Ilse Yeu, Southern Brittany, France

We left the crowded anchorage at sunrise for the 50 mile sail to Isle de Yeu.

The wind was perfect and we had a good sail, making excellent time until 1pm then the wind died.  Whenever a calm descends like this you can’t help thinking about the ol prediction - “.. calm before the storm”. We knew there was a big wind expected in 36 hours so it all fitted nicely.
We arrived at a lovely anchorage on Isle de Houat with just three other boats at around 4pm. Beautiful sandy beach with holidaymakers generally playing around the beach.
Bliss.

As the evening drew in, two boats had already left and we were wandering why they would want to leave such a perfect anchage? At 7.30pm the last boat but ours was leaving.

The skipper on the boat was frantically waving and trying to explain with a mixture of hand signs and broken English across from his boat that, “.. at least 25 knots of wind was expected anytime and that we should follow him to the safety of a small harbor around the corner!”.
John immediately downloaded another one of his GRIB files - which again said the wind would not blow until tomorrow.  Hmmmm..?  But then the locals were all moving out of the anchorage - and we were in the ‘Bay of Biscay’ with the expected wind to be from the SW. The forecast said one thing and the locals another.  Hmmm? Our mind was clearly on the side of the formal forecasts. They had never let us down yet in a major way but then, the local were moving out.

We looked at each other. 
In the end it was simple.

·       We decided that we won’t sleep now, anyway.

·       We would feel pretty dumb if the wind did pick up and we were left franticly  upping anchor at midnight.

·       This was meant to be easygoing and stress free.

·       I didn’t really matter whether we stayed here or not.

·       ...it just came down to determining who was right – who cares anyway?

·       We didn’t think we could fit in the marina around the corner anyway.

We up anchored and left for an overnight sail to La Rochelle. We were going to be awake anyway – so why not do something with the time we couldn’t sleep!

We had 30 minutes to make our exit before dark and past the rocks and those inevitable pesky lobster pots!

At that time the wind was enough to sail slowly. The sky was clear and we did not need to be in La Rochelle until the morning to catch the tide and lock so speed was not an issue. Then at 4am the wind really died.  This lake of wind would probably ensure we missed the lock gate opening in the morning and mean we would have to and around for another 12 hours before the next opening time.
..and hang on?
Where was this impending 25 knots the local was frantically telling us about? 

John came up for watch change and I gave him the bad news, “Sorry John because we were only sailing slower than anticipated we now have to make at least 6 knots over ground or we miss the lock into the La Rochelle marina. Will virtually no wind I think we’ll need to put the motor on.”

“Grrr!!!”

I went to bed and left him to sulk on his own with only the consolation being that his GRIB files were actually right and the locals were wrong! ..and with the engine droning away. 

We did have a lovely picturesque motor into La Rochelle via a small dredged channel.

The wind did come with vengeance 12hours later just as the GRIB files had predicted.