Leaving Benodet….was quite tricky as we were being pushed onto the pontoon by the wind and a reasonably fast flowing ebb of the tide. This needed a few fenders on the bow a long spring and a few rpm from the motor to push the stern out and quickly back away before you could be pushed onto the pontoon again. Still seriously considering that bow thruster…..
Our sail down to Port Tudy on the “Ile de Griox” was uneventful, being pushed along by a gentle NNW breeze. We gull winged it all the way with the headsail poled out on the port side, as we dropped sail and headed into the harbour the ferry was just pulling out, so we waited for him to depart before entering the harbour. This was a very tight piece of water, with boats crammed into every corner. I pivoted Songbird on her keel with only a couple of metres either end, then reversed on to a hammerhead. I dropped a fender into the water trying to stop the stern taking a wallop, swearing loudly, but the saving grace, was Shar has perfected the mid-cleat lasso method and stopped Songbird in her tracks with a tightly drawn mid-cleat brake. This is a pivotal piece of mooring technique that makes tying up easy. If this mid-cleat on and there are half a dozen fenders down the side, then no damage can be done, regardless of wind or current…..she was going nowhere….you can then just step off the boat and tie up the bow stern and throw on a few springs and job done……
On this landing…..Shar said time for a beer……so a quick shower and headed straight off to the Brasserie to down a beer and watch the light fade as the sun went down….I liked this Island…it had a rustic feel about it…set up for the tourist trade, but simple and unspoilt, Shar wasn’t fussed, the showers were too cold…... We hired bikes and set off for a day’s touring, but spent most of it on the walk path carrying the bikes up and down steps. The up side was it took us to the best places…..we found a beach with beautiful white sand, which looked as though it had been shipped in (it wasn’t) as it looked nothing like the surrounding rock. At the end of the day we somehow ended up back at the brasserie, I had acquired a taste for a beer they served called “Leffy” which apparently is a recipe from some monks in a Monastery….I normally don’t drink beer but this was great… We tried to go and see a movie at the local Cinema, as they had a number of new releases from overseas, unfortunately the movie showing that night was in french and looked like a movie that would be too hard to follow.