Monday 23 May, 2016

Benodet, Brittany France 47 52.8N 04 07.1W

Today's Blog by David  (Time zone: BST+1; UTC +2)

With our usual precision punctuality, the crew eventually assembled for the 11.00AM muster by circa 12.30 on Saturday.  Ted, having spent 30 hours travelling from Australia, had just found out just how welcome he was in Britain as the Passport control people subjected everyone arriving on his Singapore flight  to a forensic examination of their credentials,  intentions and reasons for wanting to enter the country, the resulting queue extending Ted’s passage through the formalities to  over 100 minutes.  Must be a great comfort to  everyone to know Europe’s borders are so assiduously secured – a real deterrent to anyone considering seeking to enter the country illegally.

Rather than spend ages getting  everything precisely stowed, we set sail for Studland Bay for a shake down/up sail where we anchored overnight to allow the rain to pass and us to bring some order below. In the meantime, Peter had assumed his usual position at the chart table – warm and dry  J.

On Sunday we set off motoring into a light westerly forecast, which fulfilled its promise that the wind would fill in from the north west later. This allowed us a fast passage to Ouessant, allowing us to arrive at the Chenal De Four – as planned, no, really, as planned -  just as the tide turned favourable!  So we squirted through the Chenal and then across to the Raz De Sein catching that tidal gate on the same favorable tide. Remarkable I know, but that’s what proper planning is all about ….

Now, when the French do navigation marks, they do them big: this west 36ft tall Cardinal mark  guarding the rocks to the west of the Veille Lighthouse (pictured)  at the end of Point du Raz would itself be a light house in most parts of the world:

We rounded it around 10.00AM, having made such good time that we decided we deserved some French Cuisine for dinner.  We looked into Audierne but couldn’t find a safe anchorage and eventually ended up for dinner here in Benodet a delightful town in West Brittany.

More soon.