From Guernsey to Brittany & Beyond...
Tillymint.fortescue
Sat 1 Aug 2009 10:34
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Thursday 30 July - oh the luxury of a long holiday,
I just had to check with one of the bright young minds on board as to the exact
day of the week. Days merge and the decisions of the moment are governed by
weather, wind and tide and of course the now customary daily repair challenge.
Yesterday we walked to the airport to pick up the spare parts for the winch,
quite a stretch of the legs as it took 2 hours, but a good way to pass the
morning and see something of the Island beyond the port. The weather has
been a bit inclement for sailing; high winds and rough seas so we were
happy to sit out the day alongside our pontoon playing boats. Skipper thinks we
are getting soft, losing the fighting edge we honed at anchor in Alderney and
worries that I may go native; I can, after all, see an M&S foodstore from
the bow of our houseboat.
We just had a lovely chat with a neighbouring crew
aboard WildFlower. They are also headed for the Canaries and then the ARC so
it's been fun to compare notes and plans. They are having a day trip to Herm
today and then heading for Jersey, lots of little hops along the way but
then they have allowed the next 4 months to get there and we have just 4 more
weeks! The winch is now
fixed (Skipper has his Brownie badge in winch stripping) and the
weather looks set to settle for our departure; it'll be a 24 hour sail
leaving on the afternoon tide. This will be our longest passage yet, some 130
nautical miles, out performing our previous best of 19 hours and 100
miles to Falmouth 2 years ago.
Our Falmouth trip really belongs to another story
but it was quite a night, all motors, chop, close hauled, wet and cold. We made
the voyage 24 hours ahead of the start of The Fastnet Race which was
itself troubled by bad storms. It was a rather unpleasant
experience (all but the skipper felled by seasickness by voyage's end) and
taught me well that it's not nice sailing into the wind, in the chop, with the
motor on. Rather like childbirth in context, this trip was the start of a great
fun 2 weeks in Cornwall which we would have missed if we'd dithered about
setting off, so the bad stuff was soon forgotten (almost) We are excited with the anticipation of at last
reaching a port we haven't been to before. Apparently the north coast of
Brittany is "Rock City" and few harbours could accommodate a boat with
Tilly Mint's draft, so we have to go all the way round the
corner of France before we can park, I know this assessment is a
little unfair on the rocky north coast but it really just reflects our desire to
raise the batting average and get more sea miles under our belt. Our next
port of call is Camaret sur mer (worryingly not "Camaret pres de
l'aerogare", let's hope nothing else breaks....). The afternoon is bright and fine, still blowy but winds are forecast
to drop and go round to the north west a bit which will be ideal. All was
ship shape as we left our beloved pontoon and put our nose out into the
Channel. At first it was lovely but then as we pointed towards Brittany we had
the wind on our nose, the swell was conspicuous by its presence
and we had to motor to maintain our heading. My three harbingers of doom
and we have 24 hours of this ahead..........
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