Le Palais to Kerneval
The Voyages of Richard and Amanda
Sat 3 Jul 2010 16:44
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POS: 47:43.21N 003:22.06W
Had a good night at Le Palais we didn't actually go
anywhere as we were both exhausted after walking round the Citadel and we'd had
a good lunch in town, so it was a case of chill out on the boat watching the
world go by with a couple of drinks each and a plate of nibbles. Its fascinating
watching the boats come in and seeing who has come from where. A Dufour 425
moored up alongside us with 4 British men on board. They were bound for La
Rochelle from Jersey and just stayed the night before moving off.
We were up at 8.30am for breakfast then I rowed to
shore to check the latest weather, supposed to be N 3-4 NE around midday with
sea breezes up to F5. Not bad for a NW trip to Ile de Groix, so we set of at
10am to get NW 2 and a choppy sea with quite a bit of swell. So on with the
engine for a bit of motor sailing. We motored for about 2.5 hours then found
that the wind had swung round to a WNW direction at about a F3 which meant we
were quite close to the required track on a port tack, so we started sailing. We
also decided that we would change destination and reset the chartplotter to give
us a course to Rade de Lorient, about 7 miles furthur, but more importantly on a
heading that allowed us to bear away slightly to get to it, which meant that the
sailing was easier.
In the end the last 12 miles turned into a great
sail, one of the best so far. The wind continued to back to a Westerly and built
up to about 16knots and the sun was shining. We had all sail set and were doing
6.5 to 7knots over the ground whilst closehauled. Justine Gabrielle was
perfectly balanced, just a bit of weather helm and you could steer with your
little finger!!.
The last couple of miles were probably just a bit
too much for Amanda as the wind picked up to 20knots, but J G still handled
beautifully. If we had started at 20knots at the beginning, I would have
reefed a bit but with just a mile to go it was great to see how well she
handled the weather. We arrived at our waypoint at the entrance to the harbour,
headed upwind to roll up the mainsail then continued for the last mile into the
harbour under just the genoa.
It is a real sailing centre here there are 5
marinas in the bay with the main city Lorient further up the harbour. On the way
in we needed to get past big Open 40's (really fast monohulls - very high
tech), fishing boats coming in, power boats coming out and little dinghies
charging around all over the place. (Just like Chichester Harbour on race day,
even down to the big swells coming up behind you). We finally tied up in
Kerneval Marina just inside the entrance. (Not the cheapest at 31Euro for the
night, but still cheaper than the Solent)
We will be relaxing tonight and trying a paella mix
we bought, which looks quite good as long as we can decode/guess at the
instructions, which are in French. How dificult can it be???
Tomorrow will be heading West not sure where to
exactly, it will depend on the wind. The weather is looking good though with
high pressure building, so hopefully we can keep out of the dreaded rain for a
bit longer.
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