48:23.551N 004:25.005W
Whisper
Noel Dilly
Wed 18 Jul 2012 17:24
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"Nous Sommes Arrive en France"
Tuesday Morning - up and on our way by
5:30am. Calm seas but foggy. It was quite eerie listening to the
occasional fog horn from ships close by. We were very glad of the AIS
system and also the Sea-Me, as it enabled us to know just where the invisible
vessel was in relation to our position. Fishing boats which perhaps did
not have such equipment suddenly appeared out of the gloom and were a little
more of a surprise to us! It was apparent that merchant ships did not
transmit their whereabouts in the Channel until they receive a "ping" on their
radar from us, as several times we could visibly see a ship, but they did
not appear on our AIS screen for some time and then we would suddenly find our
position on the screen surrounded by small circles, which slowly developed into
little tadpole shapes as they wriggled across the screen showing their course
and other information. Once we were all clear of each other, the tadpoles
disappeared as quickly as they had arrived. Later visibility improved and
it became apparent that we were very much on our own.
Windy Bill did us proud and enabled one of us
to keep a look out, whilst the other grabbed 40 winks or more! The wind
was never above 15 knots and we had a comfortable crossing with only one major
change in our course to avoid Emden, a giant vehicle transporter thundering
along at 20 knots.
At 01.15 am we hove to just off Isle
d'Ouessant so that we could catch the tide to pass through the Chenal de la
Helle, rather than sail the long way around Ouessant to get to Brest. The
coast line here is littered with lighthouses and flashing lights, quite a
spectacular and confusing sight in the darkness. When dawn came I
could see why the channel is so named, there are rocks everywhere. We were
not alone in this tactic of waiting for the 5.5 knot tide to turn in our favour,
we did not know it but in the cover of darkness there were several
other yachts hovering around ready to catch the ride through to the Rade de
Brest, suddenly we found ourselves in a convoy and racing along at 9 knots
with the tide under us.
We have not picked the best of weeks to arrive here
as it is Brest's Festival of Sail. The spectacle of Tall Ships and sail
boats of all shapes and sizes is wonderful, but one of the two marinas is closed
and the second is chocabloc. Luckily we managed to tie up alongside a
yacht which was just about to leave. The owners very kindly helped to slot
us in a space behind them, it looked big enough, but in reality was very very
tight with only inches between Windy Bill and the boat behind and not much
more between our bow and the solar panel hanging horizontally from the transom
of the boat in front of us! We took the decision to dismantle Windy
Bill and bring him on board rather than risk him being damaged. He is
a valuable member of Whisper's crew, he costs nothing to run, doesn't need
feeding nor does he drink the beer!
So, we are all this way south and what is the
weather doing? It started to close in as we sailed up the
Rade de Brest, I had commented that the landscape was like
Scotland. Well, so is the weather, fine smeary wet, wet
drizzle! C'est la vie!
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