Belle Ile and Houat

The swell died down nicely last night and we had a good night’s sleep. The wind blew steadily but lightly from the head of the fjord keeping the boats from swinging near each other or the rocks.

It was cooler too – not the searing heat we have become used to.

So we felt awake and able to have a decent start. I went on deck and got us ready to go while Alison put the cabin into day mode. That seems to be falling in to place as a habit – we must swap it around at some point.

The wind was strong enough that we debated setting the No 2 jib but XC said it was 3-4 and due to drop so we went for the No 1.

The shearwaters were looping the fjord as we left but proved very difficult to photograph. The zig-zag pattern on their upper wings is beautiful.

Outside we went head-to-wind to raise the main and then turned left down the west coast. The first part was pretty much due south and the freshening south-easterly wind pulled us along at 5 knots like a steam engine. Alison was finding it tough on the helm so we put a little reef in the main. We didn’t slow down.

The wind kept freshening and I realised we should have the No 2 jib but before we could change them we needed to reef the main more. I took it right down to the first hoop and we furled the jib and carried on with deeply reefed main and stay-sail.

I should have changed jibs then but didn’t think of it. As the wind eased Alison would have had the No 2 jib out for the last 15 minutes before I took the helm but didn’t want to try the No 1. When I took over I put the No 1 out and it felt good. Deeply reefed main and full head-sails shouldn’t really work but close hauled Robinetta was nicely balanced.

When I’ve read books on rig design they all assume the centre of effort is in a fixed place and one needs to reef fore and aft in parallel. With Robinetta the balance seems to shift with wind-speed and point of sail. I don’t know if this means a poorly designed rig or if it is true in practice for all boats.

We were quite far out to sea by now and beyond the bottom of the west side of the island. We tacked in to get closer for the views and to see if we could pass inside the only marked rock. This brought us close to another small yacht going the same way and we sailed beside each other for a while. Mostly Robinetta was faster but they did start to overhaul us when they put out more of their roller-reefing genoa. The wind was easing more and we went head to wind and shook out most of our reef in the main. It’s nice to sometimes find a boat that isn’t faster!

They dropped their sails and went into one of the bays, presumably to anchor for lunch.

The wind kept easing but kept us at about 3 knots all the way to the eastern end of the island. The whole seaward side of Belle Ile is lovely. The cliffs are quite high with offshore rocks and sea stacks and small sandy beaches.

Rounding the island’s southeast corner we lost the wind completely and put the engine on. The east shore is lower with bigger beaches. The southern one is full of moorings. On this Saturday afternoon – the last in June – it was full of motor boats and one sailing yacht. There are two or three further beaches and they were all occupied.

We could see Houat, our destination, now. Houat is surrounded by rocks and is said to be dangerous to leave or approach at night. There is a harbour on the north side and two good beach anchorages, one on the east side and one on the south. XC was predicting northerlies and our experience at the Iles de Glenans told us the vent solaire was likely to kick in from the north so we chose the southern beach.

Coming from the south there is an isolated danger mark and to the east of it a small island. An approach between the two avoids all the other dangers. Alison calculated a 2.5m tide and it was one hour before high water so we dropped the hook in 5m and went for a swim. A fender as an extra bottom rung to our ladder works well as a swim ladder.

We haven’t eaten ashore at all yet this trip. It was our only Saturday night of this leg and we felt like a change so we dressed up a bit and rowed ashore and walked into town.

The village on Houat is delightful. It is absolutely covered in flowers – lots of hollyhocks and roses and other flowers.

We bought some milk at the general store and walked to the harbour. There were lots of fishing boats and some yachts but what caught my eyer were two tiny three-masted luggers moored up together.

Alison spotted a hotel restaurant and we walked up their garden and booked a table. The Hotel Iles was running two sittings – one at 19:30 and one at 21:00 so we wandered off to find a bar for a drink before dinner.

The bar was nice and I spotted someone wearing a tee-shirt with a three-masted lugger on it. He noticed my interest and came over and said hello. He had sailed one of them over from Morbihan. It had been made in 1997 based on a Bantry Bay boat and been at the Breast festival in 2000.

Dinner was excellent. We shared a hot goats cheese salad starter and I had moules-frites and Alison had the seafood platter with spider-crab and langoustines and crevettes. I had raspberry sorbet and lime sorbet for afters and Alison had what was billed as Tiramisu but was more like summer pudding.
When we got back to the beach one of the boats at anchor was in full party mode with loud music blaring out over the whole bay. I hoped they would stop before midnight.

Back on the boat I was a bit concerned about the depth of water below us. Ever since I configured the echo sounder with the transducer offset I’ve not been sure what the chart plotter displays. We predicted the tide would have dropped by about a metre but when we turned the plotter on we were now in 3.6m by its measurement so it looked like we had a 3m tide not a 2.5m one. With the uncertainty of the reading we needed more information.

I dropped the dinghy anchor over to use as a lead line. We measured the depth of water with a steel rule and we only had 2.4m or 1m under the keel with another metre at least to fall!

Luckily there was a nice big space to move to. We put the engine on and I changed into older clothes and hauled the anchor up and we moved into 6m and dropped it again.

So now we know that the chart plotter does use the transducer offset number and we know that I need to change the number stored in the echo sounder. It looks like I should take at least a metre off the transducer offset.

The party boat went quiet about 11:20pm. Nice folks after all.

Port Louis to Belle Ile

Fort Louis

We spent a day in Port Louis, visiting the fort and its museums, then having a seista before catching the bus and going to the supermarket. We bought a ready to reheat paella and ate on board Robinetta. Add in a bottle of supermarket special offer white Bordeaux wine and we had a lovely dinner. All in all Port Louis was a good place to spend a shore day.

This morning we were waiting to pay when the office opened at 09:00. Only 18 euro for 2 nights, excellent value.

We left the pontoon at 10:15 and Julian got the bowsprit out while I helmed. We swapped jobs before we reached the main channel out of Lorient, and I got the jib up as we passed the fort we had visited yesterday,. It seemed a little gusty in the channel, do I flew the no 2 jib, bit within twenty minutes I changed it for the no 1. We had a lovely sail out of the South Channel, heading for Belle Ile at 4-5 knots.

Unfortunately the force 4 breeze began to fade, first to a 3, then to a 2. Our speed dropped to below 2.5 knots and we reluctantly put the engine on at 12:25. Julian was sure that sailing should still be possible, so he went forward and rigged the blue reaching sail. Once it was flying we put the engine in neutral to try it, but Robinetta made under 2 knots, so the sail went away again and we were back on engine.

Then, abruptly, the wind came back and we could sail at nearly 4 knots again. Every now and then it would go lighter, but we persisted with the sailing after 14:00, trailing a fishing line when the speed dropped and bringing it in when we sped up again. We did not catch anything.

A quartet of common dolphins came and swam lazily along side for about 20minutes, then headed off west, leaving us decisively behind.

We managed to sail until we were almost at the west cardinal that marked the rocks to the west of the tip of Belle Ile. The wind then failed again and we got the sails down before heading for the anchorage at Ster-Vraz.

Julian swimming at Ster-Vraz

We had found this anchorage in the “Secret Anchorages of Britainy” book. I would hesitate to call it secret, since there were a dozen boats in it, plus more in a side cove called Ster-Wenn. It is lovely though. Once we were securely anchored Julian went for a swim. We could have rowed to a beach at the head of the cove, but it had been a long hot day, and we just stayed aboard, and I cooked dinner.

Ile de Glenans to Port Louis

As there was wind and the morning was half-over we thought we ought to get a move on.

I went up and prepped the boat while Alison tidied away below and got the cabin into day mode. I don't think we've ever done it faster although we didn't hurry. We got the sails up on the mooring and sailed off it. We had the engine on and we needed it to tack out of the crowded moorings.

The two cat boats we had seen the previous evening were also leaving and we exchanged waves with the single-handed white sailed one. They headed out the north-east channel and we headed out the south-east one.

The southern-most island was a cormorant roost.

The wind was finally coming from the forecast direction - east. Where were we going? east! We sailed out of the archipelago but once free of obstructions we reluctantly turned the engine back on and motor sailed close-hauled until the wind died completely and then got the mainsail down and let George steer us towards Lorient.

It was a rather boring day. Motoring far out to sea with nothing to look at. At least it was a little hazy so it wasn't quite as hot as the previous day. I went below for a while and re-configured the Raspberry Pi so it is now possible to connect to it from my tablet. This is becoming more important as Lorient is the last place our Navionics charts cover. From now on the only electronic charts we have are the ones on OpenCPN on the Pi. We do have old but good paper charts Alison borrowed and we will make increasing use of these. We can see the OpenCPN charts now on my laptop and Alison's netbook and on my tablet and they seem quite functional.

The Ile de Groix has memories for Alison - she went on a geology field trip there in the early 1980s. We will stop there on the way back west. From 20 miles away it looks quite large. As you get closer it seems to stay the same size until as you approach it you can see its proper size - about 4 miles long and 1 mile wide. Very strange.

The entry into Lorient is straight-forward but there was quite a lot of traffic. One large cargo ship passed us went in ahead and another came out as we neared the Citadel of Port Louis. Two life-boats came out and half-dozen large fishing boats as well as some pleasure craft and the Groix ferry. We were alerted by the AIS receiver before we saw most of them.

There are lots of marinas. We had decided on the one at Port Louis as the Citadel there has a maritime museum covering the French equivalent of the East India companies. Also Port Louis is named after Louis XIII. I studied his reign in some detail for A level history although I've forgotten most of it. Less famous than his son 'The Sun King' Lots of interesting things happened during his reign - his first minister was Cardinal Richelieu and of course that makes it the period that the Three Musketeers is set. The English Duke of Buckingham is a character in the story and in real life he led an expedition to relief the siege of the protestant Huguenots on the Ile de Re in the harbour of La Rochelle after the 'Revocation of the Edict of Nantes'. Nantes and La Rochelle are all in the vicinity but too far for us to sail to this trip. The Edict of Nantes had given protestants some religious freedom in France but Louis XIII got rid of it which is how come many French protestants move to England and set up communities in London (which became Soho) and Nottingham (where they carried on making lace) for example. We'll look around tomorrow.

Entering the marina is easy and we ended up on the visitor's pontoon with lots of other English boats including Wyld One - last met in Cameret and Caroline - all the way from Tollesbury!

The showers here are top-notch - really new and nice and clean and they work well.

We are still trying to keep costs down so we eat aboard and had beans-on-toast followed by cheese and biscuits. Really rather delicious.

Manoeuvres in the dark

Robinetta began to rock in the swell as we got the bedding out, and the first half hour after “bed time” was spent tracking down all the bits and pieces on the boat that rattle when they move. Once we had everything quiet we did manage to get to sleep, but by 3 a.m. the movement was so extreme that the boom rolled out of its crutches. That brought us both on deck to sort it out, and neither of us could get back to sleep afterwards.

We discussed what to do, and decided the best would be to haul up the anchor, and go round to the other side of Saint Nicholas, where the island would be between us and the wind. Julian got the electronic charts up on his tablet as it was too dark to see much, then went to the foredeck and hauled up the anchor. I had to motor up towards it to help him.

Once the anchor was up I helmed us round the Isle de Bananec, following the chart and cardinal flashes. With looking at the lit chart on the tablet my night vision was not at its best, so Julian went onto the foredeck and called where to steer to avoid moored yachts. Once we found a vacant mooring we decided to take it, but I need two goes round to put Robinetta’s bow where Julian could reach the buoy.

Even these moorings, with an island between us and the wind, were not totally quiet, but they were a whole lot better than the ones on the other side of the isthmus that joined St Nicholas to Bananec, and I fell asleep almost as soon as we were secure on the buoy.

We were woken next morning, at 09:00, by the harbour master collecting his 10 euro dues for the buoy. Worth it for the four hours of uninterrupted sleep.

Le Guilvinec to Isle de Glenan

We woke late this morning. I could hear someone chatting on the pontoon and stuck my head up to see a fisherman about to get into his tender to go out to his boat. He called out to a younger man who was heading up the pontoon bridge. This turned out to be the Port de Pleasance harbour master, who had everything he needed to take our money. After a discussion of boat lengths we settled on 14 euro, 44 cents. 14 for Robinetta, and 22 cents for each person. It was good to be in a place that recognised that boats under 7m long might turn up!

He also told us where the shore heads and showers were, on the Lechiagat side of the harbour and the nearest place to buy bread. I jumped on the idea of a shower, so we headed there first, then bought croissant and pain au raison, plus a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. Breakfast and lunch sorted.

We ate breakfast on Robinetta, then went for a walk on the Le Guilvinec side of the harbour. It turned out to be market day, and we got sidetracked into tasting some Loire Château Grand Cru wine. The wine maker fed us oysters, bread, cheese, and strawberries as we tasted, and it was very easy to be tempted into buying half a mixed case.... We also bought some cheese and fruit, then purchases in hand we headed back to Robinetta.

There had been a lovely breeze in the morning, but by the time we were clear of the harbour it was dying away. We put the main sail up anyway, but within half an hour it was doing nothing, and we were motoring across a glassy sea, with the sun burning down and a swell pushing us around uncomfortably. We covered ourselves in suncream, and rigged the parasol against the glare.

A couple more hours did nothing to improve matters. I got the main sail down to save the UV damage, and Julian went below to stay out of the sun. He fine tuned my rough course to steer, and we headed for St Nicholas, on the Isle to Glenan.

The best bit of the journey was when a big pod of dolphins came and played alongside for ten minutes just as we reached the islands.

The anchorage on the north of Saint Nicholas seemed very busy. Most of the yachts were on moorings, with only two anchored. We joined them in dropping our anchor, seeing no reason to pay for a buoy. We are being cheap this holiday (helps to pay for the wine....) After getting the sail covers on and having a rest away from the heat we got into Worm, and I rowed us ashore.

One of the bars on St Nicholas

The sand had looked very inviting from Robinetta, and I entertained visions of wandering along the water line while Julian had a swim. The reality was a disappointment. The wet sand gave too much so walking was hard work, and I could see broken glass, with sharp edges that were not yet quite smoothed away. Julian decided not to swim either, and we ended up walking to one of the two pubs on St Nicholas and having a half of cider each.

The Isles de Glenan had supposed to be wonderful, but Julian and I decided that they were well down the list of islands we have visited in Robinetta. Part of our lack of enthusiasm was probably down to the heat, which neither of us like much. They have the air of tropical islands, low lying and fringed by sandy beaches, but have no other real points of interest. Not our cup of tea.

Back on Robinetta we ate tinned curry and rice for dinner, glad it was finally cool enough (at nine in the evening) to be able to face a cooked meal.

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.

Treboul towards Audierne

French bakers work on Sunday, which meant we could buy fresh bread to take with us. This baker also sold butter, which was just as well since the convenience store on the quay was closed until the start of July! Once provided with bread and butter we had enough dried provisions on board that we had plenty to eat.

We backed out of our berth, manoeuvring on ropes, to temporarily moor alongside the wooden sloop behind us. That gave us enough space to launch Worm back into the water from the pontoon. Then we set off into Douarnenez Bay, motoring across a bright blue sea with a light following breeze.

Approaching the Raz de Sein

George soon went on duty and we had a lovely trip along the coast with nothing to do but keep an eye out for pot markers and anchored sport fishing boats.

The wind seemed a little stronger after lunch, so we unfurled the jib and gave the engine a rest. We were ahead of time to reach the Raz de Sein at 15:00, high water Brest -½ as recommended by our pilot.

Passing through the Raz

We sailed slowly along at 2½knots so Julian tried the fishing line but with no luck. By 13:45 we decided we needed the engine again to make the tidal gate, and soon sped up to 3½ knots. I saw a blue helium balloon glittering in the water just to starboard, and since we had time we made a small diversion to pick it up, pop it, and bin it.

There were about 20 boats heading through or to the Raz when we reached it. A couple were going the other way on the very last of the flood, but by the time we reached the “now head through” point we were the last boat of the gaggle. With no swell, neeps, and very little wind the Raz was a non event of a tidal gate!

A modern yacht at the Raz

Once past the light houses we turned the engine off and sailed for a while. We were doing about 3 knots, on a run, but over 2 knots of that was tide and steering could be difficult.

Julian began to feel sick, probably heat stroke as it was too hot for our comfort and with the wind behind us we could not feel it. By 16:15 we had had enough and p ut the engine on to generate a cooling head wind.

And a classic!

An hour and a half later we were on a mooring buoy at Anse de Ste Evette, a bay just outside Audierne. There were plenty of free buoys, although they seemed very close together. Many of the visiting yachts were British, but most were French.

We ate on board, feeling too tired from the day to go ashore, then had an early night. The moorings were reasonably sheltered, but every time a boat went past any where in the bay it seemed to generate a large amount of wave action, so I could not describe the moorings as peaceful!