About this site
Piers and Lin du Pré bought their new Fleming 55 / 129, Play d'eau, in 2003. She was berthed in Beaucette Marina, Guernsey in the Channel Islands at N49° 30’.197 W002° 30’.350 until she was sold in October 2021. This site charts the thrilling adventures they had in her. You can contact us here.
Where’s Play d’eau? If the new owners have the AIS on, you can find where Play d'eau is right now. Click here. Zoom in and our position will be shown on a map.
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May we immediately assure everyone that our radio silence for the last two years has not been because we’ve finally navigated to the great marina in the sky.
No. With considerable quantities of fuel left in life’s tanks, we’ve loved many months in the magnificent country of South Africa,… …
Continue reading It’s Christmas!
What a two and a half months of sheer adventure. We drove across magnificent mountain ranges, extensive plateaus, visited a crane sanctuary, saw four of the Big 5 in a private game reserve, sampled some of South Africa’s finest food and wines, met our new family members again and made so many friends. Oh, and I had an infected wisdom tooth pulled out. …
Continue reading Safari to South Africa
Having prepared our Fleming 55, Play d’eau, for the journey, Kim and I left sunny Beaucette soon after midday delivering a long and triumphant blast of the Kahlenbergs to echo around the marina’s quarry walls, and set sail (set motor?) for the journey.
Not bound for South Africa but Southampton via Alderney where we’d have a few hours break for supper. …
Continue reading Play d’eau and South Africa
I love these two pics of Lin.
I sneaked them whilst in South Africa…. …
Continue reading My favourite pics of Lin
Well, we’re homeward bound. After a magnificent and glorious three weeks in South Africa, we have travelled from Cape Town to Durban to Amsterdam and will shortly leave for Guernsey.
Having taken afternoon tea at Cape Town’s Mount Nelson Hotel (as a chap and chapess do), we stayed at the Granny Mouse Country Lodge some 90 minutes west of Durban for one night before catching an Emirates flight to Amsterdam …
Continue reading Homeward bound
Although it was Autumn, there were still some magnificent flowers in full display whilst leaves and vegetation were showing their vibrant autumnal colours.
Wherever possible, we made use of sunrise and sunset light.
One big problem – we know the names of some, well two or three, but the majority leave us guessing… …
Continue reading Plant life
As our visit to South Africa draws to a close, here are pics of the various animals we saw whilst on our journeys.
In the next posts we’ll showcase the vivid colours of the flowering plants we’ve found and finally, a summary of our whole magnificent tour …
Continue reading Animal life
After our two nights at the Rosendal Winery, the drive to Altes Landhaus (Schoemanschoek, Oudtshoorn) was greater in distance and greater in beauty if the latter was at all possible.
The enormity of the endless, dry, arid mountain ranges, the range of colours, the ostriches, baboons and other animals we couldn’t identify, was captivating. …
Continue reading Rosendal to Oudtshoorn
We had no idea how much today’s tour of a township, District 6 and Robben Island, was going to affect us.
Our guide warned us that we may find this tour somewhat gruelling. He was right, so very right. …
Continue reading Apartheid and Reconciliation
We arrived at the start of our South African extravaganza at this magnificent old colonial-style hotel, the Mount Nelson Hotel, late last Sunday evening after an unexpectedly prolonged journey.
We’ve packed so much into the last three days. The weather has been unexpectedly perfect with temperatures in the high twenties, cloudless skies and a gentle cooling breeze …
Continue reading Cape Town
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