A Paradocs Abroad

According to Google Maps Saint-Renan is located at about 48° 26' N, 4° 37' W. Only a little south of Vancouver's 49°+ N, but 2/3 of the way to the western edge of the GMT time zone, even though we are in the Central European time zone, 1 hr ahead of GMT...

[More:]

If you draw a line straight north from here it crosses England a little west of Plymouth, way the heck out in Cornwall. So most of England is to the east of us, but their time zone is 1 hour behind us.

Add to that the fact that we're on Summer Time (like Daylight Savings Time) still for another couple of weeks, and we're in the odd situation of having our daylight hours centred around about 14:00.

When we arrived in the height of summer that meant it was light until well after 22:00, and we didn't really notice that sunrise around 06:30 was kind of late compared to what we'd left in Vancouver. But now, in mid-October it's really noticable. Sunrise today was 08:35! And sunset is 19:34.

We left to ride to IFREMER at about 07:45, and dawn was just a pink suggestion on the horizon. By the time we got to the lab there was enough light in the sky to paint the jet contrails a dramatic orangey-pink. But the sun didn't pop over the horizon until I was well on my way home.

I've often thought how dedicated are the people that I read about going out to train on their bikes before dawn. Now I'm one of them without even really trying...