Bloggers return

Reader(s) will probably not recall that having arrived in Benodet in early June, the blog has gone quiet. So quiet that one reader (at least) has become anxious as to why?  

What, in the meantime has happened?

Well, briefly ...

We had 3 nights in Benodet.
Saw and baby sat for L & J.
We had a walk up the river.

7 June 2018
Arrived in Concarneau. 
We had a very nice walk around this very pleasant fortified 15th Century Shopping Precinct.

8 June
To Port Tudy on the Isle de Groix. Arrived 1415 hrs (on a Friday, out of season). It was totally full up. Never mind, to Port Louis.
Port Louis is a lovely quiet marina apart from the visiting classic boat rally which was taking up all the visitors' berths.  Very nice boatman took us to  Berth E39, (only £16 per night).
Luckily it was Neaps.

Angela and Martin* arrived which was nice.

11 June
To Haliguen
Back in Blighty there was a heatwave.  We motored all the way to Haliguen. Dull, cool and misty.
Haliguen should IMO be avoided by sane (and insane) yachtsmen (and women), at least until 2050.
The visitors' berthing area has been taken over by boats that have been removed from the part of  the marina that is now occupied by a very big, splendid and powerful pile driver.  Albatross does not have piles so she didn't need this noisy machine.

Pile driver

 Anyway, the helpful boatman sent us to a convenient berth (just near the pile driver)  "Will it be deep enough?" I asked in fluent English.  "I expect so" he replied with a shrug.
We berthed. I measured the depth.  We would be properly aground next morning.

12 June
Waking to sound of piles being driven, we left early whilst we were still afloat.

To Vannes
Vannes is an ancient and very interesting historic city at the top of the Morbihan.

The Morbihan is an ancient and very interesting inland sea in Southern Brittany.

Morbihan disease is an interesting dermatolgical condition characterised by erythaema and solid, non-pitting oedema of the face and is entirely irrelevant to this story (although I think I saw a case of it in Sainsbury's today whilst queuing for the strawberries).

Anyway, to Vannes.

Going to Vannes involves getting the tides and currents right when entering the Morbihan and then getting the tides and depth right  when going up the narrow dredged channel and through the lock to Vannes itself.

We ran aground in the narrow dredged channel, so having extracted ourselves we went back to the Morbihan to wait for the tide. Unfortunately we then ran aground again the Morbihan.

Where we went aground

Getting unstuck after running aground involves a deep knowledge of seamanship, marine physics and engineering, tidal heights and of course, human psychology.  The last of these skills is obviously by far the most important.

So, after a great deal of planning and discussion went as follows  ...
Martin*   "Why dont we ....."
Skipper    "That won't work ...."
Martin *  "Or .."
Skipper    "That won't work ..." and so on,
we eventually  pumped up the dinghy, filled it with anchor chain and a  Fortress Aluminium Folding Anchor (once described by a friend of mine as "entirely useless") and myself and set off towards deep water.  Having arrived in deep water, I chucked the anchor (having first attached it to the chain) into the deep water and then made my way back to the boat.  We then pulled on the anchor chain and lo-and-behold after about 5 minutes pulling we had the anchor back in the Albatross and Albatross still firmly on  and in the mud.  (Thus proving my friend to have been right).  By this time the tide had come in a bit.  Martin* then suggested "What if we try the engine again?"  To which I replied "That won't work"  but it did work and we eventually extracted ourselves from the mud and motored happily into Vannes
.

Vannes

We like Vannes, the ancient city and cathedral, the marina and river, the french nation and the EU generally.

Jean in Vannes

14 June 2018
To an anchorage off the Isle of Howat.  This is a "no-anchoring" anchorage that we have visited before.  We had a hot afternoon and restful if slightly wobbly night (at anchor). There were only about 50 other boats anchored there.

15 June
To  Lorient for  fuel.
Lorient Marina is huge but quite good.

16 June
To Benodet but St Marine Marina this time.
Martin* and Angela left for Roscoff.
Albatross was still leaking so I bought some very nice plastic cooling hose which unfortunately was not only (it later turned out) entirely irrelevant to the problem but also the wrong size.

17 June
To St Evette.   The weather in Blighty was now, we understand,  a proper heatwave  but this did not extend as far as West Brittany and certainly not Penmarch.  So after nearly 8 hours at sea we arrived in St Evette and after 3 unsuccessful attempts to pick up a mooring we dropped anchor and went to sleep.

18 June
To L'Aberwrac'h
We like L'Abers, The Channel de Fors and The Raz de Seine.

It was in L'Abers that we discovered the cause of the leak. I was (and am) so excited about this that I have decide to write a special post all about leaks so that my Reader(s) will not miss out on my excitement.

19 June
To Roscoff (without a leak).
We had a nice trip to Roscoff. Especially memorable was the fog in the Chanel de Isle to Batz and the boats coming the other way.   We arrived safely and happily and waited for the perfect weather window for Dartmouth.

23 June
The perfect window arrived and we motored in a flat calm all the way.

Dawn

24 June 
We lived happily ever after (until the next exciting trip .. coming soon)

*Martin     Martin* should not be confused with Martin who is a different person (also called Martin).