48:16.75N 04:35.33W

We had been looking forward to a lovely west country cruise on our way to France but the Cornish weather got the better of us and with strong gales forecast for later in the week we decided to make a dash for France.  The morning forecast showed a weather window on Monday with the wind from the west for the next 24 hours, ideal for a southerly crossing if a little strong.  So without the planned last minute stocking up on British essentials such as mature cheddar cheese we left our beautiful anchorage at Maggoty Bank on the River Fal at 1300h.

Leaving Falmouth with our last sight of England and with Sir Humphrey the Hydrovane steering

With the wind gusting at 33 knots on the beam, the sea bigger than we have seen for a while, two reefs in the main and only the staysail we managed a great 7-8 knots of boat speed and a lovely if bumpy sail.  We stuffed tea towels in every cupboard to try to prevent the constant rattling of plates and jars but didn’t really manage to get any sleep until it calmed down a bit at around 3am.  The wind had dropped by the morning and typically we ended up motoring the last few miles into Camaret but it was in beautiful sunshine.  We celebrated last night with a lovely meal out and Camaret was buzzing with live bands playing outside on the street.

Our second only sun set since we left!  (Taken 1/3 of the way across the Channel)

Unfortunately the weather didn’t last and we are now (Wednesday morning) sitting on the boat in torrential rain with the wind gusting at 25 knots, it always sounds worse down below in a marina though, hence the extra long blog!!!  It was even too miserable for Alan to make his usual early morning trip to the boulangerie to get fresh bread and croissant.

Now that we have left the UK it feels like the adventure has properly started, but it looks like we need to go a bit further south to find better weather.

We still have to do battle with Vodafone to get data roaming working on our mobile phones in France, so this update is sent via the satphone, hence the limited photos, but we promise to send more photo once we get more bandwidth.