18 May 2012 | Cameret Anchorage
The picture above is of the Cameret Marina and sea wall this morning. The day has perked up considerably and we now have bright sunshine. I think it's a couple degrees warmer than the UK, but that might be down to wishful thinking.
So...
We left Dartmouth mid-afternoon on the 15th and were royally escorted to the mouth of the Dart by...
Actually, I lie. Our escort was even better than that...
Nick and Vanessa came to say good-bye, buzzed us and took some pictures as we left the Dart River.
The forecast was for Force 4 to 5, occasionally 6 with a slight to moderate sea and the winds would later drop down to light and variable 3 to 4, so we a bit surprised to have a Force 7, occasionally Gale 8, with moderate to rough seas, pushing us South at an average of 7 knots for about 10 hours.
We had our new smaller jib and the mizzen up, and Larus just belted along, rolling and recovering and barrelling onward. We even saw 8 on the speedo a couple of times.
It was exhilarating, but hard work hanging on with all the 'to and fro'ing and 'back and forth'ing. I was so stiff by yesterday evening, but am completely recovered today.
It was particularly nice not to have to worry about either putting a reef in the main or taking it down completely. We could have easily reduced sail on the jib but we were so well balanced even the autopilot was happy.
It was a great sail and boosted my confidence in Larus even more.
We'd hoped they'd be wrong about the light variable winds, but come 0400 the winds dropped completely. This left us wallowing in a large messy sea with the rig slamming back and forth, so we bit the bullet, hauled in the sails and turned on the engine until the wind came up again, from the North East this time, when we were at the Northerly end of the Chanel du Four.
We breezed along through the Chanel du Four and arrived at Cameret about 2100. We dropped anchor and called it a night.
We're now waiting for a nice big weather window to cross the Bay of Biscay. The next week doesn't look good - winds from the wrong direction - so we're going to head up to Chateaulin on the Aulne River. We've been there a couple of times before and it's a nice run up the river.
We'll head off at noon and get as far up the Aulne as we can on that tide. The next day we'll take the flood up to the lock and then continue the short journey to Chateaulin.
I've pictures of Cameret and Chateaulin from previous visits that I'll add to the Places album.
Thanks again for your emails and comments.
Nancy and Tim
So...
We left Dartmouth mid-afternoon on the 15th and were royally escorted to the mouth of the Dart by...
Actually, I lie. Our escort was even better than that...
Nick and Vanessa came to say good-bye, buzzed us and took some pictures as we left the Dart River.
The forecast was for Force 4 to 5, occasionally 6 with a slight to moderate sea and the winds would later drop down to light and variable 3 to 4, so we a bit surprised to have a Force 7, occasionally Gale 8, with moderate to rough seas, pushing us South at an average of 7 knots for about 10 hours.
We had our new smaller jib and the mizzen up, and Larus just belted along, rolling and recovering and barrelling onward. We even saw 8 on the speedo a couple of times.
It was exhilarating, but hard work hanging on with all the 'to and fro'ing and 'back and forth'ing. I was so stiff by yesterday evening, but am completely recovered today.
It was particularly nice not to have to worry about either putting a reef in the main or taking it down completely. We could have easily reduced sail on the jib but we were so well balanced even the autopilot was happy.
It was a great sail and boosted my confidence in Larus even more.
We'd hoped they'd be wrong about the light variable winds, but come 0400 the winds dropped completely. This left us wallowing in a large messy sea with the rig slamming back and forth, so we bit the bullet, hauled in the sails and turned on the engine until the wind came up again, from the North East this time, when we were at the Northerly end of the Chanel du Four.
We breezed along through the Chanel du Four and arrived at Cameret about 2100. We dropped anchor and called it a night.
We're now waiting for a nice big weather window to cross the Bay of Biscay. The next week doesn't look good - winds from the wrong direction - so we're going to head up to Chateaulin on the Aulne River. We've been there a couple of times before and it's a nice run up the river.
We'll head off at noon and get as far up the Aulne as we can on that tide. The next day we'll take the flood up to the lock and then continue the short journey to Chateaulin.
I've pictures of Cameret and Chateaulin from previous visits that I'll add to the Places album.
Thanks again for your emails and comments.
Nancy and Tim
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