Credits:
Heartfelt, gasping, teardrenched thanks in equal order of merit to:
Neil, Stephen, Harry, Spike, Ian, Alan and Martin for being such companionable and efficient crew, without whom the whole thing would have been so much easier:
Anne Morice, the organisers, the sponsors (benevoles in Fr.) of the Festival and the people of the ports in the Morbihan who welcomed us so heartily, and were so generous in the browsing and sluicing departments:
All the accordionists and bagpipers whose work was so much more interesting for not having done much practice:
Marcita, for looking after us when we were attacked by big waves, and sailing so beautifully when we weren't:
Ian and Jonathan, for letting an an old eejit take her for a thousand mile sail:
And finally, the many crustaces whose noble sacrifice fuelled our trip.
To those members who expressed an interest but didn't get round to coming: you missed a good thing, kids.
Here endeth this blog.
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Comments [3]
Thank you
Chace Anderson
s/v Windaway Pacific Seacraft 40
Sark to Southampton
But then, the trip ended with the most magical moment of my sailing experience. We left Sark in a blaze of sunshine and a brisk breeze, sailing off the mooring in true CSC style, only to be becalmed in the bay moments later. With a SW 2/3 we decided to take the plunge and not stop at Alderney ( good choice as it turned out, because the next day was unforecastly fierce) and had a well boring 12 hours motor-sailing across the Channel, having to hold the main sheet to stop the sail constantly banging in the lack of wind.
But as we reached the Needles at 0030 the wind picked up and we sailed into the Solent, sailing gently at 1.5 kn in 5 kn of wind and 2.5 in 7 kn. Moon on the water, gentle ripples from the bow, so quiet you could hear conversations on the shore. But then the magic happened, as if to provide a contemplative coda to the voyage. The wind dropped to zero, I left the helm to attend to something, and when I returned, Marcita had hove to, the apparent wind from 2 kn of tide enough to keep her going, and was ghosting along the exact course (straight down tide) crabwise. I thought, well if that's what she wants to do.... and for half an hour I didn't touch the tiller. The wind shifted back and forth, and her aspect with it, but always on course. But the magical thing was the silence. No ripples from the bow, no creaking of rigging, not a sound, just floating down a moonbeam. When a fish rose beside the boat, the sound was so loud I nearly jumped out of my skin.
I went into a trance, and when Martin came on deck for his watch he fell into it too and we sat there under a spell.
It was at that moment that the mermaid said: "Time's up deary. D'you want to pay for another round?"
The pic is of her moored off Greve de la ville, Sark
Anyway, we're back in one piece, wishing it would never end, and already looking forward to the next one.
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Morlaix to Sark
We were faced with the prospect of light northerly winds to get home, long distances and not much sailing, but the prospect of the lovely Ploumanac'h (pic) as a stopping place. It's called the rose granite coast, strewn with pink rocks the size of small asteroids, and arranged by a master gardener. And so it was for a couple of days, some slow sailing and some motoring, up to St. Peter Port. We saw a dolphin, one only, on the way in, but it didn't come and surf our bow wave as we invited it to do. But we had a day in hand, sunny, and decided to go to Sark, and then either Braye or Cherbourg before the big hop.
Crew morale low due to lack of rope-pulling, wind getting colder, end of idyll engendering thoughts of turning round and going back south. But then ......
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48 35.169N:003 50.184W
Morlaix (Orange wifi access rip off, jerk off, f off. Thieves and cheats)
As we were locking in here, Suzalah, a lovely BCYC Buchanan that we've raced on Caressa, was locking out. Very short conversation:
Suzalah: "Hi Brian. Were you at the Semaine du Golfe?"
Us: "Hi Richard. Yes. Are you going South?"
Suzalah: "Sorry we missed it. Yes."
Both: "Bon voyage."
I put this pic up, not to show you parking Morlaix style, but to indicate how narrow the channel up here is - min depth under keel 0m at half tide. But the way in is spectacular - a huge castle on a rock, built to keep out the Brits who kept coming to pillage the place, some beautiful rocks to be avoided, and then a peaceful winding river up which you sail sometimes only feet away from the bank. I picked up a sizeable buoy to wait for the tide, and was woken from a peaceful snooze by the rightful owners claiming it for their large oyster farm boat. They literally picked it up - they used the crane to lift the whole buoy on deck, threaded the line and popped it back in the water. I deduced from the associated jocularity that this was the party trick of the crane operator.
We left Aber Wrac'h in the dark, declining a narrow short cut with spring tides running through it, then downwind along the coast, also declining the short cut south of the Ile de Batz on a falling tide, so a few miles longer than necessary, but bowled along except for the last hour. Dodged a couple of ferries the size of small mountains going in to Roscoff, greeted a local yachtie as he passed, and followed him up the river with just the Genoa, 1 kn tide, 1 kn boat speed, perfect - you could fall asleep at the helm if you didn't have to turn a corner every two minutes and if the scenery wasn't so mesmerising.
The rain it raineth every day
Upon the just and unjust fella
But more upon the just
Because the unjust hath the just's umbrella.
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48 35.967N:004 33.678W
L'Aber Wrac'h.
Three sides of a square today with a forecast W 4/5, and the spring tide with us all the way. First beating out of the Goulet de Brest for a couple of hours, arriving at the Pointe St. Mathieu just as the tide turns northwards. Then a lovely reach up the Chenal du Four at 7/8 kn, then a run past Portsall, and finally SE into Aber Wrac'h. Rough water with wind against tide coming out of Brest, and again off Portsall with a bit of Atlantic swell, but that's two of the three big tidal gates on the way back negotiated. The pic shows the Pointe de St. Mathieu where you turn right to go up the Chenal. It probably looks quite boring, but it's exciting if you're being swooshed round by a spring tide so insistent that you couldn't turn back if you didn't like the look of it.
There's an interesting exercise in weather forecasting tonight. I have 3 forecasts, all astonishingly different: one says E 3/4 all day, one says SW 7, and one says E veering S to SW. This is the one I favour, as there's a low off Finisterre, passing by here tomorrow into the English Channel, and that's what you'd expect. As that means rain all day and we can't possibly get our designer foulies all wet, we shall stay put and order some sun for Thursday. Wet ropes are murder to one's moisturising regime.
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We're blockaded in Brest by 2 low pressure systems making the Chenal du Four a bit too taxing for us. There were 25 kn of wind in the marina yesterday and the beating of unfrapped halyards against aluminium masts sounded like a Ukrainian percussion section on speed, trying to play the samba but getting it all wrong. It needed my spoons player to make sense of it all. It usually starts with one, setting up a promising rhythm that invites cooperation, but then the rest of them start and some of them don't get it. When the rigging in the marina starts howling like a cartoon wolf at full moon it's time to start looking at the cinema schedules.
The pic is of a 100 ft Spirit called Gaia moored just along from us. The after deck is the size of a football pitch, and the fenders are held on with leather-covered clamps which I think have her name engraved on them. But as it's pelting down with rain, I'm not walking along to check. In the bqsin there are also 2 white ensigns, and a trimaran the size of a reasonably long-distance spaceship. So if I manage to blag an aperitif tonight I trust it will be in a proper glass. Possibly served by a waiter in a white coat who's run away to sea after an embarrassing incident with a client involving diving equipment, a pet chihuaha and some ostrich-feather baggywrinkles. You do meet all sorts at sea.
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