lived a healthful life as a charter boat captain. He got plenty of exercise and fresh air. He did “drink” but not drastically. Except in Bonifacio, Corsica where he suddenly wanted to move the ship to the end of the dock. He instructed us to push her along the dock and he got her going too fast. He could not stop her. He was holding the warp, and we could do nothing. So she banged into the right angled dock ahead of her and put a big dent in the bow timber. That was the only damage that we caused the Wigeon.
But back to the start of the adventure. We left from Poole to sail to Le Havre late in the afternoon in July. As we motored across the English Channel the Skipper Jim came down to the saloon and took me on deck. He asked me to take the wheel so he could get some sleep. He had a bunk right behind the wheel. I had been a Sea Scout when I was 16 years old and had a little experience at the wheel of a ship about the same size as the Wigeon. We immediately entered the shipping lanes of the strait with ships coming from both directions. Luckily I could tell they were in single file and following each other. Within a few seconds I had two ships bearing down on me but I could tell which direction they were heading by their lights. So, I just timed my passing in front of the ship on my left and then I planned to fall back and let the ship on my right pass in front of me and I would pass through her wake. The skipper woke up suddenly with a start and SCREAMED at me, “PAHT YAH JHELHMM!”
Okay, can you tell what he is saying? I could not understand a thing he was saying. His Dorset accent was too thick, especially in his acute state of angst. The poor guy had never learned to swim so when he looked up and saw the huge ship bearing down on us, he went berserk. There was absolutely no way I could decipher what he was screaming, so I kept the ship on course.
He screamed the same thing a second time. I held to my position, still unable to determine what he was saying. I had suspected that he would bother me when he initially asked me to take the helm. People have done nothing but bother me all of my life. But I just followed my own instincts and kept the ship moving on course–straight ahead. Skipper Jim fell back onto his bunk and kept his mouth shut as I continued to pass behind the ship on my starboard side. Then he fell back asleep and did not wake up until the light of dawn.
Of course, what he was saying was PORT YOUR HELM, but, I did not find that out until the next morning when we arrived among the sunken ships in the port of Le Havre. If I would have turned that ship we would have been run over by the ship on my left side coming toward me but obviously going to pass behind me. I was on course and had the speed to cross his bow with plenty of room.
Aside from that first night, Skipper Jim was very competent. In the River Seine he dropped anchor and it held us in the current. We slept soundly in the river as we made our way to Paris. That impressed me greatly. I would never have thought that our anchor would hold us in that swift current. He handled the ship well in the canal to the Saone and on to the Rhone to Marseilles also. But, we did take a pilot on board for the rivers.
Just an aside. When we were traveling the Canal Central to the Saone, I would wake up early and have a conversation with the cows next to us in the pastures. The college kids on the ship woke up to my voice making cow sounds and the cows actually answering back.They broke out in hysterical laughter. I thought it was just natural to speak with the cows.
From the flower market on Île de la Cité to Le Tour Eiffel peaking through the trees to the irises at a bed and breakfast in Amboise to pink tulips in the garden at Chenonceau and its wisteria covered cottage to a colorful array of tulips behind Notre Dame to touches of color at Villandry to the spring green of the cloisters at Mont Saint-Michel and, finally, to the sacred grounds of Normandy.
Wind ‘n’ Sea Beach watching the sunset. I grew up in La Jolla and as a junior in college lived in a tiny apartment directly across from this famous surfing beach.
Sitting on the quay with these folks in the harbor at Bonifacio, Corsica, waiting for the fireworks show.
Looking out the window tonight and seeing the brilliance of the Tour Eiffel instead of the meager lights of suburbia.
One of the many delights of last summer’s six-week stay in France was spending one day in Digne-Les-Bain to watch the Lavender Festival Parade. Block after block of the main street was filled on each side with long tables for the hundreds of parade watchers to sit have a yummy lunch served by local restaurants before the parade began.
With her iced popsicle in hand, my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter cheered for each elaborately decorated float, excitedly pointed out each costumed performer, and clapped and hummed along with each band.
But she held her ears when the Fireman’s Band was too loud.
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Even her eleven-month-old younger sister seemed to be having the time of her life watching from her Mimi’s lap.
The highlight of the parade for all of us was the band dressed in traditional costumes that played and “marched” in perfect formation on board BICYCLES!
I had to keep my eyes squeezed shut as my son-in-law to-be expertly navigated the hairpin turns on an 800 meter climb to the La Ferme des Courmettes near Tourrettes-sur-Loup. My daughter’s determination to see a goat farm had a happy ending. Our private tour and picnic lunch was well worth it.
And the view from the farm was beyond spectacular even with a bit of haze.
Incidentally, one of my all-time favorite photos from my many trips to France is approaching the village of Tourrettes-sur-Loup from the south. Using Akvis ArtWork, I turned the fabulous shot into an “oil painting”.
I have visited Chenonceau three times. The first time with my daughter in the dead of winter. I was doing my motherly “duty” and visiting her during her first year of living abroad in France. The program that was to help her find a job didn’t work out and she was on her own, finding both friends and employment. We spent over a week staying in three different chateaux and visiting many of the rest.
But Chenonceau always stuck in my mind with its graceful arched bridge spanning the River Cher. It was commissioned by Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of Henry II in 1555 who also oversaw the planting of extensive flower and vegetable gardens. Set along the banks of the river, but buttressed from flooding by stone terraces, the exquisite gardens were laid out in four triangles.
After King Henry II died in 1559, his strong-willed widow Catherine de’Medici and forced Diane to exchange it for the Château Chaumont and made Chenonceau her own favorite residence, adding a new series of gardens. Only is France will women complete over the same man with dueling gardens!
Dr. Karen Stephen aka Doc Flamingo 