11th July L’Aberwarc’h – Roscoff
Departure Time 0400. Arrival Time – 1030
Distance 35nm
Another early start – again tide driven. We wanted to pick up the east flowing tide to take us along the coast. As I was unable to drive the engine hard, I did not want to have to motor against a tide – more power and longer engine time. Motoring down the river was a little disconcerting. Many of the buoys are not lit and there was very little light. This was a case of trusting your chart plotter! We eased past the large sail training boat and headed out to Libenter. There was a shorter route out via a north channel which is marked but at low tide I was reluctant to take the chance.
As with the sunset it was a stunning sun-rise. You have this golden 15-20 minutes as the sun is rising and is reflected off the clouds above you. We all were in awe of the colours, feeling privileged to see this alone on calm waters. We had estimated that our passage time woul dbe in the region of 7 hours but with a tide behind us we made good time. It was unfortunately motor sailing as there was little wind.
The route to Roscoff is straightforward and the only major decision we had to make was whether to take the Ile de Batz channel – this is between the mainland and this island. At the right height of tide it is reputed to be straightforward and we would be arriving at or just after high tide – so we planned to make use of this channel as it saved time and distance as well as being a little bit of a navigational challenge. What we had not accounted for was fog.
This came drifted in and was dense. Visibility was down to a couple of hundred yards. We had tow near misses with very small day motor boats that were fishing – no AIS signature. We did not see them until they were abreast of us. The thought of feeling our way down the Batz channel probably against the flow of traffic coming out early in the morning forced a decision to go the long way around. This added additional time to the trip but was a wiser course of action.
I was a little nervous coming into Roscoff given my experiences when I was there on the trip out. However it proved to be a very easy berthing on a finger pontoon at the end of D pontoon – an easy entry and exit. Having arrived early we had a chance to explore the town. For me having spent 6 nights here previously this was was not quite as interesting as for Andrew and Clement.
I returned to the cafe I had used previously – beer and cafe au lait – to make phone calls to Guernsey to find somewhere for a lift out. First attempt was Boat Works who were very helpful but were not Yanmar authorised. The second place was MGE but they were full and did not have a full compliment of engineers as it was the start of the holiday season. But eventually they agreed to do a 1 hour lift, inspect, change oil and in effect give me a get you home pack. This would mean I would miss the RSrnYC Summer Cruise to North Brittany which I was leading – but there were more than enough people to step in and take over the running of the event.
This would be the last evening on board for Clement as he would be leaving us travel back to Norway on Friday morning.
Purrfect Tale 