Cameret to Chateaulin to Cameret to Morgat

 22 May 2012 | Morgat

We're still waiting for a good forecast for crossing Biscay. Tomorrow evening might be okay and we're now in Morgat just on the opposite side of the peninsula that Cameret is on.

We spent a couple days in Cameret before heading up to Chateaulin.

We walked up the Alignments...



And then we walked back down into town.

Half way there Tim noticed in the distance - first Larus, the furtherest ketch away and then second, the Rade du Brest in the distance. Very near as the crow flies but a bit farther to sail.



This is such a typical view we keep seeing in France. I wonderful mix of old and new. The slate roofs are particularly lovely. They look like nailed on fish scales.

To get from Cameret to Chateaulin, you cross the Rade du Brest and carry on to theRade's most south easterly corner to the mouth of the Aulne River.



The Aulne is a tidal, with a lock further up that keeps the depth of water above it constant. To get to the lock you must travel up on a flood tide and aim to be at the lock for High Water, give or take a couple of hours.

We've done this journey a number of times now and the photos in the album where taken on a more summerish day, when we'd anchored in the river and caught the flood up at day break. Between the rising sun and the smoky mist, it was an amazing journey and I doubt I'll get photos like that again.

This time it was a little more prosaic. 

There are lots of things to see along the river. At the first bend in the river, very near starboard navigation buoy No 13 you will see this...



However if you look at the same spot on Google Earth, you won't. They aren't there.

'Yes, well, 'you might say. 'That satellite picture was probably been taken years ago.' Actually, it was taken sometime between 2009 and the present. In the same Google Earth image there is a bridge further upstream which is partially built. I have photos of it incomplete taken in 2010. This time, as we went up the river, the bridge has been finished. Tim is the super sleuth who put all the pieces together.

So ssshhh! Don't tell anyone about the battleships and their missiles slowly rusting away in the Aulne River.



And here we have lunch - miso soup with noodles and vegetables. I must find mung beans so I can grow my own sprouts. 

So we carried on up the river...



to here...



We met Carol and James on Paddington IV on the pontoon at Chateauline. Carol and James, knowing that we were very likely headed to the same place, having seen us behind them at the lock, (there really isn't anywhere else to go), very thoughtfully moored up with their bow over hanging the unexpectedly short pontoon, so that there was space for us as well. We remembered it holding three yachts comfortably and the pilot book says it was fifty metres longs, but things have changed.

Carol and James have wildly different sailing experience to ours. They've been into the Arctic Circle, over to Norway and Sweden and around to Eastern Baltic. It was so interesting talking to them about all the places they'd visited. I suspect that they - and particularly Carol who, on the way down to Brittany, got in the water at Cherbourg WITHOUT A WETSUIT and dived repeatedly to clear their blocked bow thruster - are made of sterner stuff than I.

This morning, the two of us and a French yacht, Koantig, who as well as flying a French flag off the stern was also flying a damp tea-towel emblazoned with the Welsh flag, all set off at about the same time back down the river.



We usually don't have to share. The rise between the river below the lock and above is only about two feet. It's quite quick and not very dramatic.



Tim made friends with the lock keepers dogs. They seemed to like him too.



And then we all just meandered down the Aulne, in to the Rade du Brest and off on our separate ways.

After a brief stop in Cameret waiting for the tide to turn, we made the short hop to Morgat and are enjoying a calm and sunny evening.

We hope to be starting out across Biscay tomorrow evening, but that is still subject to change. We'll keep you posted.