The Cape Route

Exactly a week after leaving Jersey, we finally made it to Brest. South Westerly winds, a Southerly storm force 9 and seaweed contrived to keep us from getting West. We spent three days near Tréguier waiting for the weather to improve, playing Colonists of Catan and visiting the bar on shore for ice cream. It's called Pesked and is very picturesque and they have good mussels. The oysters, however, may have had something in them as all of us got sick two days after eating them.



Once we got going, the North Westerly the forecast promised turned out to be rather Westerly, so no good progress was made and lots of diesel used. After the tide turned in favor for us, the waves got even higher so we made a short stop to sleep somewhere near Morlaix. After the wind and tide turned again, we left to make for Ouessant.

The wind was North Westerly at last, but it didn't last. After two hours, we were beating into a Westerly again and the engine stayed on for the next 12 hours. We had just rounded Portsall on the outer tip of Brittany, when a big field of sea weed got pulled into the propellor and stalled the engine. Just prior to it dying, I got it out of gear and now we were stuck with a prop full of weed and neither forward or reverse made it come free. So we stopped the engine.

Now we were drifting slowly towards the rocky passage of the Chenal Du Four, with hardly a Force 2 South Westerly and no engine. But as we tried gaining speed, the prop started turning along. So we tried starting the engine and it worked, but only forward. So we made for Camaret at slow speed. By 6 a.m. I tied to a buoy in the bay of Camaret and later, dove to free the prop from a thick layer of weed.

Later that day, I sailed the boat with two sick crew and a rather bad lack of sleep to Brest, where we moored next to the visitors pontoon at 5 p.m.

We were in Brest, and ready for the first big crossing.