SARAH HÉBERT - A BOAT, 7 BOARDS AND A BABY

In May 2017, Sarah Hébert and Aurélien Le Métayer, a young couple in their thirties, left Brittany by boat on an adventure to some of the best windsurfing spots in the world. From no boat, no savings and no idea of where to go, to anchored in a beautiful Brazilian lagoon with a boat loaded with boards and a baby, Sarah tells their story.

Words

& Photos Sarah Hébert

This feature originally appeared in the June 2018 issue of Windsurf Magazine.

LEAVING
When we decided to leave France to get closer to a life under the sun, Aurélien was working for the French Federation of Sailing and I was a SUP Yoga teacher in Carnac (Brittany). We had active and balanced lives and we were happy. We were both former professional windsurfers and happy to still live around our passions, but adventure was calling us! I had left my homeland, New Caledonia, 10 years ago. With the blossoming desire to become a mum growing inside of me, the call to go back “home” to the Pacific was growing stronger every day. I’m familiar with living in the tropics, I spent the first 12 years of my life on a boat, so it was totally natural for me to go back ‘home’ on a boat. Aurélien was used to long sailing trips and his grandfather was a “Cape Horner”, so it was in his blood too. After a few months of searching through all the classified ads on the web, we found our boat. ‘Maloya’ was waiting for us at port Gapeau in Hyères les Palmiers in the south of France. It was an Oceanis 411 with just two prior owners and sailed only between the Mediterranean coast and Corsica. We just had to buy it and get it back to Brittany, which meant sailing through the Gibraltar channel and the daunting Cape Finisterre. 20 days at sea and 2 capes to cross, this first voyage would be a great confidence builder with our boat. For our bigger trip we still had to save enough money and get the boat ready for the high seas.

NEW START
I moved onto the boat right away, this ‘outdoor’ life wasn’t always easy in the midst of the winter storms in Brittany, but how wonderful to be rocked by the waves, the sound of the water against the boat’s hull and the wind in the shroud. The news of a pregnancy in the spring of 2016 forced us to postpone our departure. I had dreamed about leaving with a baby onboard and here it was, I was totally overwhelmed with joy. I knew it was possible to raise a baby on a boat, and although Aurélien was a bit concerned, nothing could really cancel our project. The date was fixed, we would leave in May 2017, when our baby would be 4 months old.Leaving everything behind at the age of 30, when our friends were building houses, creating businesses and progressing their careers was challenging. Aurélien, working for the state in France and born and raised in Brittany, had to think long and hard about the idea. But he’s been very enthusiastic and proactive and I have praised him for that courage. As for me, I was leaving a job that I loved and good friends I would miss, but I was also getting back to my homeland, so it wasn’t the same story.

SEA LIFE
After a difficult crossing of the Gascoigne Gulf, which left Aurélien severely seasick for three days, our arrival in Galicia was a milestone in our new life at sea. It was a really weird feeling to get used to our new program, that each week day was a ‘holiday’. Until then our longest time together on a boat had been a 10 day cruise between l’île d’Yeu and Etel (Brittany). But living on a boat permanently is actually very different to a holiday. You need to cope with the boat’s needs and in our case, our young son. With this new life, our daily schedule was totally redefined. Aurélien and I had never shared an everyday life together, he was living in Brest and I was in Carnac, and here we were together on a small boat with the additional worries and tiredness of having a newborn onboard! This sweet sailing time along the Galician coast was really welcome. It was finally when we reached the Canary Islands that we started to feel relaxed as a couple and as parents and in a good relationship with the boat.

RIDING YES, BUT NOT EVERY DAY
We left Etel with a boat loaded with windsurf, kitesurf, surfing and SUP equipment. This allowed us to score hundreds of sailing hours at exotic locations. Galicia, Figueira da Foz (West Portugal), Alvor (Algarve), Moulay (Morocco), El Medano (Tenerife), Sal and Boa Vista (Cabo Verde), Fernado de Noronha (NE of Brazil) and Tibau do Sul (NE Brazil) are among the places where the wind and waves have welcomed us with amazing conditions.

But don’t believe that we are riding on an ‘every day’ basis. To travel and live on a sailboat requires a lot of maintenance work, so it’s not all a ‘holiday’. The sailing itself takes some time since we travel at about an average of 5 knots. Taking on food stores and potable water can be a long process too as it requires loading by hand. Just like anyone who works, we worship each session, especially as our water time has been halved since one of us has to always keep an eye on Nael. But when the spots are easy to access, like here in Tibau do Sul in Brazil where I’m writing from, we do enjoy our new lives to the fullest. We’ve been here a month and have been riding nearly every day. Last but not least, when we need to find an anchor place for Maloya, it has to be protected from the wind and the waves, which is pretty difficult to match with our passion for riding.

But with a bit of organization and using all the information received from people we’ve met on our journey, we managed to find some real treasures, like Alvor’s Laguna in Portugal, the crystal blue water of Boa Vista (Cabo Verde) or here in Tibau do Sul (Brazil). But sometimes we have to load the tender with all the equipment and baby and it becomes a real mission, including walking, taxi, bus or rental cars to get to the spots. You better get used to walking a lot if you’re surf or wind hunting from a boat!

Today, we can’t think of anywhere else better on earth than where we are now. The three of us have found our place, balance and joy on our sailboat. We are thrilled to discover new spots by sea. The fishermen are our first informers, telling us about the wind orientation, the swell and hidden dangers. Travelling by sailboat allows you deeper interactions with the locals than when you arrive by plane and lock yourself in your hotel room. Nael is also a good help, waving at all the boats sailing along. Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Canary Islands, Cabo Verde and now Brazil, we have seen so many sands, seas and colours. We have no regrets about all the equipment we took, we have used it all. For now, what we have used the most are the inflatable sups, then our windsurf and kitesurf gear in the waves, then surfboards and finally SUP surfboards.

TO CROSS AN OCEAN
People say that before you die, you should have written a book, planted a tree and raised a kid…I would add crossing an ocean. I did that on February 1st 2018. It was the first one for Nael and Aurélien. I had already done it in February 2012 with my windsurf board, a story I wrote about in my book “Avec du coeur, tout est possible” (With heart, everything is possible). But it was my first time going through the “Doldrums” and crossing the equator, an important experience for a sailor. When you leave the shore for this “no man’s land of sea” it’s not without anxiety. I had heard a lot of things about these huge spaces with no wind but lots of violent lightning storms. Thanks to our godfather, Christian Dumard, our navigation guru/angel, we crossed this intertropical zone without too much problem, just 15 hours of motoring and one violent storm to cross. The other storms were less strong. Ten days after we had left the small island of Brava, we reached Fernando de Noronha’s coast, a real treasure of the Brazilian landscape. As we anchored, surrounded by dozens of dolphins, we took stock of what we had accomplished through our passion for travelling by sea. Our adventure is still going strong with our greatest joy, our baby, whose first Christmas was at sea and first birthday in Brazil. Next stop is French Guyana with its muddy waters and Caimans, something we plan to avoid with our inflatables!

FACT BOX

KIT
For the curious, here is the list of the equipment we have on board:
Windsurf: 2 boards (Fanatic Tri Wave 82, Quad 76) and 6 North Hero sails (5.0/4.7/4.5/4.2/3.7/3.4) – the 3.4 was added for Sarah after our sessions in Moulay and Pozo,
but since then the wind has been less strong.
SUP: 2 Fanatic inflatable (Fly Air Fit + Diamond Air), 1 Fanatic Prowave SUP.
Kite: 2 North Neo kites, a directional and a Soleil Twin-Tip.
Surf: 2 boards, a 7’ and 6’.

All of our equipment is FANATIC, NORTH SAILS, NORTH KITE & ION.

NUMBERS
Océanis 411 – 12.70 m – 8 tons –
3 cabins, bought for 65,000 euros.
Our budget: 1000 euros a month.
6 countries crossed, 3 spoken
languages, (4 if you count the 5 words of Arabic we can say).
80 sessions.
12,000 diapers cleaned.
70 days on the water.

ON THE NET
Follow Sarah on:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sarah.hebert.14
Instagram: instagram.com/sarah.hebert
Site: www.sarah-hebert.fr
Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/SarahHebertTV