In the Oven

In the Oven
Tuesday 7 September 2010

Pix are back to front - sub comes at the beginning, taking down the sail at the end, with some nasty looking clouds in the middle.

Off the Northwest corner of France is an island called Ouessant (Ushant). Ships on their way south to Gibralter or further South pass outside the island – the last glimpse of land before the Bay of Biscay. Yachts tend to take the inner passage – the rock strewn shortest route to the Channel. The only problem is that the passage is quite long at 10 miles, and the tide funnels through at speed. So the important thing is to calculate the tides accurately so that the wind and the tide are running together, and running your way. If they don’t, there are spectacularly disturbed waters – huge breaking waves and ‘over falls’ (places where there is a sudden change in water levels so that the boat behaves like a person tripping over a step or falling into a hole. In these conditions, a yacht can be swept sideways towards the rocks. Scary, eh?
Well, we studied tide tables, weather forecasts, tidal co-efficients and talked to the local lifeboat chaps and on the morning of the 7th we set off at 0900 on what we could only describe as a pretty nice morning with a SW whisper of wind. There are rain clouds threatening, and we are expecting to get wet. After an hour or so, I was concerned about a distant buoy – or was it? I didn’t remember seeing it on the chart, and it didn’t look like anything I was expecting to see. Al was below, I was on the helm (steering stick). ‘Al – is there a navigational mark anywhere to our port?’ ‘NO!!!’ ‘Are you sure?’ “YES!!!!” ‘Would you come and have a look?’ ‘Grrrhhh’ ‘Please!’ Al popped up his head, had a look. By this time there’s some sort of Navy boat coming towards us. The mark has changed appearance quite a bit and looks a lot like – aaaarrgh it’s a submarine. The Navy boat is now broadcasting on the VHF telling all ships to keep clear of the sub and go to the stern of a second Navy boat that has now appeared. That was an exciting start for our little fleet – we are now 4-5 boats that have converged on the starting point for the channel. We are all under sail and looking good.
The weather and timing have worked well and we have a perfect sail through a very tame looking channel, and getting a distant view of Ouessant and a closer one of Ile de Molene – a scantily populated rock-surrounded island less than a Mile long. The wind holds well for three-quarters of the passage, and we reach some good speeds as we surf through on the September tide. Then within minutes of each other we all drop our jibs, sheet in our mainsails and motor away towards the le Four tower. Here, although we are further from the rocks, we encounter more rough water (as the lifeboat crew told us we would) with weird flat patches of water, looking like spinning plates – the French call them ‘assiettes’. It takes only a small leap of the imagination to see this water as it would be on a bad day. There’s a wide variety of Brittany postcards that show the 18 metre high Four lighthouse being swamped by huge breaking waves.
Now a few Miles NE is L’Aber Wrac’h – our destination for the day. The navigation into this harbour depends on good visibility, and although we’ve been surrounded by clouds all day, the sky overhead has remained clear. There’s meant to be a leading line into the channel. We fail to locate it but the cardinal marks (keep to the West of me etc.) are clear and cutely named – the Big Butter Pot, the Little Butter Pot, Three Feet …. We can see the harbour mouth now and it’s very different from our last view of it 4 years ago as we entered France. At that time the main provision for visiting yachts was a collection of mooring buoys out in the middle of the river. There was a single unprotected pontoon and the scariest fuel dock I had ever seen – to the shallow side of a stone jetty. Now there’s a spanking new Marina, with hundreds of berths, water, electricity on hand. We enter and tie up on a finger pontoon, ignoring the Visitors sign that would have had us flocking in with all the other English boats. (We’ve found that we prefer French neighbours, although we often do end up chatting to English crews as well.) Here our neighbours are absent, and the Harbourmaster says that we can stay there with no problem. It’s expensive – the most expensive since we left the UK at 24€ for the night, but the showers are good, and there’s free wi-fi.
Coming next: will Al & Jenny make it across the Channel? What will it be like to sail with the biggest tides of the year?