Brest -> Camaret-sur-Mer

The plan for today is to head for Camaret, Cornish Legend's home port. We're up early to make the fair tide through the Goulet. This is the "bottleneck" at the entrance to the Rade de Brest. The currents through here are very strong. Time it right and you can add four or five knots to your boat speed. Get it wrong and you could find yourself going backwards! 

Eileen at the helm

Richard warns us that it may be a bit bumpy as we exit Brest Harbour, but thinks it shouldn't be too bad. 

We talk a bit about places we might visit during the week. He refuses to plan too far ahead because the current weather pattern is so chaotic. He shows us a print-out of the synoptic chart from yesterday and there are lows and fronts scattered all over the place. He's never seen one like it. Impossible to predict what will move where. 

But this morning's forecast is calling for an improvement over the next few days, and we are hoping they are right. Things might not be so bad after all. In any case we'll head for Camaret-sur-Mer today and if things improve we'll head south towards Douarnenez. If things don't improve we'll head back into the Rade and maybe up the Aulne river. That would make for some interesting pilotage.


Before heading off we start with a safety talk. Richard covers a litany of gloom and doom. He scares us with every possible disaster you can imagine from engine fires to sinking to gas explosions, man overboard, Mayday, life rafts, helicopter rescue, the list goes on ... Whatever you do, don't attach the hi-line to the boat!


At last we are ready to leave. Except that we are in a tight space with the wind pushing on onto the pontoon and we'll have to reverse out. "Robin, how would you get us out of here?" Good question! Looks very tricky given the tight space, strong wind, and uncooperative prop walk. Richard suggests that we motor forward against a spring to bring the stern out. Then with the stern well out and clear of the boat behind, we can slip the line, reverse out and turn. It works a treat.


The wind is coming from the west now, which is the direction we are heading out the Goulet. We motor out with three reefs in the main. Wind against tide makes things quite choppy but not uncomfortable. There is no slamming on this boat, like on some more modern, flat-bottomed designs. 

Richard points out some of the many defenses that have been built over the ages to protect the harbour from foreign invaders, mostly Englishmen as it turns out!

Squally shower!

As we turn south for Camaret there are menacing black clouds approaching. Richard decides to keep the genoa furled and continue on under reefed main and engine. And a good choice it was because we are soon hit by strong blasts of lashing rain mixed with hail. The sea is quite rough and Laura is starting to feel sick. Visibility is reduced to a few hundred meters and the rain stings the face and hands. Eileen and Laura take shelter in the companionway. 

Richard is perfectly calm and cool as always. I pop my head up over the spray hood every few minutes to look out for other boat traffic. There isn't any. The boat soldiers on and soon we arrive in the shelter of the Port of Camaret.

We tie up in the outer marina to chill out while the storm passes. We go ashore and visit the beautiful little church. Like many churches in Brittany, there are model boats hanging from the ceiling, and oars and other tributes to men lost at sea. A poignant reminder of the power of nature. And a slightly unwelcome reminder of disaster at sea! The church's spire looks a bit worse for wear and in fact it was shot off by an English cannonball during the Battle of Camaret in 1694.

Notre Dame de Rocamadour and the Tour Vauban

We walk past the Tour Vauban, which was built in the late 1600s and is one of over 300 fortifications either reinforced or built from scratch by Vauban. It is now part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


The cloud is breaking up and the wind is dying down and we return to the boat for lunch. Then it's time for some more theory. 

This time we talk about buoyage. We look at lateral marks, cardinal marks, safe water, isolated danger, special marks, and the blue and yellow emergency wreck buoy. We talk about shapes, colour combinations (red / green, black / yellow, black / red, red / white), and top marks (cans, cones, wine glasses and easter eggs). Then it's time to go. Richard wants to move the boat to his mooring in the inner marina, and practice some tacking while we are at it. We suit up again and release the mooring lines.


Richard takes us a little way out into the bay and then we hoist the sails and put the engine in neutral. We head back in tacking all the way up the tight channel between the moored boats and the outer marina, and then between the moored boats and the end of the spit that protects the inner marina. There is really not a lot of room and we have to watch moored boats and keep an eye on the depth as well! 

Just to add a bit more stress to the situation, Richard points out the waterfront lined with bars and restaurants just in front of us. Fortunately the earlier rain shower chased the onlookers off the terraces, and we manage to avoid running aground. A fun little exercise! 

The Inner Marina at Camaret

We tie up in inner marina. Once again Richard stresses that we are to step off the boat onto the pontoon, never to jump. Many a sailor has jumped, slipped, and ended up in the water. We tidy up and relax a bit on the boat. Richard shows us his "Eiffel tower" knot trick. Eileen equals the record of 7 knots in one short piece of practice string. Laura also manages to get seven but we suspect there was some cheating going on there... 

The updated forecast for tomorrow looks bad. We'll probably have to say put unless the forecast improves, which it might. Or it might not. We walk along the waterfront and check out the restaurants. We finally settle on Chez Philippe. Eileen and I both have crab and scallops, and it is delicious. A TV is on in the corner and the early results of the first round of the presidential election are being announced: Hollande, Sarkozy, Marine Le Pen, in that order. There is a nice ambiance in the restaurant with many locals chatting at the bar. We have a lovely dinner then return to the boat and our lovely sleeping bags!