Back to Treboul

We arrived back in Douarnenez at lunch time after a very early start, catching the 05:07 train from Stortford to reach City Airport in time for our 07:45 flight to Quimper. Cloudless sky and bright sunshine greeted us, but no bus, so we shared a taxi into Quimper and did a little basic shopping before catching the next bus to Douarnenez, which required an hour and a half wait. We had checked the tides, and knew we could get out of Port Rhu from 12:30 to 15:30, pretty perfect timing for us!

Robinetta sat in almost solitary splendour on her berth in the historic dock; with empty berths on either side of her. The “display” (a piece of paper) Julian had taped to her staysail cover was still in place. We had left Worm afloat beneath Robinetta’s bowsprit with the Drainman pump rigged, and this had either worked, of there had been no rain, as there was very little water in her.

I got the cockpit cover off while Julian brought Worm round to the stern and rigged the staysail. With our recent engine problems we wanted to have some alternative motive power available apart from the engine. Luckily the engine checks revealed no problems and it started first time.

With wind and tide pushing us into the berth backing out required a decent amount of power, but it was really easy, and there was enough room to turn and head for the bridge. A yacht had just entered Port Rhu, but the bridge was already being lowered to let pedestrians across. Julian called up the bridge keeper, and by the time we reached the sluice gate the bridge was ready for us.

We now had a very light head wind, and the tide running against us too, but as soon as we were clear of the bridge the tide slackened and we picked up speed.

We moored up on the outside of the Treboul visitor pontoon, ahead of a blue painted classic Bermudan sloop with Kim Holmanesque lines and no obvious name!  The two of us made a marked contrast to the white GRP boats that soon filled the rest of the pontoon. We had left the bowsprit out when we moored up, but by mid afternoon the pontoon was filling up fast. We decided to drop back closer to the sloop, and had to pull the bowsprit in in a hurry to let another boat moor ahead of us! A Beneteau 44 then came along and rafted up on that boat, with their stern overhanging our bow.

The skipper of the wooden boat astern approached us, carrying a plastic bag. Would we like the fish he had caught that morning? He had to head home, and had no fridge available to leave it in. Whether his offer sprang from fellowship between wooden boat owners, a “welcome to France” gift, or we were just the closest boat with people aboard was not clear! We happily accepted a rather splendid gurnard, larger than any I have seen in a shop.

Julian got straight on with filleting it, and a French couple from a boat on the other side of the pontoon drifted over to have a look, and admired it, so Julian gave them a fillet; there was way more than we could eat! In the absence of many fresh provisions we ate it fried in olive oil, with a side of rice and jalapeno pepper relish. Lovely.

After dinner we went for a walk, heading west along the Treboul shore. The sunset was absolutely amazing and we took a lot of pictures.