“The brave may not live forever – but the cautious do not live at all”

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Nr 60. Dolphins in Cherbourg

Cherbourg is a harbor many sailors know: it is on a strategic point in the Street of Dover, close to south coast of England. So it’s a popular harbor for English sailors to make the crossing to the mainland of Europe. When we arrived in the port of Cherbourg we noticed a lot of English boats.

When we choose our next destination, we check out the tourist information first (besides the nautical information): what is there to see or to do? And when the number 1 publicity is: ‘botanical garden’, we start to chuckle a bit, because to us the destination might not be so interesting. Also in Cherbourg, a botanical garden was mentioned and since it was great weather and this garden was situated outside of the city in a parc with a castle (Parc des Ravalet), we decided to go there. It turned out to be a great elegant place!

I have never known that Titanic made 2 stopovers before it sailed from Southampton to New York: the stopovers were in Cherbourg and in Queenstown (Ireland). Titanic was at anchor before the harbor of Cherbourg in april 1912 and 274 passengers were brought to the ship with a tender. Also 22 passengers left the ship on this first stop over, because they just wanted to make the crossing from England to France. In the museum City of the mer, there are objects to see of the Titanic and information on the stopover.

We had a good time in Cherbourg for 2 days. After that, we left the harbor early in the morning before sunrise, to sail to the island of Jersey. More about our visit to Jersey in the next blog! When we sailed away from Cherbourg, we saw a group of dolphins swimming and jumping right in front of our boat. At least 15 dolphins, see the video that I was able to make of them. That was a great way to start the day!

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