Camaret towards Dournenez

Once we realised that we would need to be away from Camaret at 4 am to get through the Raz de Sein at high water slack we decided to head for Douarnenez rather than Audienne. That meant we could leave at a sensible time. The weather forecast was not great, light winds and pretty continuous rain, but after a day in port it felt like time to move on.

After doing a little shopping we got ready to go. The only problem was how to launch Worm. A Dutch yacht was moored just behind us on the pontoon hammerhead , leaving no space to put Worm back in the water at Robinetta’s stern. In the end we launched her into the empty half of the adjacent finger berth, and the skipper of the yacht Wild One, in the other half of the berth, handed us Worm’s towing line as we passed.

The light wind was from a helpful direction, so we managed to sail through the drizzle as far as the Point du Toulingvet at around 2 knots. This is too slow for passage making, but we only had 20 miles to go, which made a pleasant change. Once we turned to round the Point, and thread through some impressive rocky islets, the wind was dead astern. We slowed too much for the helm’s peace of mind in such confined spaces, so the engine went on to help steer through the gap.

The engine went off again between Toulingvet and Point de Pen-hir, and Julian put our remaining fishing line out astern. 2 knots is a good fishing speed, but at 1½ knots Robinetta’s steering can be difficult to keep on track, and I wanted the engine on again as we approached Pen-hir and its tail of islands called Les Tas de Pois. There were obviously fish around as there were quite a few cormorants on the water, but no fish took our line and Julian brought it in again.

We picked our gap to aim at based on where we saw another yacht motoring through in the other direction but in the end went through a different one. There are many "Pois", and the gaps between are narrow but clear of hazards.
Sailing slowly when there was wind, and motoring with the sails up when it died became the pattern of the day. Sometimes it rained, and sometimes it just drizzled. Visibility decreased as we closed with Dournenez, but we also got the best wind of the trip, and sailed at a steady four knots for 3½ hours.

The wind fell when we were 2 miles off Dournenez, and the engine went back on as we got the sails down and prepared to enter the harbour. The Port de Plaisance of Dournenez, is on the west side of the river, at Treboul, and this has a long visitor pontoon tucked just behind the breakwater. There were only two yachts on it, both on the inside, and we took Robinetta to join them in the pouring rain.

We were safely moored up by 17:05, after an enjoyable, but damp, day of sailing.