We gave ourselves all day to travel back down the Vilaine river and out of the Arzal lock, approx. 20 miles away. Unfortunately it was grey, overcast and showery all day, but I must say it was good to be on the move again.

As we left Redon, the wind was on our nose and remained with us all day - no chance of sailing then!.

Once again we were fortunate enough to spot another otter and several herons, as well as observe one of the fishing boats with crane in action as we passed by at a steady 4.5 knots.



I'm pleased to say our timing was pretty accurate and we arrived within five minutes of the opening of Cran bridge. Along with five other yachts, we all waited circling one another until the bridge lifted and we all went through in an orderly fashion. Once again we waved to the man in the control tower to say 'thank you'.



Passing under the overhead power lines and under the road bridges at La Roche Bernard we noticed that it was certainly busier than when we had visited a few weeks before. The vedettes were also travelling up/down river.



We passed another HT named "Ocean Rose" and not long afterwards took an empty buoy for a brief lunch stop.

On the final approach to the Arzal lock, I dressed Drummer with all her fenders in readiness for the transit. Once again we were just a few minutes early so rather than wait on the waiting pontoon we decided that we should take the opportunity to try and download the latest Grib file (weather forecast). So whilst Bruce circled around near the Marina, I switched on the laptop, plugged in the external Wi-Fi aerial and after several attempts to get internet access managed to download the latest forecast - just in time for us to enter the lock.

The lock keeper instructed us to go behind another multihull and once again kindly took our ropes. A yacht came alongside and moored up, but unfortunately dropped one of their fenders which promptly disappeared underneath Drummer. We had a look as best we could (it's quite difficult when you're on deck and you need to get your head down to almost water level) but we were unable to see it and decided that we would look again once we started to exit the lock . Hopefully given our wash the fender would be forced out. With all the antics going on in the lock, not surprisingly it drew quite a large audience.

Once the lock gate opened and as we started to leave, the fender appeared, so With boat hook in hand, I tried to capture it. I missed a couple of times, hearing the audience gasp and arh with each try. Third time lucky and the audience cheered and clapped so I took a bow, said 'Merci' and then waved the fender at the yacht so they could wait until we were in a position to pass it back to them - for a moment there we were the, now famous UK couple on a small cat, fishing for a lost fender!

Once through the lock we decided to motor over to an empty buoy just outside the Dam for an overnight stop before catching the morning tide. Unfortunately after a couple of quick calculations, Bruce said there was a possibility that we may dry out here so we decided to relocate to the jetty on the opposite side of the river parallel with the main channel.

It's amazing how quickly you can become accustomed to your environment; having spent three weeks up the river with no tides, winds or depths to concern yourself with and no boat movement to speak of, as we came through the Arzal lock and into seawater it all changed - waves, depth restrictions and currents!

Tomorrow we move on Pornichet and because we've been in freshwater for a few weeks all the growth & weed on Drummer's bottom has now been killed so were hoping for a fast passage - Marvellous!

Total distance this season: 512.25 nautical miles