Page 29 - SOA 109
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Mea Requies nearly home
















                                      A beaming helmsman, still ......

                                      Well, great,  until I  received  the  following
                                      email from the Southerly shipyard:

                                      Good Afternoon Arnold

                                      Sorry we cannot allow boats from France
         to use our jetty until the vessel and crew have been in isolation/Quarantine
         for  14  days.  We  have  the  Border  Force,  patrolling  Chichester  Harbour
         checking boats every day. The yard will be in trouble if we allow this to hap-
         pen.
         Border Force are checking the AIS for boat movements.
         best wishes

         Nigel

         The mood on board hit rock bottom then, or nautically speaking, in the
         bilge. After all, we were lucky that this e-mail reached us at all (since we
         were already far from the country) and only a few minutes later communi-
         cation was no longer possible. Unthinkable if we had only received this e-
         mail shortly before the English coast and had been forced to drive all the
         way back to France. So we had no choice but to turn back and take the
         course towards France to Le Havre. Pure frustration! At the position 49 °
         44.5'N, 0 ° 53.2'W we received a new message

         Hi Arnold

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