ADVENTURE THE FRENCH CONNECTION

Hamish Southby-Tailyour and his young family find themselves caught up in a grisly crime whilst meandering through France’s picturesque inland waterways on the way to the Mediterranean

- Hamish Southby-Tailyour

I was on deck, alone, when I spotted something interesting and detoured towards it. A hundred yards away I was suspicious and at 50 yards the view in the binoculars was unfolding fast. Despite misgivings about our everyday school French, we managed to get the fundamentals across to the

Gendarmerie and within the hour a fireman and diver in their fast response boat, blue lights flashing, were bearing down on us. We directed them to the body some 30 yards away and after an inspection returned to state the obvious – this needed the police. On giving our details we were relieved of our duties and once again were on our way up the Seine, taking with us some very tumultuous thoughts. However, we were pleased that, given the unbelievable chances, we had found the most important piece of evidence in a horrible crime, giving some hypothetical hope to justice and closure to any family involved.

CHALLENGING BEGINNINGS

Our experience in Mericourt was perhaps the strangest during our five-month adventure through Western Europe aboard our Moody 33 Mk 2, Equinox. My wife Clara and I had wanted to give our children, Jacob, 13, and Heather, 10, an experience of an extended sail having had a successful two week cruise in well-known Cornish homewaters. We planned to leave Plymouth and cruise through France’s inland waterways to the Mediterranean and then on to Corsica, the Balearics, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain, with options to adapt the plan at any stage.