Loctudy to Douarnenez

We left in drizzle and mist. Visibility was OK but we put the AIS on with the new antenna. We needed the cabin hatch closed for the rain so we led it through the ventilation chimney. It worked well like that.

Leaving Loctudy was a matter of dodging crab pots and small fishing boats - some servicing the pots and some fishing with rods.

We set full sail but kept the engine on to help point. We managed to point as little as 45 - 50 degrees off the wind some of the time.

It took an age to get around the Pointe de Pen Marc'h, beating long boards. The west going ones were into the waves which rarely stopped us but were very hard work. The north going ones where rather nice. But we realised we would never have made the Raz by the afternoon slack on our previous plan of leaving Loctudy at 5am. Not with a northwesterly.

Once round the Pointe de Pen Marc'h sailing was easier and we made one very long board up the coast, only tacking when we got to 10m depth (of course we know that is less than 10m until I recalibrate the echo sounder). We could see other yachts on the AIS doing the same thing. They tacked much earlier.

Passing Audierne I got enough 3G signal to check the weather again - it was still OK to try to get through the Raz. I also found the Pointe du Raz webcam. It looked serene.

Although the wind was due to fall it got stronger now. We put in a reef and throttled back. Alison was pretty tired on the helm and decided (having read something in a book) that heaving to might help reefing. It all got a bit fraught as the only way to get the roller reefing to work on Robinetta is head to wind. I shouted a bit. We managed.

We had planned a sausage dinner but with the new plan I suggested we shift that to breakfast. Alison said she wanted a pot noodle - the perfect dinner when you don't want to cook! She had a Teriyaki one and I had Hoisin Duck. Well, what passes for Hoisin Duck in a pot noodle.

It was late dusk by the time we got to the Anse de Feounteunod at 22:15 and getting misty but we could see well enough to thread our way through the moored small boats and find a spot to anchor. We dropped in about 6m indicated (so maybe 4.5m). We had time for four hours sleep before we needed to head for the Raz.

Like all the anchorages we have tried in Brittany the swell came in. So we spent half an hour stopping odd clanging noises. The hardest new one to find was the spare shampoo bottle rolling around in the vanity unit cupboard.

Then we both managed at least three hours sleep; although the swell never stopped it was mild.

The alarm went off at 2am and we preped the boat then got the engine on and hauled up the anchor, retracing our GPS track through the moorings with Alison in the bow making sure no boats had moved. We had hoped for a moon but it was cloudy.

Once out of the lee of the anchorage there was a really nice wind with lots of north in it so we could sail to the Point. I had set a route in which took us nearly to Les Chats - the rocks at the southwest end. I thought we would need to be able to go northeast through the Raz to get a good reach. I wanted to be very early and try to go through against the last of the ebb tide so the tide would be with the wind. That way it might be smooth-ish.

But it was so calm that we could motor gently into the headwind and tide and make 2 knots. So we were ready to turn early, but then Alison spotted a yacht tri-colour masthead light ahead so we turned a little south to let it get ahead before following it in.

Even at 3am we were not the only boats going through the Raz. There would be more.

We were even earlier than I had planned but it seemed to be working. We realised we had made one mistake. There are lots of useful navigation lights - channel markers, cardinals and lighthouses. We should have learned these and their patterns - it would have made it easy to fix our position and to know which lights were unexpected and therefore other boats.

We did get one AIS alarm - a yacht coming through in the other direction under spinnaker. We could see his red light but the AIS made it really easy to see his track and know how to turn to pass parallel.

By the nominal slack time of 4:11am we were parallel to the rocks on the point - half way through! It was really easy going - head to wind but no swell and no wind over tide effects.

Once through we turned onto a close reach and I found the Cap de la Chèvre light was perfect to aim by. The speed increased to 5 knots and we turned the engine off and had a wonderful sail into the morning. We went onto proper watches now with one on the helm and one sleeping, until 8am when I felt like cooking breakfast. We hove to and had a really nice meal of chipolata sausages, mushrooms, leeks, potatoes and tomatoes.

Then we sailed gently towards Douarnenez until we lost the wind about half a mile out and put the sails away.

We got into Treboul at 10:30, exactly as hoped. After filling the tanks with diesel we headed in to our booked mooring - the same one we had before in Port Rhu.