We fill up with diesel and are of out by 11.30 French time having met up with one of John’s old uni friends for a coffee on board. Some low lying mist gives Herm a low down halo and we settle in for what we think will be around 20 hours to L’Aber Wrac’h (how the Bretons love their apostrophes).
What wind there is comes as we expected from dead ahead and even a course change around the southern tip of Guernsey has zero effect on our ability to lose the engine and actually sail. There is so little sign of humanity, unlike crossing the channel and there are only a few fishing boats and pot buoys to provide evidence that the rest of humanity hasn’t simply disappeared…and an empty tango bottle drifting past!!
The sail/motor is really uneventful and we doze in turns after lunch in an approximation of proper watch-keeping. Yee Tak had pre-cooked a veggie version of a mince with chilli and beans etc and we add some tinned potatoes. A one pot meal with bags of flavour, made all the better by eating in the cockpit as the sun starts to sink. The high sirrus clouds warning of some change in the weather…but not just yet.
Tinned rice and some pineapple chunks…not exactly fine dining, but a brilliant way to set us up for the night. The tide turns foul around 8 and we resign ourselves to slow progress for the next six hours.
As darkness falls we actually do some proper watches and find that 2 on and 2 off suits us well through the night hours. We close the French coast around midnight but are still over 6 hours away from L’Aber Wrac’h. This coast is well lit with a startling array of lights and buoys and they are the only things to keep us company. A couple of fishing boats appear on the radar, but slip past largely unseen.
By 4 we realise that our progress is too fast and we really don’t fancy entering the rocky kingdom of L’Aber Wrac’h for the first time in darkness. We throttle back and just idle away for the next 2 hours letting the tide start to take us once more.
By 6 there is light in the sky to see by and we begin the journey through some very impressive rocks.
By 6.30 we are tied up, tucked up and snoozing until we are woken by the friendly harbourmaster at 9. Our longest single passage so far…and we didn’t even get our feet wet.
heydays346 