Latitudes and Longitudes
It’s been a busy and adventurous couple of weeks since last I had the chance to pen some words. Equally, wifi connectivity has proven a challenge.
Nonetheless, our time started with a haul out, bottom job, and one last glorious sunset in Lymington before we began our lifelong dream adventure.
We sailed out of Lymington on 4 August, making our way through the Needles for the last time and sailing on to Studland Bay for a night at anchor. Studland is a gorgeous little bay on the Dorsett coastline line. Surrounded by white chalky cliffs and farms that reach to the cliff edge, we enjoyed yet another gorgeous UK sunset and got an early night.
Up at 4am we lifted anchor and set out across the English Channel. Fabulous sail with the wind and weather in our favour all the way. We made excellent time reaching Cherbourg, France, about 2 hours ahead of schedule.
Checking into France, because it is Schengen whereas UK isn’t, proved a challenge. Despite newspaper articles indicating that the French border police where cracking down, we struggled to find anyone who knew where we needed to ‘check in’ or anyone even vaguely interested. But find someone we had to, as without that precious stamp of entry in our passports, we were illegal aliens! With limited success, we went and had a glass of wine and decided to tackle it in the morning. After traipsing around Cherbourg from Customs, to local Police, we finally found the Frontier Police who with a big smile and a ‘no problem’, gave us the necessary stamp and sent us on our way.
From Cherbourg we did an overnight sail through the Channel Islands to Brest. It was an exhausting night. Good sailing up until around 1am, when we discovered we had a fresh water pipe failure, which resulted in our bilges filling with 270 litres of fresh water from our Port tank. An ‘oh shit’ moment really until we could allay fears of a hull breach. Fresh water was a good
thing in this instance.
The Almanac was right about the currents through the Channel du Four. They absolutely race through when they are on your side, but slow you to a grinding pace when against you. We had a bit of both which made for rough then comfortable sailing. We arrived into a little bay just outside of Brest and took up a mooring and then spent the better part of a day, draining bilges and fixing pipes and problem solving before we went ashore in BeeDeeJay to enjoy the local delicacies of moules, crepes and cider.
After all that was done, we made out at 4am again for a 13-hour sail from Brest to Benodet at the top of the Bay of Biscay. Craig’s called it champagne sailing. It was a perfect day with the wind and currents working with us and the sun shining. We had a dolphin escort for much of the way and then, the surprise of Benodet was its absolute
beauty and quintessential Brittany chic. A twinned village of Benodet on one side and Saint Marine on the other side of the River Odet. The river mouth is dotted with fabulous Chateaux’s, gorgeous cottages and lovely little beach coves. Here we will stay for a couple of nights to re-provision, get some sleep, enjoy some French cuisine and culture before taking on the challenge of the Bay of Biscay.
