It was time for a change of scenery and so we did a short hop to Camaret-Sur-Mer for a few days to escape the hustle of Brest. Camaret is one of the favoured launch points to transit the Raz do Sein which is the last headland barrier to Atlantic France and Biscay. Whilst waiting for the tidal gate to be in our favour, we hiked over the hill which protects Camarat from South Westerly winds and found ourselves on the beautiful sands of Plage de Pen-Had. The turquoise sea and golden sand heralded that this trip had started.
As mentioned before, one of the joys of this sailing lark is the chance meetings of like-minded folk which often evolve into bonding friendships. They often start with a polite nod of the head when passing on a pontoon and progress to stage two being the inevitable drinks and dinners on board. Richard and Jan on Laetitia were our next victims. Having perfected the art, they were gently seduced with chilled wine and Saucisson and held hostage on board until they’d heard all my stories!
We agreed to transit the Raz together (safety in numbers and all that), so at first light we set off and once again were blessed with a calm, painless rounding of this often wild stretch of water. As the commanding La Vielle lighthouse came astern of us the wind filled on the beam. The sails were set and we both enjoyed a spell of nothing less than perfect sailing for about 10 minutes before it all died. With barely any wind but with a 54hp engine as back-up, we arrived in Sainte Marine six hours later. Although still in Brittany, everything looked just a little bit Mediterranean. Laetitia made for Loctudy but joined us a couple of days later for what could only be described as ‘a bucket of Moules’ cooked in the biggest pot we possessed alongside sufficient wine to warrant that worn out phrase “I’m never drinking again!”
Rewinding ten days to when we had first arrived in France, it hadn’t gone unnoticed that we had only had two days without rain with an almost continuous NW wind blowing through a perpetually grey cloudy sky. It would be an understatement to say it was getting irritating. Our day seemed to be filled by rushing out into the brief showing of the sun only to judge the optimum point of turning around and running for shelter to avoid being soaked. Each dash for sunlight would also involve hanging out all the clothes that got soaked so that they could be ‘less damp’ than earlier before the exercise got repeated!
22nd June 2022
Trip Mileage 68 miles
Mileage Completed 1848 Miles
Image : Laetitia approaching the Raz