The paper bag full of hot, buttery croissants landed with a thunk on deck above our sleeping heads. Alex, my wife, stirred in her bunk and murmured with delight. It was 06:15 and breakfast had arrived. The sailing life on the remote French island of Saint Pierre is steeped in many traditions, and breakfast delivery was a favorite.
Ours was one of four sailboats tied up to the Éric Tabarly Wharf in the tiny French territory off the coast of Newfoundland. This morning was Chip on the yawl’s turn to go early and collect the prized flaky delicacies for all the boat crews before the Boulangerie de Girardin sold out, as it was known to do. I was hoping the decadent pastry would calm my frazzled nerves worn thin by an approaching storm.
We’d detoured to this place while cruising the nearby Canadian Maritimes aboard our 36-foot Morris Justine. Known collectively as Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the archipelago of eight islands is a French territory, not quite 100 square miles in land mass. Flung like so many pebbles off the Newfoundland coast, they’re exposed to all that the North Atlantic cares to throw at them. The harbor town of Saint-Pierre itself, home to the wharf where the buttery croissants had just landed, clings to a particularly precarious spot on the southeast corner of the southeastern-most island.
(And to you sharp-eyed readers about to chastise me for losing hyphen control, note that Saint Pierre the island is spelled without a hyphen. The main town on that island is spelled Saint-Pierre with a hyphen. Additionally, just as with Saint John, New Brunswick, the word Saint is never abbreviated to St. as it relates to the town, island, or province in Saint Pierre and Miquelon.)
Perched as we were, the impending weather had me on edge. The weather apps on my phone were filled with meaty red colors and a new paisley of the dreaded gray, indicating winds above 50 knots, now curled around the leading edge of the deepening low headed our way on some of the models. One thing sure, it was going to be a helluva blow and none of us sailors was even considering leaving the safe confines of Saint-Pierre Harbor.
With the butter-stained pastry bag plundered and coffee consumed, I paid a visit to a neighboring catamaran to chew over the weather news with her crew. The cat had the pleasing lines of a lean speed machine and Antonio, the owner, was eyeing a weather window for a quick dash across the North Atlantic to England. I noticed that he hadn’t tripled up his docklines or added extra fenders quite the same way as I had; surely he’d seen the reports of the massive low swirling towards us? I thought the catamaran was a beautiful boat and I told Antonio so.
“They are all beautiful boats!” Antonio the Italian exclaimed with arms and eyes flung open to encompass all of the harbor. “And we are lucky sailors to be here in this beautiful place.” Somehow he had managed to skirt the weather-induced anxiety, or so it seemed. Fortunately, the storm was still three days off and there remained ample time for him to get nervous and add docklines.
The happy Italian sailor went on to tell me all about his recent visit to île aux Marins, or Sailor’s Island, which sits at the mouth of Saint-Pierre Harbor. It’s home to a few residents and serves as a welcoming park rich with walking trails and history. He convinced me that Alex and I should take time away from boat work and see the place ourselves. Sailing our boat there, anchoring off, and rowing ashore was an option, but that would mean leaving our prized spot on the pier where we were well tied.
Instead, we paid a few euros to ride out to the tiny harbor island on a ferry named P’tit Gravier, which translates to “small piece of gravel.” To me, the name failed to connote buoyancy, and I thought it a bad moniker for a boat. It gave me a cold feeling knowing the gray paisley of ferocious wind was on the march and here we were on a boat named for a sinking stone.
Upon questioning, the boat crew explained that Saint Pierre’s nickname is P’tit Gravier (given its size and location, one can see why). Their concept of P’tit Gravier denoted an oasis of safe haven in the vast sea. They assured me that the ferry was sound, and the bold shores of her namesake would provide adequate protection for all in the harbor.
Ile aux Marins proved to be well worth the risk of riding on a ferry with a questionable name. The walking trails over grassy hillsides provided excellent views of the harbor and the sea beyond. A few restored buildings on the island are maintained as a museum that tells the story of a time when the salt cod industry dominated this community. The machinery and proud working dories from that fishery and the sailing motifs in the church spoke of a hard but profitable seaborne economy now dead because of overfishing by larger, modern, and more lethal craft. As we waited for our return ride, the kids from an on-island soccer camp whiled away the afternoon, gleefully jumping off the pier and into the sea. The weather was splendid—for now.
The summer climate is surprisingly mild for a place this far north. The French islands sit off the southern coast of Newfoundland and to the west of the icy Labrador Current. As a result, the seawater temps and adjacent air temps are considerably warmer than those found off Newfoundland’s east coast. It’s a fine place to sail a boat, and the French cultural embrace of sailing runs strong in Saint Pierre. In addition to the visiting boats, the French residents were out in force plying the local waters.
A vibrant youth sailing program is centered at the Éric Tabarly Wharf where our boat was tied in town. The young sailors bubbling around the launching ramp in their life jackets were bursting with happy sounding French words as they rigged their Optis and Hobie Cats. Ah, the innocence of youth! These kids surely had no way to comprehend the impacts of the sinister storm on my weather app.
My head swirled with anxiety as the hours ticked away. I wondered if we would be better off on a mooring or at anchor? Should we purchase additional fenders and docklines if we stayed at the pier? The locals have a tradition of pulling their boats completely out of the water using a collection of ingenious, red, hand-powered capstans that ring the harbor. When the crew put their shoulders to the stout wood cross bars and drive in circles with strong legs like oxen, the contraption will drag a boat on skids out from the sea and up onto dry land. These hauling rigs are right up there with the guillotine in terms of the clever French way of handling a situation. As impressed as I was, the red winches also made me wonder if the storms around the island were so bad that the only prudent thing a sailor could do would be to haul and tie their boat down to the ground after every use.
At T-minus 48 hours till impending doom, dawn broke over a clear sky. Up in the hills above the harbor the sun began to warm the spongy tundra, and a gentle southwest wind rustled the scattered blueberry bush branches and stunted spruce bows. It was shaping up to be another beautiful day to explore France.
The province of Saint Pierre and Miquelon isn’t like France—it is France. Newfoundland is only 13 miles away, Halifax only 385, and yet it’s Paris, 2,650 miles away, that this place is connected to. The food, the wine, the cars, the building supplies, and the people all come from France. This is not a French Canadian place; it is a French place.
The sailing school on the wharf houses several conveniences for visiting sailors. There’s a laundry room with a leave-a-book/take-a-book library corner containing mostly books written in French, and a pair of chic bathrooms with interesting French rubber flooring. Bathing was an odd affair where you had to hold a button with one hand to get the shower water to flow, which didn’t leave you with many other hands for soaping yourself. Truth be told, it was a bit of an awkward arrangement and perhaps not quite as clever as the red boat winches or the sharp guillotine.
After availing ourselves of these amenities as best we could, tweaking the alignment of our massive inflated storm fenders, and adding a bit more chafe gear, Alex and I decided it was time for another break from storm prep, and we made our way back to the ferry terminal. This time, our plans had us visiting the other main island in the territory, Miquelon, 90 minutes away by an inter-province ferry named Nordet. (Which translates to Northeast. I had no beef with this.)
In the summer, the farmers on Miquelon switch from farming to fishing. When they make the pivot, they have the charming tradition of giving their work horses the summer off and setting them free to roam the island at will. Our tour guide on the island, Flor, owned one such horse and as we drove around the island in her minivan, Flor was always on the lookout for her free-range equine companion. I worried that Flor’s horse was lost, and I found it alarming. It dawned on me that Flor probably hadn’t been obsessing over her weather apps quite as much as I had, and she might be unaware of the sinister gray paisley gathering its demonic forces just over the horizon.
I tried to explain the situation, but my French is muy mal, and I wasn’t sure Flor fully appreciated the magnitude of the storm on her doorstep. I don’t know what you do to prepare a horse for a storm (lash it to a stout fence?) but I assumed Flor did and I urged her to find her horse and take decisive action immediately. In reply, Flor just mumbled something about not being too worried about a summer storm.
Back home at the wharf in SP, we had new neighbors; Rich and Ken on the motor-sailor were the last to arrive before all hell broke loose. We talked at length about the mesmerizing experience of sailing into the harbor with a thousand-puffin escort. The beautiful birds with their hard-fought takeoffs and triumphant landings live in force in the towering cliffs of uninhabited Grand Colombier Island, a spot that most boats pass on their approach to Saint Pierre.
Rich and Ken eagerly accepted our tourism suggestions ashore, most of which were centered around food. We also shared notes on the time zones, which are complex in this corner of the world. The French territories are one hour ahead of Halifax, and two hours ahead of New York, but a half-hour behind Newfoundland even though much of Newfoundland, including its capitol, St. John’s, sits well to the east of Saint Pierre.
The island’s grocery stores and marine stores are well stocked with intriguing European products, but as is usual in sailing, a bit of a walk is required to get to these shops. Some hiking is also required to obtain diesel. There is no fuel available on the wharf, but the sailing school provides a handy cart that you can load with your fuel jugs and then trudge off on foot to a nearby petrol station for filling.
We also hiked for pleasure on many occasions during this visit to France, as Saint Pierre is home to many spectacular trails. At one point, we ran into Chip (from the yawl) on a promontory high above town. He was waiting for the arrival of fresh crew and was delighting in his downtime in Saint Pierre. He told us he was considering a return to the island to winter over, take a room, find a tutor, and learn French. We agreed that would be intense. We also agreed that tying up to the pier to accommodate the 6-foot tidal range and the anticipated storm surge would be a challenge we would all need to face together before any winter language learning would commence.
Our various walking routes took us past some interesting public art installations, miles of open seascape vistas, and several plaques commemorating shipwrecks; 139 souls lost in this one, 192 in that one. Frothing seas, hard rocks, splintered ships. I got the picture, and it made me feel unwell. I concluded that French would be a fitting language in which to retell the story of the coming storm, and I made a mental note to encourage Chip to learn how to say “gray paisley” and “frothing sea spew” in French so that he would be best suited to share at his next gam.
When the first drops of rain hit the deck on the dreaded day of the storm, Alex was busy in the galley making a cassoulet with fresh French ingredients. Meanwhile, I had made the last-minute decision to dig out my ski goggles and was upside-down and backwards in one of our cockpit lockers trying to find them. I knew this was going to be the sort of storm where a sailor needed full eye protection against salt spray and driving rain when crawling up the side decks to check the chafe protection on the bow lines.
Emerging victorious from my dive, I showed off my find with a smug and knowing look to Brett, a Kiwi crew member on the catamaran down the pier. My find spiked his curiosity, and he decided to stop over for a visit. I was so impressed with the way this sailor calmly faced adversity at sea and was willing to take time away from his own frantic final preparations for a moment of camaraderie.
Showing excellent seamanship, Brett worked hard to divert our attention from panic with conversation. Alex and I added some strong French coffee and eventually the weak French beer. We covered all manner of sailor-ly subjects while the raindrops thickened to a sheen on deck. I learned about America’s Cup history as seen from the New Zealand perspective. We talked dinghies, of course, and naturally, we made our way around to a discussion of all things Dyneema, as sailors are wont to do these days. When Alex’s hearty cassoulet was ready, we feasted. If the storm won the day, at least we wouldn’t show up knocking on Davey Jones’ locker with an empty stomach.
Meanwhile, out at sea, the impending storm popped up out of its squat and its isobars spread. The forecast fizzled, the gray paisley vanished from my phone, and the reds softened to yellows. The weather onslaught turned out to be nothing more than a gusty breeze and a misty rain. Good weather for an afternoon nap.
Life on the tiny French territory didn’t skip a beat. The wind didn’t blow the jaunty caps off the gendarmes. The coup de vent was a non-event. The regular Air Saint-Pierre direct flight to Paris’ Charles De Gaulle wasn’t delayed. The Boulangerie de Girardin opened on schedule the next morning with croissants aplenty. And Flor’s horse probably enjoyed a break from the hot sun. Merci Aeolis and Vive La France!
April 2025
