Again, because we had dilly dallied for a while, we only stayed in Audierne for the one night, in fact, as we were on a swinging mooring we didn’t even bother to go ashore, we were also getting up at five am in the morning to catch the tide so it was a good idea to get an early night.

On your way to Benodet you pass the Point de Penmarche which is considered to be the place where you enter French summertime cruising proper. True to form, the weather has been gorgeous. This is more like it.

We had a good sail leaving Audierne then the wind died completely on us and we had to motor sail the rest of the way to our next port of call which is where we are now. The main town is called Benodet but we are actually on the other side of the river in a place called Saint Marine. They are on the Odet, which is reputed to be one of the most beautiful rivers in France. It certainly is that, but I can tell you, the flow that runs through it is one of the strongest we have encountered which I suppose isn’t helped by the fact that it is a spring tide as well.

We successfully moored up on the visitors’ pontoon and went to the office to be told to move into one of the berths set aside for visitors in the small marina. By this time it was about an hour and a half later into a very strong flowing current. We found the berth and I merrily jumped off onto the shortest, narrowest, wobbliest pontoon I have ever seen. Honestly it was like something out of a Laurel and Hardy movie, me trying to keep my balance squatting down to desperately hoop this line round the cleat which I kept missing. We have been here a couple of days, now I don’t feel so bad, I have seen the same thing happen to a few people so it’s not my big fat bum that was unbalancing me.(Editor’s note – I don’t know? From recollection of my physics lessons low slung weight / centre of gravity etc.!!)

 

 

 

We walked into Combrit on Saturday through the forest which was nice and cool

  

 

 

 

 

and on Sunday we decided to have a day on the beach, where we had our first dip in the Atlantic……..cold? Yes, just a tad, but once you were in it was lovely. The beach here is gorgeous; it’s about six miles long and very quiet. It takes you all the way on to Ile Tudy which is another beautiful wee village with a nice marina.

   

 

 

On Sunday night we decided to eat out ……………. we had walked about ten miles and we had run out of wine. Can you believe it? We are in France a country that’s all about wine and we run out of it.

We are not quite into the French way of things yet, as you can see from the earlier Brest instalment. If you want to go anywhere or buy anything here, don’t do it on a Sunday or a Monday, the supermarket closed at 12.45 which we thought was 7pm, the restaurant we wanted to go to was also closed.

 

“All dressed up & Naewhere to go”

We did find a pizzeria where they did a nice “Pichet” for 6 euros.

At that point we had a call from our friends Billy & Jayne who are currently in Portugal- also out for a meal, I bet they are not having 6 euro pichets de vin rouge ………… is that right you two?     LOL

As explained Benodet is the main town literally swimming distance across the river from where we are in St. Marine and usually there is a wee ferry that runs every half hour. Yesterday we were getting ready to go for it and just having a cup of tea when there was an almighty crunch – a French yacht had lost engine power in the river and crashed into us! No major damage done just a wee chip out the gel coat. I think Camira will have a few battle scars by the time she sees the Clyde again!

So after getting him off us and into a berth we go up for the ferry, which you will all have guessed by now disnae appear at the allotted time of midi et demi. Gordon phoned the number on the timetable to be told that it wasn’t running this week. So rucksacks on again for 8 mile return walk over the bridge to the Super Marché.

“Waiting for the ferry”

 

“Views from the bridge”

   

“Pics in Benodet during hike to supermarket”

“St Marine in background – where we came from”

“Walk back”

“The result – king prawn & crab linguine”

Incidentally we have clocked up about 50 miles walking in June to date and the same for May. We are just chilling around the boat today, planning our next move and catching up on the blog while we have good wifi.

Hope you are all well

 

On the chart this looks pretty straight forward, but can be anything but – even in meagre wind over tide conditions, and has been one passage Gordon has not been looking forward to. I enclose a picture of it, albeit in severe conditions, to compare with the benign conditions of a Northerly wind and a South going tide that we encountered.

However, with planning and the weather gods, we went through it with full sail up and a nice north easterly 3 – 4 blowing.

We reached Audirene about 19:00 in a fresh breeze and picked up a mooring for the night.

 

 

 

We left L’Aber Wrac’h heading for Camaret sur Mer, which takes you through one of the major tidal gates of Brittany, the Chenal du Four. This is a relatively fast passage once you are in the channel but despite the abuse the baby J got in the last blog all things were very benign, Gordon says this is due to his righteous upbringing in Africa when Mary Mo (his Mum) & his dad thought he was going to be a minister!!!! LOL, we did reach 12 kts over the ground though.

 

 

We reached Camaret at 20:30 and had a brief walk ashore, up the steepest gangway ever.

Shirley would be proud of me !!

Cameret is lovely and we wish we could’ve spent more time here, however we are keen to get through the Raz de Seine while conditions are good, so only a brief photo-stop tour in the morning before leaving

 

We decided to go into Brest for the day. To get there you had to get a connecting bus from L Aber Wrac’h into Lannilis, a nearby town – the fact that this bus didn’t turn up should have given us some sort of clue…..but it didn’t. So we walked the four miles into Lannilis and got the bus to Brest. When we got off the girl who was driving told us that we got the bus back from where we got off and the last bus was 7pm, she wished us a nice day and we went on our merry way, only to find that baby Jesus and his Mam had arranged a public holiday that day and absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing in the city was opened. Baby Jesus also arranged for the sun that morning, kidding us on that it was going to be a nice day but then changed his mind and made the heavens open to torrential rain. Given that there wasn’t much to see except the maritime museum which we binned much to Gordon’s annoyance, we decided after a couple of hours to head back. It was now about 3.45 and we were going for the 4pm bus back. Mais sacre bleu!…………….the driver was trying to tell us the bus back at 7pm was the only bus back. Talk about make a tit of yourself in Brest!!!! Anyway, we found a nice wee Cuban bar of all things and spent a few hours in there. By which time I was three sheets to the wind and couldn’t care less when the bus was.

 

L’Aber Wrac’h turned out to be pretty lively while we were there. A yacht race was on and all sorts of entertainment in the marina; the French equivalent of a barber’s shop quartet; brass band choirs and a kind off middle of the road duet type thing, she was rubbish but he was quite good. There were also sea safety demos – big St Bernard dogs going out and rescuing people in the water. Plenty going on to keep us amused.

There was also some other entertainment that didn’t keep us quite so amused. This guy came in one afternoon with no engine and had to be towed in by a wee boat that just happened to be passing. I offered my assistance but was told by the guy he was fine. I think he was Dutch but he was also flying a Spanish courtesy flag in France… so maybe the Dutch one was a red herring as well. Anyway, he seemed to sleep by day and do everything else between 0200 and 0400 in the morning, which included singing on deck and trying to repair his engine. This went on for two nights before Gordon felt the need to express his view about the middle of the night entertainment. All was quiet after this had been clarified.

Peace before ………………………………….

 

Well, it’s now nearly a week since I updated this and we are still in Padstow. We didn’t really plan to stay for this length of time, it just kind of happened. We had beautiful weather at the start of the week so we wanted to chill and enjoy that but over and above that you can only leave the harbour at certain times of the day which is two hours either side of High Water and also the weather has once again been against us.However, we have had a lovely time here. I’ve been out running and we have done lots of walking. We walked part of the Camel Trail, and no, it’s nothing to do with the humpy ones, it’s that Padstow is on the River Camel.

Yesterday we walked up to Stepper point which is at the beginning of the River. We popped in to have a chat with the Coastwatch people. They have a station at the top of a hill overlooking the entrance to the river where they keep watch on any boats in the area. Not part of the coastguard but they do work with them in event of any emergencies. Seemingly Rick Stein put a lot of money into the restoration of the building they are in.

Saying that, there is not much in Padstow that Rick Stein is not a part of. He has three or is it four restaurants, rental accommodations, fish and chip shop, fish shop, bakery and anything else you can think of in Padstow.

I didn’t get treated to a meal in one of his restaurants, however, I did buy Tiger Prawns, crab meat and a Sicilian lemon of his and made a gorgeous pasta dish that I’m sure even he would have been proud of.(Well maybe)

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention, we have a new member of crew on board now. His name is Padstow Bear.

 

Gorgeous, isn’t he? Anne Marie (the lady on Yacht Fleur that we met in Ireland) made him for us. Who knows, he might be worth something in years to come when she becomes famous.

Anyway, it’s now Sunday 25 May and we are moving on tomorrow. So far we have crossed the North Channel, the Irish Sea, St Georges Channel and the Bristol Channel. Tomorrow it’s going round Lands End. We need to be up at 4am to get out of the harbour and to time it right for getting round Lands End. There is only a three hour period where the tide is with you going round it and it’s advisable that you round it at that time. Hopefully it will be a calm day, the forecast looks OK but they have been known to get it wrong on occasion. I’ll let you know how we get on.

Sailed down past St Ives, past Longships Lighthouse as shown here in the picture, then round Lands End. Once again the sea was very kind to us, I can tell you though, I wouldn’t like to be here when it was rough, it is very exposed

  

 

Anyway, made it into Newlyn, a very traditional fishing port which kind of gets a bad press from some. However, we found everyone to be very nice and the place itself lovely. Fleur of Pendle, the boat we have been sailing along with since Ireland stayed here for one night then carried on to Falmouth. I’m sure we will meet up with them again soon.

Newlyn is about two miles along the coast from Penzance which I was very disappointed in. It’s just a bit tired looking and just not what I imagined it to be.

Gordons’ note ………I thought I was here in the hot summer of 1976 with long hair and hippy clothes but remembered it was St Ives……..the scrumpy must have been too good!

We took a walk into Mousehole which is of course known for the disaster in 1989 when the Penlee RNLI boat were out in storm to hurricane force conditions to the stricken vessel Union Star and after managing to get to some of the crew of the boat in trouble, the Penlee also sank and there were no survivors. Mousehole is a tiny place and lost eight people that night but seemingly a couple of days later there was a queue of people down to volunteer for the RNLI and take the place of those lost.

Mousehole is another one of those typical Cornish fishing villages and very beautiful.

Since we were not sailing round as far as Falmouth we decided to jump on the train and visit it, plus we also had a few bits and bobs we needed to get for the boat and that was the nearest chandlery.

Went for a nice meal in the student area then tried to take a short cut through the University to Pendennis Castle. Me being me, managed to walk straight into an Art class full of students. I think they thought I was the model perhaps. Ha Ha! Gordon mentioned something about Reubens…….can’t possibly think what he means.

Now, I’m not really into castles, however, this one did mean something to me. When I was younger my family emigrated to South Africa but not long after, my Dad passed away and my Mum brought us back to Scotland. We travelled home by liner which was called “The Pendennis Castle”. If my big sis manages to find it and send it on to me, I will post a picture of me going to the captain’s dinner party. But for now, here is a picture of the castle.

We left Newlyn on 30^th May for our next port of call, Roscoff, France. The only thing in between us getting there was the English Channel which was going to take us roughly 22 – 23 hours to cross. This is the one we have not been looking forward to but it was a beautiful day and we had a great sail for the first seven or eight hours. The wind died and we had to motor sail the rest of the way which was fine, the main thing was that it was calm and there were no histrionics.

We picked up a wee passenger part way across who had been having a nap in the stack pack then just sat there for hours hitching a lift over to France.

All I can say about this leg of the trip is “I’m glad it’s over”. It took us 23 ½ hours which is a long time with just two of you on the boat. There was a big swell land no moon, so it was pitch black during the night and all you have to look at is a compass and a chart plotter, not very exciting. That is until you get to the traffic separation zone and the AIS is beeping nineteen to the dozen warning you of other traffic in the area. Like Milford Haven earlier in the trip, the traffic is generally massive tankers with the odd fishing boat trawling thrown in. All very nerve wracking and added an extra hour onto an already very long journey, trying to dodge them and keep out of the way.

DRUM ROLL!

Well, here we are in France. Roscoff to be precise and it’s lovely. We are blinking knackered but feel really pleased that we made it here. Time for a bacon sandwich and a few hours’ kip.

Roscoff has a beautiful new marina which is not mentioned in some of the pilot books as yet

 

To be honest, we were not really expecting very much of this place and were pretty much using it as a stopover to recover from the channel crossing. Can I say Roscoff town is lovely; it has some really old and beautiful architecture. It also has loads of lovely restaurants and creperies which we are looking forward to trying out.

 

It is also famous for Johnnies, that is Onion Johnnies. You know that iconic picture you have seen of French men on bicycles with strands of onions hanging round their neck, well, that’s who the Onion Johnnies were. They would go all over selling their onions.

 

The weather has been lovely here, but today it was a bit dull, that is, until I went to the laundrette.

I walked in and was faced with all these machines which of course, all the instructions were in French as you would expect. There was another lady there that I had already asked for directions to Le Laverie earlier, so I asked in my best pidgin French which machine was for the wash and how to operate it. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but she did look at me kind of strangely but with lots of gesticulating and a French accent like Allo Allo I managed to get the washing in the machine. I informed the helpful lady that I was going for a coffee while it went through its cycle.

On returning to the boat, Gordon asked how I got on. I told him about the helpful lady and how I had managed to ask which machine was for the wash how to operate it. I digress somewhat now. When my Mum was ill, she went into hospital for a lung lavage, which I was always under the impression, was a wash out of the lungs for want of a better description. I told Gordon that this is how I knew the word for wash but had in fact got it totally wrong and said La Vache. He was in stitches……. It seems I said something like “Could you tell me where I can wash my cow”. Honestly, I have been trying to learn French, but I suppose the saying is true “A little knowledge can be dangerous”.

On the other hand, Gordon does pretty well with the language. He had just hoisted the Bretton flag along with the French flag and a wee cheeky Saltire which is not strictly kosher, when a couple of French men came along and were admiring the boat. He got chatting (in French) and they were keen to see the inside of the boat. Next thing the two wives appeared and they all jumped on board. Gordon chatted away quite the thing while I just smiled a lot……. Well, a smile can go a long way. They were very nice people (I am told) and were very impressed that we were flying the Bretton flag as well as the French.

It’s now the 2^nd of June and we will be moving on in the next day or two, so I will try and get some Wi-Fi and post this tomorrow. I’m now off for a wee glass of my very nice French wine that cost Euro 3.50 a bottle. Cheers!

 

 

Well, I didn’t manage to post the blog. Honestly, you would think we were in the back of beyond with the performance we have trying to get wi-fi in Marinas. Most of them have it but it depends where you are moored if it actually reaches to you.

We are now in l’Aber Wrac’h, in fact, we just arrived a couple of hours ago. As yet I can’t tell you anything about it but from what I have heard, there isn’t much to say anyway, meant to be very small with not a lot going on.

We are on a swinging mooring tonight as the marina is full, there is some race on tomorrow so loads of boats in for that. The weather is meant to be pretty wild tomorrow so we might be here for a couple of days to wait it out.

We had a nice sail down most of the way from Roscoff, but the weather was quite changeable. One minute I was all wrapped up then the sun came out and it was roasting. I jumped down below and pulled on my shorts and tee shirt and no sooner had I come back up and it clouded over and got quite chilly again. It’s not meant to be like this, that’s why we came here, for the sunshine! I think we need to still get a bit further south for it to really hot up, however, on the whole the weather has been pretty good so I shouldn’t complain.

The coastline here is pretty impressive, there are rocks jutting out of the sea everywhere you go, so need to be on top of the navigation which is difficult for me as I tend to feel a bit sick when I go down below. The swell of the Atlantic I believe, but Gordon is doing a grand job. We haven’t hit any rocks yet so he must be doing something right.