Fog and fortuity.

Nothing interesting to report between St. Malo and l'Aber Wrac'h, boring hot motoring in no wind. But the fun started on Friday night.

I woke in the night at l'Aber Wrac'h to the sound of a foghorn out to sea, and at dawn it was thick. I set off in vis of 2 boat lengths, blundered about the channel for a while, and turned back. Just as I was tying up, the fog lifted, the thin morning sun illuminated the river, and five French boats were passing me in flotilla. I shouted to the skipper of a red hull to whom I'd spoken the night before that it was too difficult for me, and he replied, no it's easy, follow us. So I cast off again, but of course lost them when the next bank of fog rolled in. But by then I was committed. The breath of wind was going to be dead astern, I had no Genoa because we'd managed to disassemble the furling gear, but not reassemble it, and with no wind, if the engine packed up in the Chenal du Four, I'd be in trouble. Also the chartplotter had died, so I'd be using the iphone to navigate. (Don't knock it. It's a fragile toy, but boy is it good. (For the RYA instructors out there, of course I had paper charts, a detailed passage plan and 2 different black and white GPSs.))

OK, we got to Brest with no dramas, so Monday morning I go to the office of the Chantier du Guip, a proper wooden boat yard, and the chap there gives me the number of the good rigger to fix the furler, and who shows up but Monsieur red hull. He laughs when he realises it's me, he shrugs amiably when he looks at the furler, and reassembles it in an hour with no fuss, chatting of the sea, the gear, the weather and the Bretons. Thank you Eric Cochet. I love you.

The first boat to arrive here for Brest Classic Week was Pazienza, a Laurent Giles 60 foot cutter-rigged sloop which has just had a major refit, and everything on her is gleaming. Also to come is Pen Duick, the first one, the original William Fife gaffer which Eric inherited from his father, and if you haven't read it, Tabarly, the story of Eric Tabarly and his 6 Pen Duicks, is a rattling good read, and I'll précis it here when I can post a pic of her. Today Suzalah arrived, another BCYC boat based in the Morbihan.

I'm going bimbling in the Rade de Brest for a few days, away from cyberspace, where there are lovely anchorages up rivers and estuaries, and glorious bays to stop in, but will post fictitious tales of derring-do and seduction on the high seas (well, the inland sea, really) on my return, when the hard-core racing fraternity will be arriving. Bring 'em on, say I, I can follow them round the course as long as they don't get so far ahead that I have to consult the instructions.

They have Breizh (Breton) Cola here. And like every other Cola they all feel obliged to copy as near as a lawsuit the Coca Cola colour and logo. If you want to drink 17 teaspoons of sugar, does the advertising have to be red? Is it perhaps subtle socialist propaganda? No, surely not.

The pic is of dawn at l'Aber Wrac'h before the fog came in.