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.

Well. I suppose I better get this thing started before I forget where we have been. It’s now 20th May 2014 and we have started our Big Trip. In fact it started on 4 April when we moved out of the house and onto Camira indefinitely. The house is let out on an initial contract of eighteen months with a view to it being extended assuming all things are going well and we are enjoying our new lifestyle. Time will tell. The move out of the house went well, Gordon and I managed to do it ourselves, however, it was heavy work and when we move back in, I will be getting “a man in” to do the move. It took two trips of loading the van and then unloading the van and then loading it all into storage containers. I know a great storage company called Absolute Self Storage if you ever have the need. For some reason I didn’t think we had a lot of stuff…..Mmmm! I suppose after twenty three years of marriage you do accumulate a lot of things(Gordon’s note- aye one thing too many!), albeit, we had been clearing out for months before hand, selling things on Gumtree, car boot sales, charity shops, you name it, we did it. We moved onto the boat in Ardrossan Clyde Marina

thinking all we had to do, after having most of the work done during the winter, was a couple of more jobs and some test sails and then get on our way. Our first job however was to try and find space on the boat for all our stuff. Oh my goodness! When we got everything on the boat, there was barely room for us to move let alone move things into their proper place, but we got there in the end. As for the jobs still to be done, cockpit shower, expansion vessel for the water system, new spray hood, dodgers, stack pack and new sail to be fitted, these were all small jobs, well in time, perhaps not in money, but like any job on the boat it takes much longer than you think. To top it all, the insurance companies started adding to our list saying they wanted new guard rails to be put on, £200, a gas check done, £120 and the shore power checked, we drew the line at that one and said no which they seemed to accept. After meeting up with friends

and a sad goodbye to my big sis and Harry we finally set off on April. We were heading to
Campbeltown for our shakedown sail where we spent a couple of days due to some hefty winds. We made our way to Glenarm in N Ireland across the North Channel

During the passage we noticed Camira has developed a prop whistle at certain revs, which Gordon believes is as result of the underwater profile changes of removing the old log and fitting new raw water intake. He also says he is trying to get it to whistle either the Sash or the Minstrel Boy depending on our ultimate arrival port. We were picking up our friend Kevin who planned on coming with us across the English Channel as he has done it many times and his experience would have been invaluable to us on our 1^st attempt. We met up with Kevin on Tuesday 29^th April, and after saying bye to Arline and Big Alex, who had come to say cheerio we set off for Ardglass. We arranged a spare Camira polo shirt for him as befitting the crew……………
as you can see he is delighted with it LOL

 
We stayed two nights in Ardglass, again because of high winds. This was our 1^st meeting with Fleur of Pendle (the bigger boat next to ours)

We left Ardglass on the Thursday afternoon and got to Bangor late on with an early start planned for the next day no shore time. Next stop Howth, near Dublin, our first foot outside the UK and our first
 courtesy flag was hoisted.

 

 On Saturday Kevin left the boat and Arline came down to pick him up and supplied us with a nice bottle of wine, a godsend as we had ran out of euros and the only Howth ATM was out of action. There were a few days of really windy weather forecast and Kevin had other commitments so was unable to stay any longer and see us across the English Channel. It’s now Monday 5 May and we are still in Howth, the wrong side of the Irish Sea, the forecast is awful and we have no idea when we will get going again. Our next leg should be down to Arklow and then back across the St Georges channel which is going to be about a 15 hour trip to Milford Haven before heading down towards Lands End, another long trip and then across the English channel to France. On the 18^th May. We eventually left Howth after 8 days of really strong winds and gales. Howth is a lovely wee place but eight days is a long time when it’s not by choice. However, we passed the time well, Frank Kelly in the sailing club bar kept us belly laughing and even supplied is with food left over from a wake , a trip to Dublin, lots of nice walks, especially the costal walks and our first wee bit of entertaining on the boat. A lovely couple, Mick and Anne-Marie, from Pendle who have been sailing the same route as us since Bangor. Their boat is called Fleur and it so happens that they are planning to go to Portugal which is where we also want to be by the end of the summer, all going well.
 

Our next stop was Arklow, this is where Ballykissangel was filmed. We sailed down past the Arklow banks where they now have windmills………….at least we shouldn’t hit them

We didn’t get to see any of Arklow as we had a broken stanchion which had to be repaired with the invaluable help of Mick. He is like a dog with a bone, he won’t leave it till the jobs complete, which was great for us because by the end of the day we had managed to get the engineering company at the marina to drill out screws in the stanchion and Gordon and Mick refitted it to the boat making it safe for us to carry on. The marina in Arklow is pretty awful, it is so small manoeuvring in it is very tight and when the tide comes in so much rubbish is washed into the marina. YUK! The river itself is nice though

  

Oh well, it has to be done, our first overnight sail and it’s across the Irish Sea to Milford Haven. We left Arklow about lunch time, it was a nice sunny day and the forecast was good. Not a great deal of wind so it was a motor sail. The first half of the sixteen hour journey was fine but as we got about half way across, because it has been very windy for the last week or so here, it was a very corkscrewing sail for the second half. There was also the excitement (or was it apprehension), of night time approaching. Anyway, I can only say the second half of the journey was not nice, we didn’t manage to get a break routine going so we were absolutely shattered. I couldn’t go down below because of the type of sea for fear of being sick, so poor Gordon had to do all the navigation, in between heating up hot water bottles for me to keep me warm when I helmed. Then there is the approach to Milford Haven…. We thought it might have been a bit lighter by the time we got there but in fact it was still pretty much black out there. For anyone who hasn’t been there, the estuary running up to the marina has oil and gas refineries, lights everywhere, there are two channels into the estuary but on the approach you can see the lights for both channels making it initially, very confusing. To add to this there are huge and I mean huge oil tankers, ferries and boats all over the place also displaying navigation light from which you have to establish which direction they are going in. Oh, and I forgot to mention, tides that would pick a wee yacht up and spit it out at the drop of a hat. All in a day’s sailing to the crew of Camira and Fleur! We got in about 5am and went straight to bed for a very well earned rest.

 

Once in the Marina it was a very nice place, the people were lovely and we had some lovely weather while we were there. We paid a visit to the large Tesco to stock up on things as this might be the last time we can get things like good tea bags and my hair dye before getting to France. (Gordon’s note –
not my hair dye)

 

We left Milford Haven the following evening, another night time sail taking us about nineteen hours due to the timing of when you are allowed to leave the Lock at Milford Haven marina and having to arrive two hours before or after high water at Padstow, our next stopping place.

 

We had a very pleasant sail across the Bristol Channel to Padstow, no wind, so another motoring job, but hey, that’s fine, we will get plenty sailing later on and on these types of crossings, you would prefer no wind to anything too lively. We did however have the company of porpoises & dolphins from about 3am for most of the day. They are so beautiful to watch, but also so quick it’s almost impossible to get a good picture of them jumping out of the water playing in the wake of the boat. Sorry, I tried for hours to get one of them jumping but to no avail.

This was an altogether more pleasant sail, we managed to get a three on, three off shift going so it made it a whole lot easier, it also helped that it was flat calm, a full moon at night and sunshine by day, other than a wee bit of fog where I had to wake Gordon to come up on deck to help keep a look
out.

 

Like Milford Haven, Padstow harbour can only be entered at certain times. Outside the harbour gate it dries out and you must follow the stated channel into the harbour. Again, it’s very tidal so you need to be very careful not to stray too far otherwise you could end up going aground. You don’t really appreciate how much it dries out until you see it at low tide. Hard to believe this is the same area.

Our friends Dave and Iain came to visit yesterday, they stayed over last night so needless to say we had a bit of a night!!!. It was so good to see them and as usual we had such a laugh and a great time.

 

Feeling pretty tired after the merriment of last night so I think it will be an early night tonight then make a decision about when we’re heading off probably to Newlyn which is round the corner from Lands End

 

Currently listening to a brilliant “Sinatra” singer on the quayside 10ft from our boat

After spending a night in Campbelltown we went up to Portavadie.

We were meeting our friends Brian and Hazel from Broughty Ferry. In fact, they only left an hour or so ago after having a lovely weekend with them.

The weather was pretty rubbish but we did manage out for an evening sail on the Saturday which was great.

However, on the way back in we lost the main halyard to the top of the mast and the only way to get it back was for someone to go up the mast. We nominated Brian for this as he is the lightest, however he encountered some difficulty getting past the radar reflector so down he came and up went Gordon. Let me tell you, after having hoisted Brian up on the winch followed by Gordon my back and arms were blinking killing me. Anyway, good try Brian if it hadn’t been for the Radar thingy you would have made it.

Anyway, just when we thought we had retrieved it successfully, we noticed that Gordon had brought it down the wrong side of the spreaders, so…….yes you’ve guessed it, up he went again. I swore at that point as soon as he was back down I was putting him on a diet.

Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures of this as it was all a bit urgent as it was getting dark and so was the skippers mood, the last thing we had time for was a photo shoot.

We made it up to the restaurant for the back of nine for dinner and a very well earned glass or two of wine.

Cheers B & H and thanks for a lovely weekend.

 

We are now well and truly back in the Clyde.

Camira is berthed up in Ardrossan Harbour where she will stay for the winter, but not quite yet!         

We are off to Tarbert for the music festival next weekend, weather permitting.

For next year, hopefully Gordon will look at a proper blog so that you can choose when and where, to keep up with us, (or not) and our misadventures.

Editor’s note as you can see not only has he created a “proper” blog he has also retrospectively created these posts originally sent by e-mail

Bye for now, hopefully see some of you soon.

Unfortunately, it was a flying visit to N Ireland; the weather once again was forecast to get a bit rough for the weekend so we decided to cut our losses and head back to Scotland via Rathlin again.

The sail to Rathlin was a wee bit more lumpy than the pervious one and the visibility came & went.

  

The next day however it was an early rise and things were a lot clearer

 

Once more the sail across the North Channel was great, thank goodness.

Time for a snooze.

We are now waiting for the tide and leaving here at 2.30 today.

Well that’s the plan; Kev always leaves half an hour earlier than we plan. Don’t you Kev?

I’ve just done my housework and had a shower, which involves getting into my swimsuit and bringing the cold water hose from the pontoon into the cockpit (not a pretty sight).

Gordon has cleaned out the fuel and water separator, so a busy wee morning. Time for a coffee now, so will catch up with you all soon.

  

We made it to Portrush and met up with Arline, that’s Kevin’s wife for those that don’t know her. She was with Steve that we met earlier on our trip and Steve’s wife Sumter, what a nice couple, and if we are ever in Birmingham Alabama, we will drop in to see you.

We went to the Harbour Bistro for dinner, well, what a great meal, you must go if you are ever there. Anyway, we had a lovely night in there and then back to Kev and Arline’s boat for a nightcap.

 

 

Arline, it was lovely to see you, it had been far too long and thank you for the pork and apple casserole it was delicious, as were your home grown tomatoes, we had the casserole over the next two nights, along with the rest of the fruit loaf, yes…..the diet has gone to pot again.

We are currently in Rathlin.

This was a new step for us, we’ve never been across the North Channel in Camira.

Piece of cake!  Only cause it was a nice calm day, however, you still get the sense of power in the sea, even although it was calm, you still get that big swell which just serves as a wee reminder as to how powerful it is. Thankfully, it was very kind to us.

    

Anyway, next stop Islay.

If you ever go there and go to Port Ellen, go to the local Indian restaurant, it’s great. It’s like a wee old fashioned café and a great wee woman is the waitress. She is lovely, kind of like your Granny. It’s all a bit haphazard; there are no frills, just a really nice meal.

The Islay hotel is also really nice, Kevin’s friend Roland owns this and has done it up lovely, quite a contrast in décor to The Maharani.

 

The Paps of Jura and Krystal in light winds.

 

Approaching Port Ellen

 

Harbour seal who gets fed by the fishermen

   

Harbour views Port Ellen