“My little Momo is gone”. It is with these words that the Breton navigator Guirec Soudée announced the death of his faithful hen Monique. Originally from Plougrescant (Côtes-d’Armor), the adventurer became known for having embarked a red hen in his crazy project to be trapped in the ice of the North Pole for one hundred and thirty days in 2014. On board his sailboat Yvinec, the hen Monique had laid eggs and kept the young navigator from sinking. “Without you I would have gone mad during our 130 days of self-sufficient wintering in Greenland, including a good part of the polar night. I who couldn’t even fish through the ice floe, you continued to lay every day, knowing that our life depended on it, “recalls the navigator in a tribute message published Wednesday evening.
Barely 20 years old, Guirec Soudée had the dream of taking a dog aboard his steel sailboat. During a stopover in the Canary Islands, friends had finally offered him a hen, which had crossed the Atlantic at his side. The legend of Monique was born and the love story would last nine years. “Thanks to you it was also much easier to sympathize with people at each stopover. It must be said that in Saqqaq (a village in Greenland), no one had ever seen a live chicken! “.
For five years, the animal accompanied Guirec in his adventures on the seas and on the ice, making him a real star of social networks. At the end of his incredible adventures followed by hundreds of thousands of people, the Breton had published several books and a film in which he recounted his adventures. “I made sacrifices for you too, I went to prison in Canada for your beautiful eyes and I gave up on Tahiti because nobody wanted you there because of the bird flu”, remembers the adventurer.
” I will never forget you “
Recently, he had rowed across the Atlantic in both directions and then taken part in his first Route du Rhum. But without his hen Monique, who had stayed on the small island of Côtes-d’Armor where Guirec lands when he is on land. The sailor should be at the start of the next Vendée Globe in 2024. “I will never forget you, my little Momo. Thank you for everything “.