Into the unknown ...

We had a bit of a disturbed night. It was really calm but there was still enough swell to make Robinetta and the other moored boats pitch and roll all night.

I got up once to tighten the cord keeping the tiller still so the rudder wouldn’t knock when we rolled. Then we started pitching and got a different noise – probably the jib sheet block rolling back and forwards on the cabin roof.

So I needed a bit of a lie-in.

Eventually we rowed ashore to the beach at Sainte Evette and wandered to the public toilets at the ‘Gare Maritime’ which is where the vedettes go to the Ille de Sein. There don’t seem to be any shops – it looks like you have to walk to either Esquibien or Audierne proper. I thought it would be good to see it so we headed into town.

Audierne is a bit less than a mile up the river. The right bank of the river has a long quay wall and there are notice boards telling the history of the town in French and English (and a bit of Breton). Like Douarnenez it was once a sardine fishing town. When the sardines went they turned to crayfish. But earlier than that it had been a major centre for cargo shipping, sailing Caravels from Portugal to the Baltic and the British Isles.

We bought our groceries and a beach parasol and headed back. It was getting really hot and even using the new beach parasol like an umbrella I got burned on my upper arms.

Back on board I rigged the parasol to provide shade for the cockpit and we had a cup of tea and then went straight on to lunch.

It didn’t look like there was going to be enough wind to sail and I thought that if we weren’t sailing we should keep the sun off the sails – UV will kill them and we had more sun than I’m used to. So we headed off with the sail covers still on. Something we NEVER do!

Out in the bay the wind came up a little. So we got the covers off and the sails up anyway. We had to motor sail and not in quite the right direction but it felt right. We let George steer.

Our next port of call was to be Le Guilvinec, just round the Pointe de Penmarc'h. This was beyond the coverage of the charts on the plotter! We have borrowed paper charts and the Navionics charts on my tablet take us as far as Lorient and I have proper up-to-date electronic charts on OpenCPN on the pi but not having them on the cockpit plotter was something new! We found that the 8nm zoom lets us see the world base map which is ok for putting enough of a course in to help steer.

Alison went down into the cabin to do some writing and we pottered down the coast and I stayed in the cockpit on watch.

Sea bird commotion

The wind came up a bit at veered and I was about to change course on the tiller pilot when I noticed a big commotion in the water a little ahead and out to sea. Gannets and other sea birds had clearly found a shoal of something and were fishing.

We were a bit ahead of time so I turned the engine off and tacked towards them and put out our mackerel line. Alison came up to look.

Sea Bass for dinner

It took us ages under sail to get near and we did use the engine a bit to help but mostly we sailed. I pulled the line up a few times – once we caught a small mackerel but nothing much. Eventually the birds headed more out to sea and we went back on course but I did set the line again.

Then Alison noticed the line had come more horizontal and I pulled it and it was really heavy. I assumed we had caught several mackerel but as I hauled it in we could see two larger fish. We had hooked two fine sea bass!

Far too much to eat so we let the smaller one go.

An hour or two later we were met by a large pod of dolphins who played around the boat – the first we have seen since Cornwall.

After a while they wandered off and I started cleaning the sea bass. He’d been a greedy fish – his stomach was stuffed with sand eel. The dolphins came back so we threw them the insides and head of the bass – I think they caught some of it.

Alison spotted a tall ship on the horizon. We rigged the AIS to try to find out what it was but only got it’s MMSI. Looking it up later on Marine Traffic identified her as Morgenster – a 48m brig.

Morgenster on the horizon

The entrance to Le Guilvinec is tricky and strewn with rocks. Our old paper charts didn’t have the bouys we could see but my new charts on the raspberry pi worked well. I got them up on Alison’s laptop (using VNC) and she propped that up in the cabin and popped down occasionally to check. It was the only chart that showed the entrance to the harbour correctly although we would have got in OK just following the marked channel.

Fishing boats at Le Guilvenic

It is a really big fishing port, and as we have seen everywhere, many of the ships are old with wooden hulls but brought right up-to-date with steel superstructure and the latest gear. The port de plaisance is right at the head of the navigation and space is very tight but Robinetta is now snug on a pontoon with water and electricity.

I filleted and pan-fried the sea bass with garlic and shallots and we had it with potatoes and a little veg dish I did with a tomato and a little gem lettuce and some paprika. We had the mackerel fillets as a starter – just a morsel really.

It felt like a packed day.