The Old town of St Malo, it looks old but it is mainly rebuilt with new stone after WWII.

The good ship Borealis arrived this morning around 08.00 at the anchorage. This is a more peculiar anchorage as the ship “anchors” on a mooring buoy forward and a mooring buoy aft, by bringing out mooring ropes. Due to the tide which runs between 4 and 5 meters (12 and 15 feet) the ship has to anchor in a sort of under water bath tub to keep enough water under the keel to remain afloat during low water. The ship cannot anchor mid stream as the current there too strong and also the river too deep to bring out an anchor safely. Then also it would swing around on the tide every 6 hours and that it can only do that here by going one way around (towards the town) because if it would swing the other way, it would run aground on the flats. Thus the ship sits at this special anchor location and then tenders sail across the river to the other side where the local port is. The local port is made up of floating pontoons so the boats go up and down with the tide and do not have to adjust their mooring ropes all the time.

The ms Borealis at anchor at St. Malo. This photo was taken from the fish-landing place.

We were given one spot to dock, at the dock of the local pilot boat, and as the ship operated with 4 tenders (1 ashore, 1 at the gangway, 1 going out, 1 coming back) a good routine was kept during the day. I do not think that the captain was aware (he has never been here before) that the bringing out the mooring ropes (4 forward and 4 aft) takes a considerable amount of time, so tender service started a bit on the late side but by 11 am, when we were called for our tender ticket, the schedule was back on track again and it was open tenders by 11.45 am.

The aft mooring buoy with line tender. This boat takes the mooring lines from the ship. one by one, put the eye of the rope on the hook and then the ships winches pull all 4 ropes tight. Same process at the bow Very effective but it takes time.

Thus at 11 am we took the tender over to the pilot dock and from there we were guided through the Ferry terminal into to the ferry carpark and from there we could walk to the old city. The city was old before 1945 but was then extensivly bombed and fought over during the invasion of Normandy.  But after the war, the whole town was rebuilt stone by stone and now most of it, is completely back to what it looked like before the war. It is a well loved tourist spot, not only for the cruise ships, but also for the French themselves. So it is in a way a real tourist trap but a very charming one. The main streets, those who run from Gate to Gate, are given over to shops on the ground floor with apartments above. Living inside the “Muros” as it is called, is norwal way of town life; with normal houses and apartments, some even with parking. The Real Estate prices are not cheap, being around euros 325K for a 2 bed, one bathroom, without parking. And no lifts for the upper floors.

The main street of St. Malo. the street curves upwards as it is all on a hill with the church on top. This street has a very nice mix of restaurants, tourist shops, regular shops and a small super market. Upper levels are Apartments.

Inside, along the South wall, a whole street is given over to restaurants, many of them fish restaurants as local fishermen bring every morning the fresh catch of the night before. This happens right at the West Gate and then little vans take the fish and other seafood to the customers. Unfortunatelly we could not see what was going on in the local market “Les Halles” which are open for business every morning from 0800 to 1230 except on Monday. But there were sufficient shops around who sold all the local provincial specialities to make up for it.

The “Bol Breton” for drinking coffee and choclate the French way.

So we walked around in the sunshine and in the town nicely out of the wind, and supported the local economy with a few purchases. One of the local products is the “Bol Breton” a coffee / soup pot with 2 clips to hold it at each side. This small pot is used for drinking coffee or chocolate. They sell them in 2 sizes, with the smaller one for the children. The attraction here is is that you can get them with your name on it. So most shops have a whole wall with racks full of pots with the most common and some uncommon names. So we found an Albert and a Leslie (not the completely correct spelling, as the female way is Lesley with the y at the end) and bought 2. And we were far from the only ones. They were about 11 euro’s each and a lot of french families were doing the same as I expect that little Pierre and little Francoise get through a lot of them.

One of the Tourist shops with a large assortment of “Bol Breton” with different names.

Architecturally the most interesting item is the church of St. Martin in the middle of the town, which features some nice stained-glass windows. But it looked like  that most of the visitors were to some extent much less interested in culture, but much more intertested into sitting on the terraces and having a drink. And out of the wind (hiding behind the walls) this was very pleasant indeed. It takes about 1.5 hrs. to walk all the main streets of the walled city and the city walls prevent you from getting lost so you always end up again at a City Gate and from there you can see the tender dock.

The local fish delivery. Only one dock but the boats came in, one after the other. Ensuring that the local restaurants had an ample supply of fresh fish.

Some guests had taken the Transfer to the large city of Rennes and reported later that they were “sort of underwhelmed” as the shops in Rennes were all closed. And that while the Daily Program advised that they were open. We all are getting more and more the impression that the daily programs are not much scrutinized by management before they go to the printer. We came across the same thing later in the evening, when we looked for music to listen to and found that the schedule in the program was completely different to what the musicians were doing and where they were scheduled to pop up.

The town has been very nicely restored with all the medieval features put back. But if one looks closely (see behind the traffic sign) one can see that a lot of new brickwork was needed.

Back on board, we fell into the “Lido trap” by deciding to have only a small lunch, with an eye on the early 18.00 dinner., but then one walks by the dessert, ice and cheese counter and all good intentions go straight out of the window.

Last tender was at 19.00 hrs. but most guests were back early as we had the Captain’s farewell party. One at 17.00 hrs. and one at 19.00 hrs. But even at 17.00 hrs. (first sitting) only the lower level was full, with approx. 400 guests and I saw a larger number than usual of guests not having dressed up, sitting on the upper level, watching but where there was no service. Courtesy of management deciding to move the formal day/night from a sea day to a port day & with a late departure.

We had been invited to the Hotel Director’s table, a lady who had worked for Fred Olsen, then for Hebridean Princess, and then back to Fred. Contrary to what I am normally used to, she did not host cocktails before dinner but stood in line to say hello at the  entrance to the  Farewell Party. Same thing as with the repeater party, the whole ships staff were standing in the entrance to say Hallo and then to disappear again. Why not socialize a little bit if you are there anyway ? The Farewell party had free flowing wine, beer and G&T’s again, ample appetizers and with the Captain reading out how much food had been consumed and then introducing the “drivers” of the ship as he was always asked who “was driving the ship” if he was not on the bridge. So a first Officer (Croatia), a 3rd officer (philippines) and a cadet (english) were introduced. This was followed by a small group of regular crew, two rows of 10) where the front row were all asked where they were from. A small group as this was all the ship could do during the build up to dinner and cocktail time.

St Malo as seen from the ship. Tender ride to the dock is about 10 minutes.

Then we had dinner at my old Captains table, where I almost got mad at the Maitre’d Hotel, with the table setup. All the males at one side and all the females at the other side. So I Lesley and I shifted seats to bring some balance but with 2 single ladies sitting next to each other, then the Hotel Director and then yet another Lady it still was not as it should be. The opposite of the Hotel Director was the Asst. Hotel Director, nothing against him but one would expect that at least he would be in the ship to keep an eye on the Hotel operations. He showed up too late for the table photo and that sort of proved my point.

For the rest it was a nice experience as everybody was chatting away. All guests were from the bigger suites and half were from first and half from 2nd sitting. Then Hotel Director and Ass.HD excused themselves again to go to the next Farewell Party. I appreciated the hospitality by being invited but WHY DOING ALL THIS on a port day and being rushed with the Farewell Party going on as well.

Tonights show was the crew show, which they do in 2 sittings. We decided not to go, as we know all the philipino “main entries” and secondly it is so widly popular with the guests, why take space away from others? So we looked for some other entertainment and ended up in the Ocean Bar only to find that the piano player scheduled, was playing in the Morning Light pub instead. But it gave the opportunity to see departure with the ship sailing out of port (only a short distance to open sea) and then curving around the anchorage and outlaying islands to head northwards to our final port of call.

Tomorrow we will be in Cherbourg and we will go across the road to the Oceanographic Museum, called the “Cite de La Mer”, to visit the bookshop. The town lays on a shuttle to the town but one can also walk it as downtown is only 15 minutes away. Then between 10 am and 12 noon there is local dancing in the terminal, which is always nice for guests who do not want to venture into town. Weather for tomorrow: Partly Cloudy, with a cold strong wind and temperatures around 10oC / 50oF.