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Dreaming of St, Malo

As today will be the last sunny day of June (as they forecast rain all this weekend) I abandoned my chores, grabbed my Pentax camera and headed out the door before Mother Nature changed her mind, and rained on my parade …

Well, okay, not so much my parade as that of the St. Malo Quebec City boat race. It’s held every four years and the starting point is here, from our fair city—sailing on Sunday’s early morning tide whatever the weather. So I thought I’d better go take photos while we had fair weather. I took near on 40 decent shots of which I’ll choose a handful, and showcase them over on my photo blog, Snap Happy.

Guess who got a little sun burnt too? Yeah, I forgot to put sunscreen on before heading out the door. At least I remembered my ball cap. It was a small price to pay to be down in the marina walking the dockside next to the boats and chatting with some of the crew.

The boats are amazing, and really specific in build to this sort of cross-Atlantic racing. They all have squat turtle like bodies, huge masts, and are covered in solar panels and high-tech gadgets. I serious wanted to board at least one but never asked. The place was so crowded was on-lookers like myself, that I thank the generous people kind enough to take a minute to talk about the race. And headed back up on to the upper dockside to snap as many photos as I could.

I would have bought a baseball cap but the woman on the booth had sold the last one that morning. Which was a shame. Still, I got to see the boats, I got to talk to some crew members, and I got a happy couple of hours in the sun soaking in the atmosphere while dreaming of crewing in the race, and of St. Malo, in Brittany. A place I visited in my misspent youth way back when.

If you ever get a chance to visit France, make sure it’s Brittany you visit, and go to St. Malo, you won’t regret it.

Ah, mon ami … je rêve …

Total Eclipse

It’s officially the day of the Total Eclipse for us here, in Quebec, where most will see either 100% to 98% of the eclipse … and?

The weather couldn’t be more cooperative. We have perfect clear blue skies with no cloud cover forecast. I mean, how often does that happen? Probably never given how a lot of places along today’s Path of Totality are facing mild to heavy cloud cover all the way up from Texas to Maine, but up here, in our quiet, quaint little corner of North America? Perfect weather.

What? I’m rubbing it in? Maybe, maybe not.

While we may have the perfect viewing weather (and yes, everyone south of the dotted line, there may be time—if you leave now—to get here in time) the rub is … we might not actually be viewing said phenomena.

Huh, I hear you say?

Yep. We spent a few days hunting for glasses, having left it a tad too long to source a pair each and … the OH is crazy that we not watch this afternoon as they are convinced I’m going to look directly into the sun. Or, more likely, they are. Either way, I was told over breakfast that I am not, repeat not to go out onto the balcony and attempt to watch, even through a pinhole device.

I was actually going to use a colander sieve and a piece of stiff card, keeping my back to the sun. But still, the OH is frantic that one of us will accidentally turn and ooops catch a glimpse of the sun.

Well, okay, it’s true. We can’t rule out a whoopsie, given we haven’t got the proper eye protection. But …but I hate being told I cannot do something. It just makes me want to do it more (blame my restrictive parents for that one.)

So, what’s a girl to do? Right, I mean, this is called a once in a life time for a reason. Most people will not get the chance again and look, we’re right in the path of totality.

Come on!