In Camaret

Discovery Magic's Blog
John & Caroline Charnley
Fri 9 Apr 2010 13:04
In Camaret, Brittany!

The last few days have been a bit manic! Having spent two days in
Weymouth catching up with all of Caroline's family, which was great, we
set off at dawn on Thursday 7th for either Dartmouth or France. With the
wind forecast to ease over the coming days, we decided to head straight
for Camaret.

With the wind on the beam, we cracked along at 8 to 10 knots. A rather
lumpy sea made a less than comfortable trip - but the sun was shining - at
last! All was uneventful until the middle of the night as we were some 25
miles north of the Brittany coast. I was asleep and C was trying to work
out a radar target when all hell broke loose! To cut a long story short,
we were attacked by the French aircraft carrier - Charles de Gaulle! As we
had discovered earlier in the day when not far from HMS Westminster,
warships don't display any AIS information. In the past I had always
maintained that if you come across an aircraft carier flying aircraft on a
right hand circuit, and restricted in her ability to manouvre you may have
to refresh your knowledge of her lights by looking up the manual! This one
looked a bit like an oil rig - but moving at variable speeds. The scream
of jets overhead was interupted by the clatter of a helicopter and a
blindng searchlight on us. By now I was on deck - less than fully dressed
in the freezing wind!

We decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and in the
interests of l'entent cordial, we should go about - and pronto!

Calm restored, we entered the Chenel du Four for a dawn arrival in this
delightful Breton fishing village. Looking forward to a couple of days of
chilling out before going on to Lorient for the new all multihull boat
show there 15-18 April.