The Return Trip

We’re Back!

Sorry for the delay in posting this – we were without internet connectivity for 5 days, and then so busy unloading the boat and doing house maintenance that I was not able to put it all together.

We are now back home, and Petillant is back in her berth in Port Medoc, after a great sail down from Milford Haven.  After 4 months of heavy seas, adverse winds, and rain, we got a great weather window and rode it south.

La Rentree

We left Milford Haven at 0600 on August 31, with the sun coming up brightly, and the tide behind us.   The conditions were quite good, with the wind from the WNW at about 12 kts.  Once we turned the corner in MH to the south, we hoisted the sails, and off we went. 

This leg of the trip was quite pleasantl.  We sailed for about 12 hours, and then, as the wind backed into the S, we started the engine and motor-sailed for a while until we reached Lands End and turned SSE towards France.  There was minor traffic in the TSS, which we avoided, and the weather gradually clouded up.  During the night the clouds eased up and we had the advantage of a full moon to be able to see other ships.  We ran the AIS and the radar all night to correlate targets, and we made sure to keep a visual lookout, because lots of small boats don’t carry AIS and don’t show up well on radar.

The sea state was also quite good, with 1-2 m swells from the west.  We just rode them up and down as they rolled under us, and did not have any of the pounding that characterized the first part of the trip.  Even the kitties had a decent ride.

The goal for this leg was the island of Ouessant (Ushant, in English), which is the French equivalent of Land’s End.  We visited it on the way north with Geoffrey, and with the predicted wind it appeared to be a good place to stop on the say south.  The tide gave us a good push around Land’s End (UK) and out into the Channel, but then it turned foul, so we did not make as good a speed as we would have liked. Like last year we headed right across the face of the enormous TSS just off Ouessant, and just cut the corner at the end.  In that part of the world, the tides can raise some fearsome waves, but without a strong wind to whip them up all we saw was a bunch of small lumpy waves as the tide flowed over the rough sea bottom.

We arrived in Ouessant, in the Baie de Lampaul, around noon, and took a mooring.  We had hoped that the French would all be gone, heading home after the summer holiday, but there seemed to be quite a few who did not have to be back at work on Monday.  There were plenty of empty moorings in Lampaul, but also a fair number of boats, and more showed up thru the day.  In any case, it was a well protected anchorage, so we just crashed there, and planned to keep going south the next day.  It was a 200 mile passage.

Groix Again

Departure from Lampaul was another 0600 event, because the tide diagrams seemed to indicate that we could get a push thru the Raz du Sein around 1100.  Once again, we left as the sun came up, and we bucked the tide for 3 hours before it turned, and we also motor-sailed to make time, even though we had a reasonably favorable wind.

We did quite a bit of motor-sailing from Milford Haven to Port Medoc.  We have discovered that it can provide us with a really good push without burning much diesel.  The boat likes to cruise  at 7.5-8.0 kts, and 2500 rpm on the engine will gives 8 kts at the most economic diesel burn rate.  If the wind is anywhere forward of the beam and less than 10 kts, we can run the engine with the sails up and easily make 8.5-9.0 kts with an actual reduction in fuel use.  The sails act as a sort of supercharger for the engine, and work together quite well.

The goal for this leg started out to be the Glenans, where we stopped on the way north.  However, we passed thru the Raz du Sein with 1.5 kts of favorable tide, and carried this current south for about 2 hours, so we re-evaluated the situation.  In addition, as we approached Glennans, the number of boats multiplied exponentially, and it was clear that the French had not gone home and left Glenans to us, as we had hoped, but were still there.  Forests of masts were visible all over the archipelago, and since it was spring tides, it would be difficult to find a place to anchor that could take us and not dry out.  So, onward we motor-sailed.

As the afternoon progressed, we noticed that the wind really changed its character.  The NW winds of the morning gradually died at mid-day, and then around 3PM they picked up with a vengeance, so that we could turn off the engine and sail at 8 kts. 

French Parking (September 3, 2012)

We arrived at Port Tudy, on the Isle Groix, about 8:30 PM, after a 13 hour sail.  The sun was still up, and we watched the ferry come in as we approached, with the hope that it would not leave, and would settle in to Port Tudy for the night. The ferries to Groix run all day, but not at night, and one of them parks at Port Tudy for the night.

Unfortunately, Port Tudy was a complete circus of boats.  We cruised around the pontoons looking for an empty slip, but all were full.  In addition, there were pleasure boats rafted up against all of the fishing boats, as well, and it we had joined one of those rafts we would have closed off  the passage ways.  So we decided to look at the moorings in the outer harbor.  Just as we turned around, the ferry sounded its horn, and got underway, so there was a moment of excitement while we did the dance with the ferry and another large boat that was entering to find a spot for the night.

The outer harbor in Port Tudy has a matrix of mooring buoys that we did not really look at the first time we visited.  If there were no boats parked there, one could think that these buoys were really too close together for any boat our size, but they are still quite substantial.  Well, it turns out that they are sized just right- you just need to understand how to use them.

We noticed that there was one unused buoy, but it was right next to where the ferry docked, so we decided to use it only as a last resort.  Instead, we noticed a Brit boat that was moored fore-and-aft to two buoys, and had one side lined with bumpers.  This implied that they were prepared for a raftup.  Further inspection of the mooring field revealed that ALL of the boats were rafted up fore-and-aft in a spider web of mooring lines. The mooring buoys were used by multiple rafts, from multiple directions, so that in some cases it was not clear how a boat could get out before a bunch of others opened up a path for it.

Luckily for us, the boat we wanted to raft up to was on the outer edge, so we used our best Ches Bay technique to come alongside, hook up midships, and then pass lines fore and aft to secure ourselves a place for the night.  Oh, and BTW, there was no one on the other boat!  They were ashore, having dinner!

Just as we were doing this, the other boat that had followed us in gave up with the pontoons, and came out to take the last mooring.  They completed the spider web and the mooring field was almost full for the night.  And then, the other ferry arrived, and it managed to sneak into its berth, with about 10 ft to spare, next to the last moored boat.  We were really glad that we had not taken that mooring.

When the neighbors arrived, we explained what we had done, and they explained that this was the way things were done, and they had no problem with it.  However, they did prefer that we lead lines to the moorings directly, as well as tying up to them, so that each boat was taking a strain on a buoy, and one boat was not taking all of the strain from the raft to the buoy.  Not a problem.  We set everything  up so that we could depart at dawn again with a minimum of noise and fuss, had a quick dinner, and went to bed. 96 miles

This whole experience reminded us of the good old days in France, back before the parking meters were quite so ubiquitous and the poles and small bollards were not so widespread on the sidewalks.  In those days you could park your car anywhere it could fit, and it was not at all unusual to see cars parked on sidewalks, around corners, EVERYWHERE they could be fit.  And since cars were smaller, they were much easier to fit into small places.  You don’t see much of it now in France, because the best spots have been physically blocked off to prevent you from even pulling up on a curb.  However, the spirit lives on, in the form of boat moorings.  Port Tudy that night was absolutely PACKED with boats, filling every possible nook and cranny, French-style.

Sable d’Olonne

Next day, Sept 2, started in the dark for us.  We had a goal to reach, and were in the groove.  We slipped away from the Brit boat without waking them up at 0400, and headed SE.  The wind was quite favorable, and although we  motor-sailed at first, the wind moved to the NE at about 15kts, and we were able to sail for about 5 hours.  The weather was grey for most of the morning, but the clouds broke around noon and the sun came out about the time that the wind died, and the engine came on.  Later in the afternoon, the wind came back from the NW, and we did some wing-and-wing all the way to Sable d’Olonne.

Sable d’Olonne is the home port for the Vendee Globe round-the-world race, which will start this year in November.  The town was  plastered with announcements about the race, and we were pleased to find that it still had a number of French holiday-goers who had stayed past the start of the rentree.  It was nice, because towns like this can really turn into ghost-towns when all the tourists leave.  But not Sable d’Olonne, not quite yet.

We settled into the same slip we used on the way north, Dante immediately jumped off to investigate the adjoining boats, and Calypso seemed to perk up and recognize that she was back in France. We spent 2 nights in Sd’O, enjoying some very nice meals, and buying some extraordinary cheese, butter, and pastries.  All quite pleasant, and giving us the idea of maybe spending some serious time next year in a few French ports.  The time in Cherbourg was quite pleasant, and we are evaluating all sorts of new adventure strategies for next year.  Sd’O is high on the list as a stopover destination. 

Oh, and one last adventure.   We decided to hoist the dinghy onto the bow in Sd’O, and during this evolution, rxc lost his Ray Bans overboard.  The ones with the hooks to prevent this sort of thing from occurring.  So, it was necessary to pull out all the diving equipment and take another 3 minute dive in the harbor in Sd’O.  The glasses landed right where they fell, and rxc got the chance to inspect the bottom of the boat.  It was clean, with no damage except for a gouge on the keel from a “rock event”.  It will require some grinding and epoxy work in the spring.

99 miles

Back to the Gironde (Sept 5)

The last leg, from Sd’O to Port Medoc, was not long (only 66 miles), so we decided to sleep in and indulge one last pastry.  It was worth it.  From Sd’O, we had nice wind from the NW, and motor-sailed downwind almost all the way to the Number 4 channel marker.  Good sunshine, pleasant seas, and a great trip.  We turned into the Passe d’Ouest about 5 PM, just as the tide started to turn, and just as 3 large ships entered, so it was a bit tense to try to cross the channel, but we did it.  The wind picked up quite a bit, so that we could sail, and we headed up the Gironde at 9 kts (10 over the ground!).

As we approached the marina, we decided to take down the jib, because we had rolled it on the furler the wrong way, and we think that it would really be best to take it down for the winter.  The mainsail is rolled up inside the mast, and is much better protected, but our jib has suffered during this trip.

Our slip was open and waiting for us, and we settled in for the night with the restful assurance that we could sleep in the next morning.  All had arrived, safe and secure,  boat intact, after a voyage of over 3600 nautical miles.

We spent the next day packing up stuff that need to go home right away.  We will be back with the truck in a few weeks to unload the rest of the stuff, and start the winterization process, and then later in November to finish it.  For now, Petillant has been put to bed, and we are back in the countryside, eating figs and clipping all of the vegetation that has been growing for 4 months.  More to come during the winter.