48:12.949N 04:04.458W
Whisper
Noel Dilly
Sun 22 Jul 2012 19:56
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"Wind - What Wind?"
We left Marina Moulin Blanc after breakfast, it was
a beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the sky nor a ripple in the water -
it was dead calm! We headed off south down the Rade de
Brest towards the beautiful sheltered River Aulne. The Aulne is
navigable on the tide to where the Aulne joins the old Nantes-Brest Canal.
It really is very beautiful and very quiet and edged by woods and reed
beds. The water was deep until we crossed the bar at Traverse de
l'Hopital from then on it was buoyed until we reached Pont de Terenez.
Here we found the graveyard for French Naval ships. It was quite sad
and eerie to see so many ships rusting and decaying when once they would have
been filled with life and a purpose. From then on we were on our own as
far as navigation was concerned apart from the recommendations of the
RCC Pilotage to keep close to the outside bends and mid channel on the
straights. Although we had no bouys to guide us we had the chart and
the Navman, that is until we reached Pont Terenez, when both the paper
chart and the Navman ran out of data! Now we really were on our own, but
with the help of the RCC Pilotage we navigated the bends.
We were highly amused, as we passed by a
very small sail boat going down river, to be given a trumpet rendering of Rule
Britannia! I wish we could have been quick enough to play back the
Marseilles. We picked up a visitors buoy at Port Maria to wait for half
tide to give us enough water under our keel to complete the journey. This
gave us the opportunity for 40 winks. At 5:30pm we set off again and the
river became narrower. We saw many egrets, herons, curlew and ducks on the
way. Just as we arrived at the shallowest point of the navigation, Noel
who was at the helm exclaimed that he need to go to the heads and passed me the
tiller and rushed below! Luckily I had read that this was the shallowest
part of the river and passes very close to the dual carriage just before turning
south again and the deepest water was close to the north bank. We stayed
afloat!
The river was flowing quite fast under us and
pushing us up river at 5 knots a little disconcerting when there was only 1.5m
under the keel at times but at least the tide was rising. Eventually we
arrived at the lock at Guily Glaz, the gates opened as we approached and the
lock keeper threw us a line or two. It very much reminded me of trips up
the Thames when I was a child. Once out of the lock we no longer had to
worry about the tide and the sun was still blazing. We tied up alongside
the beautiful quay at Port Launay, once a resting place for the working barges
long since past. The town borders the river front and we have come to rest
right outside the Patisserie - looks like it will be fresh croissants for
breakfast and French bread for lunch and who knows what for afternoon tea!
Especially as the plaque announces that the shop won the Best Cake Award in
the region in 2010! What more could we want, it has been a gorgeous day
and quite an adventure too!
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